BOOK REVIEWS .sx Raglan's Sorry Role in the Crimea .sx THE DESTRUCTION OF LORD RAGLAN :sx A Tragedy of the Crimean War .sx By Christopher Hibbert .sx ( Longmans .sx 30s .sx ) .sx By RAYMOND MORTIMER .sx THERE never was a Crimean War :sx the whole story must be the invention of some satirist frantic with hatred for warfare and aristocracy .sx So at least I felt more strongly than ever when reading the book under review .sx Not that Mr. Hibbert denounces our Government for feebly drifting into so unnecessary a war :sx his account of its origins is restricted to three colourless pages , for he writes as a military historian concerned only with the conduct of the campaign .sx The picture that emerges is often , however , too horrid to seem credible .sx To vindicate Lord Raglan , the Commander-in-Chief , is his purpose- as it was Kinglake's ; but Kinglake was animated also with hatred of Napoleon =3 , with whose mistress he had been in love ; and Mr. Hibbert is not biased by frustrated desire .sx His book seems to me far the most trustworthy account yet written of the Crimean campaign .sx It is based upon vast research into unpublished material , including not only the Raglan papers but hundreds of letters from obscure fighting men .sx He quotes also from Russian books that have not been translated .sx Cowardly Government .sx THE battles are described in great detail and illustrated with the usual plans- rectangles showing troop-positions among vermiculated hills .sx Readers who share my distrust of such tactical exegesis must not skip the superb account of Inkerman with its hand-to-hand tussles in the fog .sx Unfortunately the author throws little light upon the military departments at home , which with their archaic incompetence and divided responsibilities were chiefly to blame for the suffering of the troops .sx Otherwise he has been admirably thorough ; and the writing is lucid , correct and lively .sx Our exceptionally pacific Government declared war only because it had not the courage to resist the jingoism of the public and the newspapers .sx The pretext was an invasion of what is now Rumania by Russian troops , who were quickly expelled by the Turks with no help from us .sx However , having sent an army as far as Turkey , we felt something or other must be done with it , and the Crimean port of Sebastopol seemed easy to capture .sx After over a year of fighting captured it was , but with no lasting advantage to us or our allies .sx The jaunt cost the lives of over half a million men .sx Experienced Generals from our Indian Army were available , but they did not belong to the nobility :sx and so the commands were given to men who had seen active service , if at all , not less than thirty-nine years previously .sx Two of them suffered from feeble eyesight ; one refused to wear spectacles .sx An officer could bring unlimited luggage , his wife , his French cook , and a yacht to live in ; there were not even tents for the men , and what little equipment they were given was for the most part shoddy , boots that fell to pieces , swords so soft that they would bend instead of cutting .sx Rotting Cargoes .sx THOUGH we boasted far the largest navy and mercantile marine in the world , these could not bring enough supplies for our expeditionary force ; and cargoes moreover were allowed to rot unloaded .sx The two admirals were at odds with one another .sx The commissioners in charge of supplies , when asked for a few nails , refused to issue less than a ton .sx Half-starved and unprotected against the Russian winter , our troops died in their thousands :sx lack of fodder killed the horses and mules ; there was no other transport .sx The C.O. of the Grenadiers would not allow a mere line regiment to fight on the flank of his beautiful Guardsmen , who were therefore compelled to retreat in disorder .sx Officers like Lord Cardigan and Lord George Paget found the war so disagreeable that they returned to England in a huff .sx Of course no such escape was possible for the men , who at first fought with staggering courage .sx Gradually those who survived grew bitter ; the reinforcements were for the most part raw recruits ; morale collapsed .sx In the final action at Sebastopol our troops refused the order to advance ; and the fortress was taken by the French , who throughout the campaign had been better equipped , better fed and better led .sx Worn out by his labours , insulted in Parliament and by the Press , no longer supported by his Queen , Raglan had died three months previously .sx A wiser man would not have accepted the command at the age of sixty-five after forty years of sitting at a desk .sx He did accept it , not from conceit but from a sense of duty .sx No one could have been more courageous , more hard-working , more fair-minded , more amiable .sx He behaved to the French with exemplary and invaluable patience .sx But then he proved equally patient with the military departments at home that were murdering his troops .sx He could not bear to say an unkind word to anyone .sx Creature of Habit .sx WE cannot refuse him our pity .sx He worked himself to death at a Herculean task for which he was fitted by neither character nor experience .sx We must remember at the same time that he had been for the previous twenty-eight years Secretary at the Horse Guards apparently without attempting any reform in the administration of the Army .sx He was described by Palmerston as " a creature of " ; and in the Crimea he found himself a victim of the grotesque system he had helped to maintain .sx The conservative who dislikes changes even when they are improvements may , like Raglan , be a good man .sx He cannot be a good Commander-in-Chief .sx IRON DUKE ON PAPER .sx WELLINGTON AT WAR .sx Letters selected and edited by Anthony Brett-James .sx ( Macmillan .sx 42s .sx ) .sx By SIR ARTHUR BRYANT .sx NOT even Dr. Johnson could hit a verbal nail on the head more effectively than the Duke of Wellington .sx He once said that there was nothing in life like a clear definition , and during his years of command he was incessantly engaged in defining things clearly .sx It was one of the qualities that made him so great a commander ; as with Field-Marshal Montgomery it was almost impossible to mistake his meaning , however unpalatable .sx As the human capacity for getting the wrong end of the stick , especially in the fog and confusion of war , is almost infinite , this quality is an essential part of the military art .sx If good writing be the art of conveying meaning with the greatest possible force in the fewest possible words- and I can think of no better definition- Wellington was a very good writer .sx His military correspondence , like his recorded conversation , is delightful reading .sx " IT is not very agreeable to anybody , " he reminded a complaining Portuguese magnate , " to have strangers quartered in his house ; nor is it very agreeable to us strangers , who have good houses in our own country , to be obliged to seek for quarters here .sx We are not here for our pleasure ; the situation of your country renders it necessary .sx " Could anything be neater ?sx Or anything more true than this ?sx " Half the business of the world , particularly that of our country , is done by accommodation and by the parties understanding each other .sx " Or this , quoted by Mr. Brett-James in his admirable introduction- " I do not know how Mr. .sx has discovered that my channels of intelligence are of doubtful fidelity .sx I should find it very difficult to point out what channels of intelligence I have :sx but probably Mr. .sx knows .sx " MR. BRETT-JAMES has done modern readers- who turn to the great classics of our past too little- a service by producing a new selection from Wellington's letters .sx Most of them are taken from twelve volumes and two and a half million words of Colonel Gurwood's " Dispatches of the Duke of Wellington " and from the fifteen volumes of the Duke's " Supplementary Dispatches .sx " I will not say that no better selection could have been made ; Mr. Brett-James's book does not compare , for instance , with the much fuller selection made by Colonel Gurwood himself and published in early Victorian days in a single volume of nearly a thousand pages .sx In deference to the reading tastes of our day Mr. Brett-James's compass is far smaller .sx The truth is that at least a dozen selections of equal size , equally good and equally representative , could have been made from the same source .sx What matters is that the editor has given us the essence of Wellington's genius- his clarity , his good sense , his powers of observation , his understanding of human nature , his dry irony , his wonderful balance and foresight .sx It is like offering the reader a small parcel of a superb cellar ; it is all there for his buying if he wants more .sx I cannot help adding one sample of Wellington's style .sx He had been approached about the return to England of a major whose fiance@2e was pining in his absence .sx " I cannot say that I have ever known of a young lady dying of love .sx They contrive , in some manner , to live and look tolerably well , notwithstanding their despair and the continued absence of their lover ; and some even have been known to recover so far as to be inclined to take another lover , if the absence of the first has lasted too long .sx I don't suppose that your prote@2ge@2e can ever recover so far , but I do hope that she will survive the continued necessary absence of the Major , and enjoy with him here-after many happy days .sx " ADVICE FOR A LADY IN LOVE .sx TO A YOUNG ACTRESS :sx The Letters of Bernard Shaw to Molly Tompkins .sx ( Constable .sx 63s .sx ) .sx By HESKETH PEARSON .sx FOR sheer entertainment and humorous common sense the letters and criticisms of Bernard Shaw are unrivalled .sx Much of their scintillation and gaiety is due to his emotional detachment from life , and his peculiar genius derives from the fact that , being removed from the complicated agitations of ordinary human beings , he could observe with cool clarity the actions resulting from their temperamental disturbances .sx This oddity in his nature appears again and again in his letters to women , who fell in love with him and had to be coaxed out of their enraptured condition .sx One of them , a young actress named Molly Tompkins , arrived in England from America with her husband and small son , for the sole purpose of meeting the prophet Shaw , who sent her well over a hundred letters and post-cards between 1921 and his death .sx " IS it not delightful , to be in love ?sx " he wrote to her ; " it has happened to me twice .sx It does not last , because it does not belong to this earth ; and when you clasp the idol it turns out to be a rag doll like yourself ; for the immortal part must elude you if you grab at it .sx " But while he was content with dreams of fair women , they were looking for something more corporeal , which he could only supply by giving them excellent advice on how to order their lives .sx IN this handsome volume many of his letters to Molly Tompkins are reproduced in photostat .sx With a few alterations carbon copies could have been sent to any of his adoring female correspondents without surprising them .sx They contain advice on such matters as the disadvantage of an actress using make-up off the stage and the advantage of using it when interviewing managers , on the correct pronunciation of words , on how to behave as a mother and the proper way to bring up a son , on the process of buying white oxen in Italy , on the necessity in England of putting " Esq .sx " not " Mr. " on envelopes addressed to men , on how to catch a bat , and on the expediency of keeping a parrot instead of a dog :sx " Parrots are amusing , and never die .sx You wish they did .sx " Frequently in these letters his intuition or observation is crystallised in a phrase , e.g. , " Learning to live is like learning to skate :sx you begin by making a ridiculous spectacle of yourself , " and " The fear of God may be the beginning of wisdom , but the fear of Man is the beginning of murder , " and " It is useless to try to help people whom God does not mean to be helped .sx "