Page:American Historical Review, Vol. 23.djvu/173

Rh pressions are somewhat blurred; and the book serves more adequately as a storehouse of specialized facts in military history than as a finished study of the significance of these facts. In gathering this material, however, and in subjecting it to partial analysis, Mr. Pratt has rendered a valuable service. He has brought together, from a large number and variety of sources, primary and secondary, a mass of material that throws light upon the past military history of the leading nations, and which will serve as a substantial starting-point for the future study of a very important aspect of the present world struggle. This book constitutes the most comprehensive general treatment yet available of the rise of rail-power as an instrument of warfare.

is a biography begotten of the war. Useful because the first narrative of 's career and because written by one who has known Botha and his friends for a long time, it is nevertheless not a significant addition to the literature of South African history. Mr. Spender has set out to make familiar to the public a man whose services to the British Empire deserve fullest appreciation. He has handled a considerable body of sources, and he has evidently been given opportunities to consult with those public men who have had to do with South Africa, opportunities that should give his work authority. Yet there are indications of hurry and carelessness which impair the value of the book. That part of the biography which I have been able to test by the sources, the part dealing with the South African War and the events immediately following, contains slight inaccuracies and misstatements, most of them the result less of a want of knowledge than of pains. The worst slip is the confusion of the battle of Diamond Hill with that of Berg-en-dal.

The author is too sketchy. Never economical of words, he wants space, nevertheless, to tell us what we would like to know most. Botha's schemes of attack, his gift of holding Boer soldiers, each inclined to go his own way, to one purpose, and of organizing stubborn retreats—such matters he fails to bring into clear relief. The story of is so told that we miss essential and characteristic features. Botha's most signal victories he owed as much to the stupidity of his adversaries as to his own strategy, a fact Mr. Spender blinks. He also fails to recognize Botha's mistakes and indiscretions. The reader might suppose that Botha's military conclusions had never been at fault; he is told nothing of Botha's errors in judgment on his European mission after the war.

The latter part of the work seems to be much better. Certainly the narrative of events from 1906 to 1914 embodies much not so easily found