Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/317

 Liter ahi7'e of the South African War 307 The work of " Linesman " is of a totally different character. The writer, Captain Grant, Devonshire Regiment, was present as a company commander at all the actions on the Tugela. The Times in reviewing the work declared that " among the many books which have found their birth in the Campaign against the Boers this one stands out, not merely on account of the Author's literary merits, keen power of observation, and attractive phraseology, but in its unprejudiced comments and clever handling of battle impressions hitherto unattempted by contemporary writers. It is the work of an artist." This praise is not one whit too strong. Captain Grant's literary style is that of one both artist and dramatist who desires to bring before his reader's mind a vision of war as seen by an artist's eye, and who enforces attention by giving his vision a dramatic setting and surrounding it with such a wealth of color as to lift out of the commonplace even the most ordinary incident. To the civilian reader this method of writing military history comes as a revelation. He finds himself taken by the hand and placed in the very heart of the battle. He can hear the clock-clock of the Mauser rifle, the soft whit of the bullet as it flicks up the dust at his feet, and the crack of the shrapnel as it bursts overhead. He can see the men plunge forward on their faces as a straight shot arrests their rush ; he can watch the flaming eyes and gripping hand of the survivors as they press home the final charge ; his veins tingle with delight at the sound of the British cheer which carries the position. Yet to the professional soldier there is a little too much drama, and not quite enough scientific, unimpassioned attempt so to tell the tale of war as to help the student to master its true lessons. The book shows " Linesman " to be a keen observer and an artist to his finger-tips, but strategy is a matter with which he is rarely con- cerned, and a battle appears to represent to him little more than an exciting series of independent duels fought by companies with the force immediately opposing them. He fails somewhat to realize that the historian of a battle should study its details from the point of view rather of the General Staff than of a company leader. One other book of this class deserves mention. On the Heels of De Wet by " The Intelligence Officer ".' Its author did not hold a commission in the regular army, but commenced the campaign as one of the Times correspondents. In the later phases of the war he was gazetted to a Yeomanry regiment and attached as intelligence staff officer to a mobile column, which shared in the prolonged De Wet hunt. He describes in an admirable manner the difficulties ' London, 1902.