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 Literature of the Scmth African IVar 319 danger of indifference to preparation for war, and an encourage- ment in the belief that the British empire, if forethought be but exercised, will be true to and sufficient for itself in the time of danger. But besides these considerations the South African War in the vastness of its theatre, in its distance of six thousand miles from the British base, in its improvised army recruited from every quarter of the globe, and in its prolonged guerrilla phase presents features of profound professional interest to the statesman and the soldier. The British government has therefore done well to sanction and direct the preparation of an official history of the war which both in its statements of facts and in its criticisms may be accepted as authoritative. The ferment of perpetual reorganization in which the unhappy War Office has seethed during recent years has not yet permitted the creation of a historical section of the General Staff'. The compilation of the official histor^ was therefore orig- inally intrusted to Lieutenant-colonel G. F. Henderson, who served on Lord Roberts's staff as Director of IMilitary Intelligence, and whose inimitable work on Stonewall Jackson may be said to have won for him cosmopolitan reputation. Unhappily for the interests of history, and still more unhappily for the British army, death re- moved that talented writer after some eighteen months spent in preliminary researches and in drafting an introductory volume deal- ing with the causes of the war. Major-general Sir Frederick Maurice, the official historian of the Egyptian campaign of 1882, and the author of the article on " ^^'ar " in the Encyclopaedia Britauuica, was selected to take up the reins thus dropped. Gen- eral Alaurice had not the good fortune to be employed in the late South African campaign. He enjoys therefore now an impartial position, and will be able without bias to bring to bear on the various problems of the war a sound military judgment and the knowledge acquired by many years of study as Professor of Strategy at the Staff College. The first instalment of the result of General Maurice's labors will be published immediately, perhaps before this article appears. Mr. Balfour's Cabinet decided, it is understood, before leaving office to suppress the first volume prepared by Colonel Henderson, deeming for various reasons that it is undesirable to introduce mat- ters of political controversy into a military work published by au- thority. The decision not only deprived the world of the last product of Henderson's able pen, but certainly enhanced the diffi- cultv of General iMaurice's task. Policv and strategv are too closelv