Book Review.
THE YPRES TIMES
x39
War Letters to a Wife." Colonel Rowland Fielding. Popular Edition, 7s. 6d.
8s. post free; on sale at the Ypres League Offices.
Those who require reviews of this book (before risking their shillings) written
by properly constituted critics, had best run their eyes over the extracts printed on
the "jacket" of the new popular edition. It is a paean of praise from all the
newspapers.
Having just read the book from cover to cover at a sitting, I find it almost
impossible to write a temperate critique; for my mind is once more inflamed with
the old war-time emotions which circled round the infantry"; emotions
which were shared by every sane man who had the great privilege of watching
their devotion and high spirit from a post protected by them from imminent danger.
Once again the book brings back the selflessness, the stoicism, the good temper of
the front-line troops marching up or marching down, or lying wounded on the
floor of a schoolroom; and again one's admiration of them reawakens, and one's
indignation at their lack of appreciation at the hands of the base-wallahs and those
manning the home front 'C-and, in addition, a certain sense of gratitude for the
privilege of sharing their uniform.
Many of the war books give the description of a fight or two half buried among
the details of orgies at Bailleul and liaisons at Amiensand in the opinion of those
well able to judge the difference between bad habits and an occasional bump
supper," those descriptions are both disgusting and libellous.
The book under review is wholly differentyou have there the letters of an
officer who promised to write all details to his wife, while she retorts with her
constant prayers. He joins the Coldstream in May, 1915, and is at the front till
April, 1919, latterly in command of battalions of Connaught Rangers and Civil
Service Rifles. Irishmen and Londoners who want to know how they shaped in
the eyes of an acutely critical observer had best read the book; their chests will
swell.
One of the critics, I see, says you will find no heroics in this book. Quite
true; on the contrary the writer seems rather to be apologizing to his wife for so
constantly getting mixed up in the hottest fighting. That he got through
unwounded seems to me nothing short of a miracle. He starts with the Cuinchy
Brickstacks, then the Loos battle, the Somme, Messines, the March 1918 retreat,
the autumn pursuit through Lille and beyond, and finally describes the insides of
such hoped-for objectives as the Railway Triangle but it is useless to attempt
details here, for he fought in practically all the sectors which some of us only
looked at from a respectful distancein a word, it is pretty certain that anyone
who was at the front, even for a month or two, will find in the book a close-up
picture of his own special bit of the war.
Some of the reviewers praise the book as a fine piece of descriptive writing.
No doubt they are correct, but the ordinary reader who knows something of the
front-line war will not notice the literary excellence, so engrossed will he be
in the business described.
The book most certainly was never written with a purpose, but I fancy that it
may now serve a pretty useful function in correcting the not uncommon idea that
the infantry spent their time watching Charlie Chaplin at the Y.M.C.A. canteen!
I suggest that the book will prove a valuable, not Christmas but New Year present.
