sponsibility for the September Massacres; that he was involved in intrigues to free Marie Antoinette from prison; that he enriched himself by pillage in Belgium; that his campaign for clemency during the Reign of Terror was begun before and not after the victories of France had made Terror no longer necessary, and probably in order to save his own skin. Despite a certain personal animosity that creeps into all of Professor Mathiez's work, despite the feeling one sometimes gets that he accepts against Danton flimsy evidence that he would be the first to repudiate if it were unfavorable to Robespierre, there is no doubting his industry, ability, and profound knowledge of the French Revolution. From no other writings on that field of history have American students more to learn.

LOUIS R. GOTTSCHALK.

Le Général Hugo, 1773-1828, Lettres et Documents Inédits. Louis Barthou, de l'Académie Français. (Paris, Hachette, 1926, pp. 205, 20 fr.) General Joseph-Léopold-Sigismond Hugo, the father of Victor Hugo, was a man of great personal magnetism, considerable versatility, and real military talent; he served with distinction in the wars of the Revolution and the Directory and was rewarded by an appointment, in 1799, to Moreau's staff with the Army of the Rhine; his loyalty to Moreau aroused the natural and lasting enmity of Napoleon; in spite of this he enjoyed a few bright years with Joseph in Spain (where he gained the rank of general, only to lose it after the fiasco of the French occupation). For the most part, Hugo's career was one of thwarted ambitions.

The historian will be disappointed if he expects to find a critical biography of the career recounted in the general's Mémoires. The book is not a biography, but a collection of letters, too personal and intimate in their nature to concern even the specialist in the Napoleonic era. Aside from a few illuminating passages on the strategy of the battle of Mösskirch (1800), and on the French occupation of Italy in 1806, the majority of them touch upon family matters pure and simple.

For the students of Victor Hugo, on the other hand, the letters contain much of interest with regard to the domestic affairs of the Hugo family. The war-laden years of the Napoleonic régime entailed an almost continuous separation for the elder Hugo and his wife. From the very first, difficulties arose between them, which became accentuated with the passage of time; and upon these difficulties the letters are most informing. They make their chief contribution, however, when dealing with the relationship of the general and his children. Hostile critics have done Hugo an injustice in accusing him of parental indifference. Even when the conjugal atmosphere was most strained he was ever solicitous of the welfare and education of the offspring whom he rarely saw (pp. 81-83). Moreover, biographers of Victor Hugo have erred in stating that for over eight months after his mother's death, Victor could not bring himself to write to his father (p. 115). Finally, the letters throw into clear relief

the attitude of the young Victor to the step-mother who for so long had been his father's mistress.

As for the general himself, we must allow Monsieur Barthou to make his own confession: "Alas! His inventions (of a military nature) fared no better than his poems or his novels. Victor had been his best product, and to this alone he owes the immortality of his name" (p. 195).

DEFOREST VAN SLYCK.

Population Problems of the Age of Malthus. By G. Talbot Griffith. (Cambridge, the University Press, 1926, pp. 276, 12s. 6d.) The generalizations of Malthus are of perennial interest to all thinking men. Unfortunately, the discussion of the problems which they raise is more apt to engender heat than light. To economist, philosopher, historian, and even scientist, Malthusianism is apt to be either true or false, something to be condemned or praised rather than investigated. Mr. Griffith to his credit escapes this criticism. But he has not written, primarily, about either Malthus or his doctrine; he has sought rather to sift and classify the data, from 1700 to 1840, upon which conclusions in regard to population may be based.

The author's study is exact and penetrating. He explains fully the dubious character of the statistics which Malthus had at his disposal; he analyzes ably the effect of the old Poor Law on the one hand, and the decay of the apprenticeship system on the other, in augmenting the birthrate; and the environmental influences under which Malthus wrote are briefly though clearly narrated.

Data of this description the historian already possessed. What makes this book of especial value is the fresh information which it contains. Mr. Griffith is able, for instance, to show that for the whole of the hundred and forty years under review the birth-rate rose but slightly; in 1840 it was less than one per cent. higher than in 1700. What caused the increase in population was the steady drop in the death-rate, due to many causes, among them increase in medical skill and improvements in sanitation, such as resulted from the substitution of washable cotton fabrics for woolen cloth. Moreover, while the diminished death-rate tended to make the problem of a surplus population more serious, the decline in the fertility of marriages, during the latter half of the period, made it less so. This "may reflect the results of Place's extension of orthodox Malthusian principles and the introduction of more direct checks than Malthus had contemplated". But in suggesting at this early date the practice of modern ideas in regard to birth-control Mr. Griffith makes a hypothesis which, in the very nature of the case, is difficult to substantiate.

The bibliography in this book is extensive. It seems strange that the author apparently has never heard of Michael Sadler's refutation of Malthus published in 1830, with its demonstration that ill-fed and semistarved persons have large families, thus intimating that one way to

limit population is to feed well that which already exists. Furthermore, the author states that "unlike Adam Smith, Malthus did not tell the people the kind of things they wanted to hear". But the possessing classes in England, at any rate, were eager for the thing which Malthus told them, since it gave a logical explanation for the inevitability of poverty. Aside from these two criticisms the reviewer has nothing but praise for this book. WALTER P. HALL.

Marx-Engels Archiv, Zeitschrift des Marx-Engels Instituts in Moskau. Herausgegeben von D. Rjazanov. Band I. (Frankfort, MarxEngels Archiv, 1926, pp. 550, 12 R. M.) The well-nigh inexhaustible list of Marxana is about to receive a series of notable additions from the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow. The Institute was established in 1920 as a Marxian museum and made the repository for a comprehensive collection of material, the nucleus of which was made up of several important Russian private libraries, nationalized after the Revolution. Extensive additions have been made as the result of research in Germany, Austria, and England, and much hitherto unpublished material has been secured, including notes, letters, and other writings of both Marx and Engels.

The present volume was the first to issue under the enterprising editorship of D. Rjazanov, whose idea it was to enlarge the function of the Institute and to establish as part of it an extensive research and publishing organization. Hence the Archiv and other publications therein promised. These include a collection of all the material referred to in the foot-notes of the two writers for whom the Institute is named, so that the student may have at hand for study all the sources from which they drew. It is also planned to publish a library of materialism, to include the works of Democritus, Feuerbach, Holbach, and others.

Volume I. furnishes something of an introduction to the theoretical background of Marx and Engels and provides a revised version of the long story of the establishing of the First International. This is told by the editor himself, who also contributes commentaries on the literature. The contention that Marx's debt to Kant is in reality very slight is supported and the true basis for a materialistic interpretation of history is found rather in the French and English writers of histories of trade and industry.

The amount of work necessary for the reconstruction of the original manuscripts here presented must have been stupendous. Frequently this was done by work upon two copies, the first working draft and a revised copy, each of which was deciphered by experts with difficulty and with the help of numerous photostatic reproductions. The original manuscript, shown in facsimile, illustrates the character of this part of the research. The volume includes classified bibliographies of material on Marx, Engels, and Marxism, covering the publications since the World War and also the Lassalle literature for the same period.

AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XXXII.-25.

AMY HEWES.

The Empire at War. Edited by Sir Charles Lucas, K.C.B., K.C.M.G. [For the Royal Colonial Institute.] Volume V. (London and New York, Oxford University Press, 1926, pp. x, 501. £5 for the set.) With this volume Sir Charles Lucas brings to completion the narrative of the war-activities of the British Empire, exclusive of the British Isles, which has been in course of publication for five years. He is justified in saying of the whole work that it constitutes an accurate and comprehensive survey of the actions and fortunes of all parts of His Majesty's Oversea Dominions in the Great War", and he is personally entitled to most of the credit for the achievement. In addition to his labors as general editor Sir Charles wrote the whole of the first volume and contributed extensively, as author, to each of the others. This final volume describes the part which the Asiatic and Mediterranean dependencies played in the war. Nearly half of it is devoted to an excellent account of the war-activities of India by Sir Francis Younghusband. As in the earlier volumes the narrative is clarified and enlivened by an abundance of maps and illustrations. It is perhaps questionable whether it is desirable to introduce into what is intended as a work of reference such reflections and judgments upon social and political trends as are found in the concluding chapter on India.

Das Französische Gelbbuch von 1914. Herausgegeben von der Zentralstelle für Erforschung der Kriegsursachen mit einem Vorwort von Alfred von Wegerer. (Berlin, Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft für Politik und Geschichte, 1926, pp. xxv, 208.) The British Blue Book and the German White Book were hastily compiled and issued during the first week of August, 1914. The French Yellow Book did not appear until five months later, on December 1. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that the longer period of preparation gives the French publication a correspondingly greater degree of completeness, accuracy, and reliability. On the contrary, the new German translation and edition shows how cautious one must be in drawing conclusions from a compilation which omits many important telegrams, rearranges the wording in others, and is guilty of at least one generous fabrication (No. 118, in which M. Paléologue explains the Russian general mobilization)—all done with the intent of incriminating Germany and relieving France and her Russian ally of responsibility. This German edition gathers together twenty-six wholly new telegrams which were suppressed from the original Yellow Book but which have since been revealed in part by Poincaré, Renouvin, and Bourgeois and Pagès. In a number of other documents it is able to add the exact hour and minute of despatch and receipt. It also calls attention in foot-notes to numerous errors of fact contained in the French diplomatic correspondence. It thus forms an indispensable corrective to the French propagandist publication, and will be found by scholars very useful for reference, until the day when France will follow the example of Germany, Austria, Russia, and England in making a full

and precise publication of her diplomatic documents concerning the crisis of July, 1914.

S. B. F.

La Politique Allemande pendant la Guerre. Par Charles Appuhn. (Paris, Alfred Costes, 1926, pp. 131, 10 fr.) M. Appuhn has not attempted to give a complete history of German policy during the war. He has, however, performed a service by analyzing, lucidly and dispassionately, the mass of material available on three important aspects of this problem. The first essay traces the variations in German opinion towards France. During the first year of the war there existed in Germany a general and profound pity for the useless expenditure of blood and treasure by the people of one of the ancient, though decadent, centres of Western civilization. This feeling was replaced by admiration after Verdun, and a large section of the German people evinced a sincere desire for the friendship of France. The military party, however, opposed the idea of co-operation on equal terms with the traditional enemy of Germany; instead, France must be rendered impotent to oppose Germany in the future.

The triumph of the General Staff over the civil government and the resultant effects on German policy furnish the theme for the succeeding essays. The crisis arose out of the Pope's offer of mediation. Bethmann-Hollweg and William II. favored a conciliatory reply. This implied the evacuation of Belgium and a "re-consideration" of the Alsace-Lorraine question. The Chancellor was removed at the demand of the General Staff, and the reply to the Pope ignored Belgium and gave no satisfaction to French aspirations. Henceforth Ludendorff maintained his supremacy by the Bismarckian expedient of threatening to resign. when his wishes were opposed. The triumph of the military was also of great significance in domestic affairs. The conservative elements took heart and thwarted the proposals for democratic reform, which alone might have saved the monarchy. In his concluding essay M. Appuhn makes a brilliant rebuttal of Ludendorff's theory that the army was "stabbed in the back" by craven civilians.

RAYMOND J. Sontag.

The Rise of South Africa. By Sir George E. Cory, D.Litt. Volume IV. (London and New York, Longmans, Green, and Company, 1926, pp. xx, 546, 26 s.) Since the publication of his third installment in 1919 the author of this work has been knighted and become a professor emeritus. For over fifteen years he has combined the arduous functions of teaching science in Rhodes University College, Grahamstown, and of pursuing researches in South African history. A year's leave of absence was industriously employed in gathering materials for this fourth volume. It is based upon studies in the government archives at Cape Town, in the Craig Dhu collection of books and manuscripts