REVIEWS

At the Supreme War Council. By CAPTAIN PETER E. WRIGHT New York and London, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1921.-201 pp.

Not a Gentleman with a Duster, but a less gentle Englishman wit a reckless sabre, is the author of this slashing attack on the Allie generals who managed, or mismanaged, the war before Marsha Foch assumed supreme command. It is undeniably a sensationa book, and like all sensational books it has been hailed as "vital and “far-reaching by some critics, while others have censured it a “injudicial" if not "injudicious". No less a person than Lloy George has characterized it, if we may believe the publisher's blurb as "the best thing that has yet been written about the war"; per haps this is but a fair return for the adulation which the book be stows upon him. Whether we accept or reject the great Welshman's verdict, Americans will at least find in this volume some of the most startling disclosures that have yet been published, and will regard it, pending further "revelations", as an invaluable though not an indisputable source for knowledge of the inside story of the Great War.

Secretaries sometimes rush in where generalissimos fear to tread. The near-great have less reason for reserve than the Olympians whose deeds and defects they have witnessed. If a gentleman cannot be a hero to his valet, it is no less difficult for a Field Marshal or a Premier to be a god to his secretary. As a secretary-an assistant secretary and interpreter, to be exact at the Supreme War Council during the crucial winter of 1917-1918, Captain Wright had the opportunity to measure Foch, Haig, Pétain, Robertson, Clemenceau, Lloyd George and other immortals with his own very mortal yardstick. Clemenceau, he sacrilegiously remarks, was "only a stuffed the most amiable of old men nursery tiger", (p. 27). Asquith concealed his "capricious petulance" under "a ponderous manner and a portentous phraseology" (p. 38). Joffre nearly lost the war by mistakes in the first five weeks (p. 99). Cadorna "had never done anything but fail" (p. 101). Generals shrink to petty marionettes before the Captain's clever pen. One general, however, expands. General Bliss "had the goodwill, the industry, the sagacity, the massive bulk and slow movement of an elephant"; he was "a sage and benevolent pachyderm" (pp. 80-81). These, of course,

are caricatures, but they are entertaining, and they are valuable if corrected by comparison with other "close-ups" of the Great War's great men. The same may be said of the extravagant praises which Captain Wright bestows upon Lloyd George as "a glorious pilot " of invincible courage (p. 132), upon the recently-assassinated Sir Henry Wilson, who had "predicted and prepared for this war all his life" (p. 39), and upon Marshal Foch, simple in habit, pious in spirit, brilliant in debate, matchless in audacity, unerring in judgment, peerless in sheer intellect (p. 79).

Captain Wright's principal thesis is that "we, the Allies, were big and our enemies were small during almost the whole contest", yet the enemy "held out for four years and nearly won" because the Allies were unprepared (Preface). He proves all but the conclusion. By statistics from official military documents he shows that the Allies outnumbered the Germans in 1917; by describing the great battle of St. Quentin he shows how near the Germans came to victory; but the reason for the Allies' poor showing prior to March, 1918, as his own arguments demonstrate, was to be found in personal rivalry, misleading press propaganda and incapable generalship, rather than in unpreparedness. His indictment of the British military leaders is particularly severe. Sir Douglas Haig, the commander-in-chief, was "a knightly figure, with all the bearing and temper of a leader, but on a very low plane of human intelligence, as elderly cavalry men sometimes are" (p. 134). Robertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff from 1915 to 1918, may have been a "great administrator", but he had a "narrow" mind, obsessed with the single erroneous idea that the war could be won simply by putting more soldiers in the field until the Germans were annihilated by attrition (pp. 31-34). Upon these two men chiefly, but also upon the French commander, General Pétain, Captain Wright puts the heavy blame for refusal to accept unity of command until it was all but too late.

In outline, the story is something like this. In the winter of 19171918, after Cadorna had been routed at Caporetto and the Russians had sued for peace, the Allied leaders would have been inconceivably obtuse had they not anticipated a supreme German attack on the Western Front. Foch foresaw it. The British staff at Versailles worked out its details as part of their "war game". In the face of this peril, the Supreme War Council decided to create a strong "General Reserve" or army of maneuver which could be sent to any threatened sector at the discretion of an "Executive War

Board over which Foch would preside. When the new War Board called on Haig and Pétain to furnish their quotas to the projected reserve, they privately arranged to substitute a different plan. of action; instead of contributing large quotas, they promised each other assistance in case of need. The General Reserve plan was virtually nullified, because neither commander was magnanimous enough to envisage the Western Front as a whole. How tragic was their blunder, events soon proved. Against the weakest sector of Haig's line, against General Gough's Fifth Army, consisting of fourteen divisions, Ludendorff hurled forty German divisions on March 21. The Battle of St. Quentin was on. Before adequate reinforcements could reach the spot, Gough's army was almost annihilated and the Germans were within 13,000 yards of Amiens-and victory. Haig was planning a retreat to the sea; Pétain, a retirement to Paris; while Clemenceau was preparing to move the French government to Bordeaux. Only when utter defeat seemed inevitable did Haig wire Lloyd George to arrange for unity of command. sequel all the world knows. Foch was made generalissimo on March 26. "You give me a lost battle and you ask me to win it ", he said to Clemenceau (p. 143). But he did win it.

A thirty-page appendix is devoted to proof that General (now Field Marshal) Sir William Robertson conspired with that brilliantly indiscreet military correspondent, Colonel Repington, to overthrow the Lloyd George Cabinet; Robertson, the author strives to demonstrate, was guilty of revealing to Repington the secret plans of the Supreme War Council for the campaigns of 1918. Even after Repington published these plans in the Morning Post, February 11, and was fined by the Bow Street Court, Robertson remained on friendly terms with him. The evidence is drawn largely from Repington's Diaries and is circumstantial rather than direct. One thing, however, is very clear, that Robertson as Chief of Staff systematically used Repington as a press agent. In this connection, attention should be called to Captain Wright's truly remarkable discussion of the dangerous rôle of General Staffs in time of war (pp. 97-106); with prestige inflated by the praises of a censored press, with power to override the policies of civilian premiers, a General Staff may be almost as dangerous as it is necessary in war.

Most of the author's statements are either supported by citation of documents or presented as first-hand observations. In a few cases the citations are inadequate; for example, the abstracts from General Gough's diary given in an appendix are not sufficient to support

the author's contentions. There are a number of typographical errors and minor slips of the pen. In any new edition, the statement that America "registered 25 million men as capable of military service" (p. 57) should certainly be corrected.

PARKER THOMAS MOON

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

The Labor Movement: Its Conservative Functions and Social Consequences. By FRANK TANNENBAUM. New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1921.-xviii, 259 pp.

Mr. Tannenbaum has had an interesting career.

For some years

he was one of the leaders of the I. W. W., at a time when that organization was staging picturesque strikes in various parts of the country, and it was believed by many that it was likely to replace the American Federation of Labor as the central organization of American trade-unionism. More recently the author has been following the less exciting life of a student at Columbia University. The present book is evidence that he has made good use of this period of study, for it may fairly be said that it is the best exposition of the views of the group of writers who have urged the importance of other than purely economic motives as the basis of the labor movement. No other book synthesizes so well the views of Professor Dewey, the late Carleton Parker, and Miss Marot. Whether the philosophy of these writers is likely to replace the older and at present more accredited philosophy is still a question, but it is a distinct contribution to the literature to have brought the newer philosophy into systematic form.

The indictment which Mr. Tannenbaum brings against the present system of industrial organization contains two counts: first, that the laborer is insecure in his position; second, that he is a victim of the machine process. The figures for unemployment, turn-over and ownership of homes are effectively arrayed in support of the first allegation, and the alleged psychological effects of the machine on the worker in support of the second. The combined result of insecurity and work at the machine is to bring the worker to an abnormal psychological state, of which the trade union is one of the chief manifestations. The old-fashioned writers on trade-unionism explained the trade-union movement as a rational attempt on the part of labor to secure chiefly more wages and shorter hours. But to Mr. Tannenbaum the trade union is primarily a psychological phenomenon and only secondarily an instrument of social reconstruc

tion. Indeed, the labor movement is important in that it provides "an emotional outlet", superior to a "Billy Sunday meeting" or a Holy-Roller dissipation". "It is here that the labor movement per se becomes most significant." The remedy for this state of things is to be found ultimately in the replacement of the present autocratic control of industry by control of the group. The worker would thus secure a rational outlet for his energies. The rest of the book is devoted chiefly to sketching a form of industrial government in which the workers would control.

The real issue between the writer and the older school of economists lies in the question whether the labor movement is a conscious and deliberate attempt to better the conditions of labor by equalizing bargaining power, or whether it is an attempt on the part of labor to express" itself-ultimately by the control of industry. I suspect that the answer to that question would be different in different industries and at different stages in the development of particular unions. If Grand Chief Stone, of the Locomotive Engineers, or President Valentine, of the Molders, were asked for an opinion, he would probably be in favor of the former view. If President Hillman, of the Garment Workers, had been asked the same question some years since, I conjecture that he would have favored the latter. But I am not so sure that he holds now to the "psychological" theory, for the Clothing Workers have risen in the tradeunion world. There are doubtless some newly-formed unions, not to mention many unorganized workers, for which Mr. Tannenbaum's theory contains large elements of truth.

It is a curious fact that Mr. Tannenbaum's previous incarnation as an active trade-union leader seems to have left little impression on his book. One would have expected at least confirmatory illustrations and discriminations drawn from experience, but as the book stands it might very well have been written by any capable undergraduate who had devoted himself to the study of the newer philosophy through lectures and books. This is not, however, a new phenomenon in the history of labor literature. The student who goes to the books by trade-unionists to find insight into the labor movement is always disappointed. What he does find is, as in this case, a digest of the doctrines of the schools. John Mitchell's book, for example, was a digest of a different set of doctrines, but after all a digest.

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

GEORGE E. BARNETT