Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-12-08
IDA GILBERT MYERS.

IDA GILBERT MYERS.
TOR the past 10 years an increasing
npom OF s Ta1 SS15S has s.rS
Il vember. The past month was
Armistice month, month of
worldwide rejoicing and remembering
The time, too, when countless irreme-
dial personal griefs are memorialized
anew. Sons dead. Other sons living
as part of the vast wreckage of war
Tired of war books?" We must not
tire Of these. Want to forget the
WARP"
"If We break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though peoples
grow
In Flanders fields"
Yes, remembering is clearly our part.
So we must accept the reminders that
come to us through books and even
through some passing incident. For in
stance. last week three soldiers came
home to lie in Arlington after waiting
for 10 years, in the frozen soil Of
Northern Russia. Those three nag
draped caissonS moving slowly through
the rush Of trafflc revived the Great War
itself, making us pledge ourselves anew
in support Of the splendid work that Is
now going on in behalf Of q world
cooperation to Offset old international
rivalries and ambitions with war as
the common means of arbitrament.
But let us 60 back to the war books
It is interesting to ind change COM
ing over these. The first output Of war
literature came from those high in au-
thority-from military leaders. war ex-
pertS. political wise men, brilliant press
correspondents, occasional propagan-
q n
war literature, academic in compre-
hensive knowledge, invaluable for its
historic content. That period, not
closed entirely, is being superseded by
stories from soldiers themselves who
tell about the World War as they met
1t, as it met them. Here are accounts
Of the men who had the rough end Of
the job-Tom and Dick and Harry, in
the trench and on the march, under
attack from long range and short, COM
ing. to grips with tangles Of bsrbed wire
and bursting shell, getting about
through dirt and slime and the mess OF
wounded and dead men to be crawled
over or around. Many Of these stories
are coming out nowadays, re-embody-
ing the war itself for the uses of pos
terity. And even the great ones, the
leaders, their lessons of pure instruc-
ton practically completed, have settled
into a greater simplicity Of narration,
into a closer contact with the bodies
of soldiery around them. Here is q
notable case Of exactly such straight
simplicity, Of such intimate dis
closure:
FOCH: My Conversations With the
Marshal. BY Raymond Recouly
Translated by Joyce Davis, B. A.
New York: D. Appleton & Co.
IT is the comradely quality of this
book. its free intimacy, that conSti-
tuteS its first striking effect. These
two men are just talking about the war.
Naturally, what else is there for them
to talk about? Forgetting the cere-
monialS Of supreme leadership, or ignor-
ing them, here Marshal Foch goes back
over the long months of strife, sum-
ming the character of its outcome and
pointing here and there to certain out
standing crises in its development. Foch
talks and his friend listens, gathering
along the way the direct action of the
marShal'S mind, his straight course to
any desired end, his sincerity and SIM
pie disregard of interfering ranks and
presidents. In such mood and manner
Marshal Foch tells how he came to be
appointed to the supreme command and
what this high ONCE entailed upon its
representative. Especially interesting to
us is his estimate of the American
Army. In a growing intimacy he tells
of his various diSagreements-with
Clemenceau, with the English-how
these differences arose and how they
were settled or not settled. Step by step
through one and another phase of the
struggle Marshal Foch gives, frankly
and fully, his views. "Foch on the
United States" is an interesting chap
ter to us-A sound summary of the
people and the form of government I'M
der which they live. THE Drama Of
the Peace Treaty" provides a section. Of
Renaissance and conclusion which In
wolves more than one critical moment
and faces upon at least one tragic sit