BOOKS OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2988, 27 January 1917, Page 13

BOOKS OF THE DAY

Jhe War in Eastern Europe. Mr.: John Reed, author of "The War 'jn Eastern Europe" (Eveleigh Nash; per "WhitcQmbo and Tombs), went to Europe in August, 1914, as correspondent of the :"Metropolitan Magazine;" .visiting England, France, Switzerland, -ttalj, Germany, and Belgium, and seer ing fighting-with: three armies. . He returned to New York- in February, /WIS, and a month later started again tfor Europe with his- friend, Mr. Boarditnan Robinson, a well-known -American •artist. The pair spent seven months in Eastern Europe, visiting Salonika, crossing Serbia to Belgrade, and thence proceeding into the Bukowina, and later on visiting'Lemberg. ■ 'Arrested"by. the 'Russians, he and- his comrade were turned out of' Galicia,.: and then Went to Eetrograd and Moscow, later fpn visiting Constantinople, and returning to the Balkans, where they visited 'Sfona and Bucharest. The result of .these wanderings is a book, every page 'of which testifies to the powers of obiservatTon and descriptive ability of the Author. I have read scores of books Jon, the war, but Mr. .Reed's book stands but pre-eminent in, one respect, tho [special interest, of its;-pictures of tho 'Jion-combatants.

Mr.Rced's pictures of Serbia after her "two.'experiences •of .Austrian invasion «xe, charged with the very spirit of Four wars in-'-three years. htfve the unhappy Serbs experienced, First and Second Balkan -'Wars, 7 the revolt,, and: -the great .struggle still proceeding.-" ,Never\has- a nation, been.;.'more, sorely tried: t : Pestilence, "fea, in -the'sh'apej of typhus,- has slain its scores of thousands, .but even /plague- were preferable to theVatroci: ■ties committed by the Austrian's',: At. iShabatz the American: travellers saw I 'the -blackened-.andr,:-mutilated.'7 church, '■where three .thousand men, .women, and 'children' were penned up together, "without food or water' for- : four days.'' (Everywhere Mr. ; Reed was,told-that it ■swas.:the Hungarians, and not the Aus-jtrian-Germans, 'who committed these •feirocities. "The Austrians themselves seem to have behaved fairly well: (fchey paid for what' they took, and did /•not bother peaceable civilians." The '"Hungarians, however,. "reverted to ■their savage. ancestors, the Huns." '■When they retreated from Shabatz in .December, 1914, they gathered together in the courtyard of'Gachitch's ■pharmacy three hundred Serbian solIdiers taken prisoner: in battle, shot their/ slowly, and then broke -their • "Belgium can show no horrors as theso.

J Mr. Reed's acrount of his experiences |iat Constantinople is specially interest: ' Ing. He was shown'th'e wonders of SlanVboul by .high Turkish: officials, .whovdid ' not disguise their' hatred of- the- Ger--: ' inane,->vh'6- so. unmercifully .bully them'. ■And yetHhey- aU : regard Germany/ as ■the saviour "of the Turkish- Empire as .{at is.to-day. A clever and .cynical , Armenian warmly praised the Turk for ';'his ■ unfailing honesty:. .

"The Turk is absolutely honest , iu business dealings—his' religion makes him so, tut wo Christians lie and'.'clieat : ivith '■& No Moslem can' Ije.iact interest—the Koran■forbids''it. ;0 Sir as a natural consequence all. trade, (banking—in 'fact'-'economic 1 power 'of isvery sort,- is.in the hands of Christian ■or Jewish foreigners, . with whom the 'Turks' religion will not allow them to ■compete. From the Turkish point of '■view, there..is only • one solution—all■people except Mohammedans must bei driven from the empire. , .• . . Imyself would be deported.if I'didn't mind my own business and play fair with'the Turk. I only cheat foreigners. "And yet they are so simple, so childlike in this mature world of cut-throats /and adventurers that they think they ■■will get rid of the Germans, too, after -the war! You and I know better. It is the end of the Turkish Empire—yes, it is the end, whichever side wins."

Mr. Reed has a very poor opinion of ■fche Rumanians, and was thoroughly disgusted with tho flashy, ' tawdry splendour of Bucharest, which its inhabitants proudly claim to be the Paris •of the East—a pre-wartime Paris, of •course. Of the nightly promenade of Rumanian rank and fashion he writes:

Each carriage isithe setting fora' woman, or- , .' two women, rouged, enamelled, and dressed more fantastically than the wildest poster girl imagined by French decorators. A dense crowd, overflowing from the sidewalks into the street, moves slowly' from the Atheneul up past the King's Palace to the boule-' vards and back again—extravagant women, and youths made unlike French decadent poets, and army officers in uniforms, of pastel shades, with much gold lace, tassels, on their boots, and capes of baby-blue and ealraon-pink—colour combinations that would make a comic-i opera manager sick with «nvy. They have puffy cheeks aDd rings under their eyes, these officers, and their cheeks are sometimes painted, and they spend all' their time riding up and down the Galea with their mistresses, or eating cream puffs at Capsha's pastry shop, where all prominent and ! would-be - prominent Bucharestians show themselves every day, and where the vital affairs of the nation are ' settled. : What a contrast between the officers and the rank and file of tho armv-stocky little peasants who swing by in emiads to the.blare of bugles, excellently equipped and trained. The numberless cafes and pastry shops spill over on the sidewalk and the streets,. crowded wus- - men and women, got up like chorus girls. In the open cafeKardens tho gypsy orchestra swing into wild rhythms that get. to be a habit, .like strong drink; a hundred restaurants fill with exotic crowas. Lights flash out. Shop windows glea~T ' with jewelsand costly things that men buy for their mistresses. Ten thousand public women parade the streets—foryour true Bucharestian boasts that his city supports more prostitutes, in proportion than any. other four cities in the world combined.

Whero does the money corae from to support all this luxury and vice is a very .natural -question. Mr. Reed supplies the answer: . :

Bucharest 13 a get-rich city, end modern Rumanian civilisation is like that—' a mushroom growth of thirty years. The fat plain is one of the greatest 'grain-growing regions of the world, and there are mountains covered with fine timber, but the mainspring of wealth is the oil region. There aij»oil kings and timber • kings and land lings, quickly and fabulously wealthy. It costs more to live iu Bucharest than in New York.

Beading the chapters entitled "The Burning Balkans," the impression to be gained by. the reader is that to usea vulgar expression all these small States are "on tho make." Each is jealous' of the other, each dreams of territorial aggrandisement as the result of war. This refers in particular to the politician class, largely, composed of self-seeking lawyers. For the peasant classes, the backbone of these countries, tho men who are, alae< hut puppets in the hands of their ceaselessly scheming rulers, the author has littlo but praise. At the present the Balkans are in-the melting-pot. Upon what principle can a settlement of their affairs, a permanently peaceful

settlement, be arrived at after tlie war? That is a question Mr. Reed does not attempt to answer. Mr. Boavtlman Robinson's illustrations, of -which there are a large number, are reproduced from pen and ink and charcoal sketches, and form an interesting and very attractive feature of tho book. They are vigorously'drawn and most effective, the stu■dies of 6oldier and peasant types being specially successful. Mr. Reed's book is 0110 which should find a place in every public library. (N.Z. price, 12s. 6d.). .