WAR DATA FOR THE HISTORIAN

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 46, 19 November 1918, Page 8

WAR DATA FOR THE HISTORIAN

NOTE-TAKERS AT THE FRONT.. It is si far cry from the smoke-.and dust of battle to the calm, passionless atmosphere of the historian's desk, and the average man does not quite understand in what manner the actions of battalions, of companies, of individuals i.'oino to bet recorded lor the benefit of posterity. How, in a word are the details of a battle gathered for the histories which relate them so minutely?

Tbo answer is to be found in the historical sections of the various armies and in the historical officers who roam h'landefs' field searching for data, rescuing precious incidents from oblivion, gathering the details of chaos into an intelligent slory. It was Canada which first 6et the examnle of how to glean history from the nibble 'of the battlefield. At least, it was Can-wla which ebvaled the business to an important position; and posterity will be able to see the work of the history-makers in picture, photography, and in ihe written word.

Up'and down fhe front among the battalions go special officers instructing battalion headquarters how to write their official war diaries, which are supposed to be accurate chronicles of the doings of the battalion mouth by month.

If a big event is pulled off the battalions concerned chronicle their part in it, tho story being signed by the O.C. or 'adjutant, and in time the diaries are sent back to England to the historical section of the headquarters, where they, are filed, tabulated, preserved.

Helling the front line "over there" a staff of photographers and kinemato-graphc-rs are constantly at'work ou incidents which in time will be recorded and shown to the public. Artists are there with their paint and brushes, getting local colour, painting the havoc-of war as it is, not.in the massively impossible method of the artists who, in London, painted the war of South Africa or the victory of the Sudan. This is n war of reality, and posterity shall Know tho terrible reality of it.

Only recently one artist was so anxious to get a glimpse of the actual happenings of a little raid that he went- over tho top with the troaps one night into the German trench ami back again. Another, who was working near the front during the Cambrai incident, left his quarters in a hurry so that most of his canvases, fell into the hands of the Hun?. If. is to be hoped that they will appreciate his art.—"S.M.," in the "Daily Mail."