THE ART OF WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 October 1921, Page 8

THE ART OF WAR.

SIR lAN HAMILTON’S BOOK. VALUE OF JAPANESE ALLIANCE. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. London, Oct. 11. Arnolds have published Sir lan Hamilton’s book entitled “The Soul and Body of an Army.” The writer in it traverses the world military organisations in the light of the lessons gained from the war. He says that all the elements of the art of war were never so much in the melting pot as now. The fact that Japan chose the German military system was at the moment a gain for Anglo-Saxon-dom, but a loss to Russia and China.

The penetration of the German military ideal into the Far East has yet to bear fruit. We must not overlook a principle because, by almost superhuman effort and fine racial tenacity, we smashed those who espoused it. Referring to the Japanese Alliance, Six lan Hamilton declares: “If we cease to be the military allies of Japan the Pacific had better be renamed, for nothing will then stand between an English-speaking Union anti a Russo-Japanese-German counter combine. President Harding may then die happy. He will have gone one better than Mr. Woodrow Wilson.”

Sir lan Hamilton.pays a glowing tribute to Lord Haldane’s work and asserts that the war was won when Lord Haldane stepped into the War Office. He advocates the application of discipline and training in patriotism to boys of school age, “in which Australia and New Zealand are miles ahead of us.” Referring to the British Empire, he says: “It was raised to its present dizzy heights by the profound imaginings of a mere handful of great men. Give Napoleon or Moltke a clean map of the world, a free hand, and a year to think matters out, and they could not improve upon what a lot of rather heavy Britishers appeared to do by chance.”