REVIEW OF BOOKS ON SUBJECTS OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
"Handbook for Naval Officers." (D. Van Nostrand Company, New York.)
The value of this compilation of questions and answers is evidenced by the popularity of the mimeographed notes which preceded it and which have passed from hand to hand among officers of the service when preparing for examinations for promotion. The book does not pretend to teach principles— and for complete knowledge of any one of the subjects treated, the student must necessarily seek treatises on the various specialties. It is a digest of information and as such, is of value to the initiated for brushing up and to the unitiated, may serve as a guide to study and practice.
S.E.H.
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"The Navy Everywhere." By Conrad Cato. 297 pages. (Published by E P. Dutton & Co., New York.)
This book contains a collection of interesting accounts of the activities of the British Navy in those theatres of the World War which were sufficiently remote to have escaped almost entirely the notice of the war correspondent of the press. The accounts are based upon official reports, from descriptive details by various officers who took part in the operations, and from the author's own experiences in some of them.
The book is divided into eight sections as follows:
- The Navy in East Africa.—The capture of Dar-es-Salaam, bottling up and destruction of the Konigsberg, and an airman's adventures in connection with same.
- The Navy in the Cameroons.—Naval and military operations in the conquest of the Cameroons with interesting incidents in connection with same.
- The Navy in Serbia.—Account of the career of the British gunboat Terror of the Danube, and of the four British naval batteries co-operating with the Serbs during the disastrous invasion of Serbia by the AustroGerman forces.
- The first kite-balloon ship.—Account of the H. M. S. Manica at Gallipoli and in East Africa.
- The Navy in the Persian Gulf.—British ships frustrate German land plans of native raids on coast towns.
- The Navy in Roumania.—The operations of British tanks, manned by the Royal Naval Air Service, in the battles of Topalul and Vizirul and in the retreat of the Allied armies from the Dobrudsha.
- The Aden Patrol.—Navy guarding Somaliland and the capture of a German raider.
- The Red Sea Patrol.—Capture of Salif.
Maps of the various theatres of operating are included. In addition, there are brief summaries of the political history of British activities in Persia and Somaliland which are generally not known.—The book is well written and the subject matter very interesting. Inasmuch as it covers operations of the Great War which are generally unknown this book will be found both instructive and entertaining.
O.O.H.