all
who appreciate the exquisitely sensitive _Recit d'une Soeur_, with
which he not unfavourably compares it, to go rather to the French
original of these letters of a young captain of the famous Chasseurs
Alpins. Captain FREDERIC BELMONT fell near the stubbornly-contested
Hartmannsweilerkopf in 1916. He was the third of his family to give
his life for France. The letters reveal a character that hardships
and dangers not only strengthened but refined. He writes with a noble
French ardour of his country in the crisis of her fate. He dreads, but
rises greatly to the height of, his heavy responsibility as Captain at
the age of twenty-one. The coveted cross of the Legion of Honour comes
to him before the end, and he wins the affection and confidence of his
men--a soldier's highest prize. A deep religious conviction unclouded
by superstition sustains his courage. He is a product of the French
Catholic tradition at its best. He writes intelligently of his work,
and with a greater freedom as to detail than our more exigeant
censorship allows; so that you get an excellent picture of the daily
life of a campaigner in the greatest of all wars. He met the English
in Flanders, admired and liked their looks and ways.... A very
charming record of a gallant soldier, a chosen soul.

* * * * *

In the first few pages of _At the Serbian Front in Macedonia_ (LANE),
Mr. E.P. STEBBING tells so many little anecdotes that I began to
wonder if he was ever going to get there. When, however, he has
got into his stride, he gives us information which is all the more
valuable because we hear so little of the Macedonian campaign. Mr.
STEBBING was appointed Transport Officer to a unit of the Scottish
Women's Hospitals that was sent to the Serbian Front. Naturally he has
much to say of the work done by these brave and untiring women. Under
exceptionally difficult circumstances their courage never failed,
and it is good to remember that their arrival at Ostrovo was of the
greatest possible service to the Serbs. That is one part of the book,
and it is well told. The other is of actual war, and here Mr. STEBBING
was given ample opportunities to observe. No one can read his account
of the taking of Kajmaktcalan without feeling the keenest admiration
for the gallantry of the Serbs. He also describes very graphically the
frontal attack by the French upon the Kenali lines in October, 1916.
The British public is too apt to loo