“It is not so much for its literary qualities—for these have been a little exaggerated—that the book is one to read, but for the insight which it gives into a mind extremely sensitive to impressions not only of actual experience, but of the imagination. What he calls ‘the detachment of the writer’ enabled him to look at his force, his superiors, his subordinates, and, above all, himself, as elements in a stirring picture.” O. W.
+ Ath p795 Je 18 ’20 1500w
“It is a tragical story Sir Ian tells, but tells with all the art of a poet and the precision of a soldier.” W. S. B.
+ Boston Transcript p12 D 8 ’20 1700w
“Sir Ian exposes the system he represents in its horrible imbecility. His ‘Diary’ has changed the barrenness of disaster into a world service. As a member of the tribunal he selects, I vote for his acquittal.” W: J. M. A. Maloney
+ Nation 111:sup653 D 8 ’20 2000w
“It is the personal narrative of the failure of a great man in a great adventure. It is history more enthralling than any fiction.” F. L. Minnigen
+ N Y Times p9 N 7 ’20 1900w
“As the reader turns page after page of these volumes he may be surprised to find that he is getting not only a valuable narration of a particularly interesting campaign; he will find that the military man who writes the account is frequently capable of brilliantly atmospheric and poetic text.”
+ Outlook 127:32 Ja 5 ’21 130w