+ N Y Evening Post p30 O 23 ’20 270w
Reviewed by B. R. Redman
+ N Y Times p9 Ja 9 ’21 100w + R of Rs 62:672 D ’20 160w
REPINGTON, CHARLES À COURT. First world war, 1914–1918. 2v *$12 Houghton 940.48
20–22246
“Colonel Repington in two stout volumes has recorded his ‘personal experience’ of the great war, and in so doing has given to the public the first of the great books of the war that is not simply military, political or diplomatic, but a combination of each that is focused on the personal activity and relationship of a single individual who was behind the scenes and in touch with almost every phase of the war. These pages of personal experiences during the war are a ‘contribution towards the elucidation of the truth so far as I was able to ascertain it at the time, and will, I hope, enable many to understand better the events of these memorable years,’ Colonel Repington declares. They are given from his diaries as he scrupulously kept them, recording the most trivial incidents innocently tucked away in some social engagement of chance meeting of soldiers, statesmen, journalists, or comments of the larger events which followed each other with such amazing rapidity.”—Boston Transcript
“Colonel Repington is, in fact, so simple that we cannot take any interest in him. His views on the war, in any important sense, are negligible. The only portions of his diary of any interest are his items of political and military information and the light he throws on prominent personages connected with the war. For the rest, and except when his professional interests are awakened and he gives lists of troops and ‘wastage’ figures, the whole diary is at the gossip level.”
− + Ath p436 O 1 ’20 1250w Booklist 17:149 Ja ’21 + Boston Transcript p4 O 20 ’20 1150w
“Colonel Repington moves between a bloodbath and a stale spittoon, and is apparently prouder of dipping his pen in the latter than in the former.” Shane Leslie