Two Cambridge Worthies

442 THE U_NIVERSIT·Y OF TORONTO- QUARTERLY ~ could it have; its line was ml. the river Maas, to cross which would have required a buildup comparable to that which preceded the crossing of the Rhine. 21 Army Group- retreated from none of its positions; it did thin the line by concentrating two armoured and one infantry divisions for use as a counter-attack force either in the Ardennes or in the north. One question needs to be asked: why should General'Eisenhower have relied (as Mr. Ingersqll says.he did) upon British information about the battle situation in a wholly American sector? One clarification needs to be made: it is perfectly true· that only a single British brigade participated in the Ardennes fighting, but the reasons are a discredit to no one. 21 Army Group was asked to deal with any enemy penetration across the Meuse; east of the river it was to remain an American battle. What happened was simply that the American forces defeated ·Runstedt's attack east ·of the Meuse; the enemy never crossed the river. He got close, and a British armoured brigade crossed the river to establish contact with the tip of his salient; but the Americans were at that moment pressing in the sides of the salient, and the forward- elements ceased to be a problem. The Ardennes was' an allAmerican battle, and an all-American victory. . . It will have been independently noticed by·the reader that even at their . . face value Mr. Ingersoll's arguments bear no particular relevance to his second major conclusion about British conduct of the war (the determination to substitute the political northern for the·military southern route). It has seemed desirable to question the validity of these arguments beca'tlse'of thei'r independent importance, but this second conclusion, like ·his first, need not concern us until some fact which supports it is presented.· Trench pessimists, even while noting how well Allied troops got along together in the field, used to speculate on how long it would be after the shooting stopped before a book appeared entitled ".How Britain Won the War," or "How America Won the War,', or "How Russia Won the War." None of these could serve as sub-title to Top Secret; an accurate sub-title would be "How 12 U.S. Army Group defeated Eisenhower, Montgomery, and Hitler." In the last analysis, when Mr. ·Ingersoll's book has dropped out of the headlines, ·its most regrettable effect may turn out to be that so admirable a commander as General Bradley has, in order to serve as dubious _ hero, been represented as guilty of gross and repeated insubordination. TWO CAMBRIDGE WORTHIES* GrLBERT NoRwooo Since the deaths of Jebb and Henry Jackson, no Cambridge names have so fully symbolized humanism as "Q" and ''Glover of John,s." Both died *Memorie.s and Opinion.s: An Unfinished Autobiography. By Q [Sir A, T. QuillerCouch ]. Edited~ with an introduction, by S. C. RoBERTS, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [Toronto: Macmillan]. 1944. Pp. xiv, 106. · ($2~00) Springs of Hella.s and Other E.ssays. · By T. R. QLOVER. With a memoir, by S. C. RoBE:ItTS, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [Toronto: Macmillan}. 1945. Pp. xvi, 210. ($4.00) I . • I., REVIEWS 443 . _recently, and the]r last books have been assigned to ~e fo; a joint review; but they differ so in matter and tone that we must look at them separately. The autobiography, -alas, is unfinished: it closes, indeed, with the publication of Dead Man''s Rock, Q's first novel, in 1887, when he was but twenty-four. In themselves, the events here narrated are mostly commonplace enough; but a quietly perfect style, a temperament that could relish experience contemplatively and report it urbanely) have turned them -into literature. His early days in Cornwall, especially, are portrayed with engaging simplicity and charm. A paragr-aph beginning, "Better even than days of haymak1ng were tho~e of harvest" reads like a first draft of some sunnier page in Thol!las Hardy. Two passages viv1dly depict the boy's spiritual experience. First appears that familiar goqlin of the eighteenseventies , "a·preacher of rare eloquence ... painting Hell for us...