"The Harvard Volunteers in Europe."

Mr. Mark Howe '87 has rendered a great service to the University through the publication of "The Harvard Volunteers in Europe." This volume is composed of letters written by Harvard men from the French and British lines, scrawled off for the most part at the front with no thought of future publication; and consequently conveying the freshest kind of pictures. The book carries with it, from Europe, boom of guns, the whirring of aeroplane motors and the signs of dying men-the whole set down in the vivid and picturesque words of young men who have seen great things.

An Excerpt from Chapman's Letter.

Here, for example, is a bit chosen at random. It comes from a letter by Victor Chapman '13, of the American Aviation Corps:

"Over the field we soared, and due east for B-Twelve, sixteen, nineteen, twenty-two, twenty-four hundred metres--mounting well at 1,180 turns. The earth seemed hidden under a fine web like the Lady of Shallot wove; soft purple in the west changing to shimmering white in the east. Under me on the left the Vosges, like rounded sand dunes cushioned up with velvety light and dark mosses (really forests). But to the south, standing firmly above the purple cloth like icebergs shone the Alps. My! they looked steep and jagged. The sharp blue shadows on their western slopes emphasized the effect. One mighty group standing aloof to the West--Mont Blanc, perhaps. Ah, there are quantities of worm-eaten fields--my friends, the trenches,--and that town with the canal going through it must be M--. Right beside the capote of my engine, shining through the white silk cloth, a silver snake: the Rhine! "What, not over quarter to six, and I left the field at fivel Thirty-two metres. Let's go north and have a look at the map. Boo, my feet are getting cold!".

Attacked by the Enemy.

"While thus engaged "Trun-un-ng-tsss" --a black puff of smoke appeared behind my tail and I had the impression of having a piece of iron hiss by. "Must have got my range, first shot!" I surmised, and making a steep bank, pique'd heavily. "There, I've lost them now!" The whole art of avoiding shells is to pay no attention till they get your range, and then dodge away, change altitude and generally avoid going in a straight line. In point of fact, I could see bunches of exploding shells up over my right shoulder now a kilometre off. They continued to shell that section for some time; the little balls of smoke thinning out and merging as they crossed the lines.

"Billy Thaw and Rockwell came over me, 3,700 metres they must have been; I tried to follow them but found it difficult. Up by A-- I recrossed the lines, taking a look at T-- and returned over M--. I met the same reception, but their aim was wild, two or three hundred metres above, and a scattering way under me. Nary a Boche sailing over that misty sea."

Only a few weeks later this "Roi de l'Air," as he was known to the army, who had walked so often through our own College Yard, was dead on the field; shot down in an heroic effort to help his fellow-aviators-"a glorious death, face a Pennemi, for a great cause and to save a friend."

Description of Actual Scenes.

Or take the letter of A. C. Champollion '02, of the Foreign Legion, Killed at Boisle-Pretre:

"When we first entered the long communication-trench, things seemed pretty quiet. Only a shot and an explosion at long intervals could be heard. We had travelled along the communication trench about half an hour, and were about to enter our shelters in the second line trenches when not far away came two fairly loud bomb explosions in quick succession. Then the earth seemed all of a sudden to reel. There was a commotion like the bursting of a volcano. Two hundred yards off, above the trees, a column of huge rocks, lumps of earth, tree-trunks and probably numerous human limbs, rose slowly and majestically. The upper fragments, as they rose, seemed to advance menacingly in our direction, as if they must surely hit us when they returned to earth. They seemed suspended in the air for an indefinite space of time, as if there was no hurry at all about their failing back. They seemed to cross and criss-cross in all directions, now obscuring half the sky. Gradually the mass assumed the shape of the upper portion of an elm tree, and then began to subside. Then could be heard the smashing sound of the tree branches as this mass of rock and earth fell back with the crushing force of an avalanche. Everybody ducked and plunged head first into the shelters.

"Almost immediately after there came the sound of thousands of heavy rain drops on a stiff canvas or like the cracking of innumerable small whips; all this punctuated by a peculiar bizz, bizz, whizz sound like someone whistling in surprise. I could not help making the inward remark, 'I knew war was tought, but look here, boys; isn't this a bit too rough?' It seemed that the Germans had exploded a mine under one of our trenches, then opened a violent fusillade to capture what remained of it. Being second-line troops just arrived from resting up, we were not required to fight. We consequently were huddled together in a bomb-proof shelter, packed all day like sardines, but quite satisfied to remain where we were, while above our heads shot and shell seemed to pass for several hours with unexampled violence. That night also was 'stormy,' but since then, that is for the last five days, there has been little else but sniping and desultory firing by the artillery. In the above action we lost 60 men killed and 200 wounded, but the enemy failed to capture the trench and lost a few yards of one they had held the day before."

Suffice it to say that nowhere can one find a better picture of the war, viewed from all sides and from above, than in this book. It takes its place with Gallishaw's "Trenching at Gallipoli," Sheehan's "A Volunteer Poilu" and "Friends of France," as part of the library which every man, and above all, every Harvard man, should read