PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

A few introductory remarks should be made on the occasion of the republishing of BLASTING AND BOMBARDIERING which contains the author's memories of people and events leading up to the War, its duration and aftermath.

The War-Crowds, the tide of Chapter IV, is part of an unfinished war book which depicts the remarkable crowds which packed London on Mobilisation and their extraordinary one-mindedness, the violent upsurge of emotion which the declaration of war unleashed. The few remaining chapters of this book have now been added at the end of the volume. The style of this book is light and sardonic but contains the essence of this tragic war embodied in the Serviceman's reticence in relating horrors seen and endured at the Front.

Peace with its terrible epidemic, the Roaring Twenties with its disillusion, despair and growing unemployment. Veterans begging in the gutters and unemployed miners filling the streets with their beautiful songs. All this is captured here and is shown to lead to the horror of the General Strike.

One quotation from a work of that period seems to be particularly appropriate here.

'Peace is a fearful thing for that countless majority who are so placed that there is no difference between Peace and War— except that during the latter day they are treated with more consideration. In war, if they are wounded they are well treated, in peace, if struck down it is apt to be nothing like so pleasant.'

Anne Wyndham Lewis