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Aug. 19 24.
PEPER HAROW, GODALMING.
Private
My dear Buchan
I am much obliged by your letter. You have dealt with Minto's life, so far as I have got viz to the end of Canada, with masterly touch if I may say so, making him what he was - viz: a great type of an Englishman - and
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showing how much he learned when once in harness in Canada.
There was much in your narrative wh. I did not know, and I shall be surprised if the book does not rank among the best biographies of wh. there seem to me to be but very few.
As to a Review, I was
surprised that 'The Times' would consent to an outside critic, and I gather they will not - but if I hear from Strachey I will do what I can most willingly.
I wonder if I may ask you one or two points?
1. In speaking of the First Lord Minto, are not the visits of Mirabeau to Minto worth recording? It was such a very strange link.
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2. Do you make it clear that "Rolly" left the Guards & when?
3. Page 199. War Office paragraph "Primeval chaos" 1902. You have no doubt some strong ground for saying this from Minto's records, but I wonder on what his opinion rested. At that moment every department was running full speed. Medical reorganization - barracks rebuilding - Stores for Mobilization - above all Intelligence under Sir Wm. Nicholson. Was he misled by the chatter of on the dislocation caused by the return of over 200,000 men from S. Africa?
Yours very truly
Midleton
