Hilaire Belloc, the man and his work

by C. Creighton Mandell; Edward Shanks

The first line of the enemy's defence in this region follows for the most part a crest.... This ridge is not an even one, nor was the whole of it occupied by the German works. In places it had been seized by the French during their work last February, and has been held ever since. Generally speaking, its summits nearly reach, or just surpass, the 200 metre contour, above the sea, but the whole of this country lies so high that such a height only means a matter of 150 to 200 feet above the water levels of the little muddy brooks that run in the folds of the land. It is a country of chalk, but not of dry, turfy chalk, like those of the English Downs; rather a chalk mixed with clay, which makes for bad going after rain. It is the soil over which, further to the east, the battle of Valmy was fought, an action largely determined by the impracticable nature of the ground when wet. On the other hand, it is a soil that dries quickly. The country as a whole is remarkably open. There are no hedges, and the movement of troops is covered only by scattered, not infrequent plantations of pine trees and larches, which grow to no great height. From any one of the observation posts along the seventeen miles of line one sees the landscape before one as a whole. It is the very opposite of what is called "blind country." On the east, to the right of the French positions, there runs along the horizon the low, even-wooded ridge of the Argonne, which rises immediately behind Ville-sur-Tourbe. Far to the east, from the left, in clear weather one distinguishes the great mass of Rheims Cathedral rising above the town.

This tremendous advantage which he possesses is casually mentioned by Mr. Belloc in his Introduction to A General Sketch of the European War, where he says:

It is even possible, where the writer has seen the ground over which the battles have been fought (and much of it is familiar to the author of this) so to describe such ground to the reader that he will in some sort be able to see for himself the air and the view in which the things were done: thus more than through any other method will the things be made real to him.

In co-relation with these particular and highly specialized qualifications which Mr. Belloc possessed before the war, should be reckoned perhaps two other qualifications of a more general character. The first of these is the very long and thorough training which his scholarship has necessitated in the dispassionate examination of evidence. Through years of historical study he has learnt carefully to sort out strong from weak evidence and to base his judgements only on such evidence as may be regarded as thoroughly reliable. A cursory glance through the pages of Danton and a quite casual perusal of a few of the foot-notes in that book will leave the reader with no doubts on this point. In course of years this careful practice naturally develops into a habit; and the value of this habit in approaching reports of actions and statistics of prisoners or effectives may easily be grasped.

The second of these two general qualifications with which we must credit Mr. Belloc is the fact of his envisagement of the possibility of this war. Europe, Mr. Belloc argues, reposes upon the foundations of nationality. Internationalism, whether it be expressed in the financial rings of Capitalism or the world-wide brotherhoods of Socialism, is only made possible by a harmony of the wills of the great European nations. Should a conflict of wills not merely exist but break out into expression in war, internationalism, though outwardly so powerful, must inevitably go by the board and the ancient foundations upon which Europe rests stand poignantly revealed. Such a conflict of wills Mr. Belloc has always seen to exist between Prussia and the rest of the nations of Europe. His knowledge of their history and character led him years ago to that idea of the Prussians which this war has shown to be the true idea, and which we find expressed on every hand to-day with remarkable sageness after the event. This view is that which recognizes fully that the Prussian spirit, "the soul of Prussia in her international relations," is expressed in what is called the "Frederician Tradition," which Mr. Belloc has put into the following terms:

The King of Prussia shall do all that may seem to advantage the kingdom of Prussia among the nations, notwithstanding any European conventions or any traditions of Christendom, or even any of those wider and more general conventions which govern the international conduct of other Christian peoples.

Mr. Belloc further explains this tradition by saying:

For instance, if a convention of international morals has arisen—as it did arise very strongly, and was kept until recent times—that hostilities should not begin without a formal declaration of war, the "Frederician Tradition" would go counter to this, and would say: "If ultimately it would be to the advantage of Prussia to attack without declaration of war, then this convention may be neglected."

Or, again, treaties solemnly ratified between two Governments are generally regarded as binding. And certainly a nation that never kept such a treaty would find itself in a position where it was impossible to make any treaties at all. Still, if upon a vague calculation of men's memories, the acuteness of the circumstance, the advantage ultimately to follow, and so on, it be to the advantage of Prussia to break such solemn treaty, then such a treaty should be broken.

To this he adds: