THE STUDENT OF MILITARY AFFAIRS
Mr Belloc's most important writings on the war are to be found in _Land
and Water_, the _Illustrated Sunday Herald_, and _Pearson's Magazine_.
To these must be added his series of books of which only one has so far
appeared--_A General Sketch of the European War_. His series of articles
in _Pearson's Magazine_ has also been reprinted in book-form under the
title _The Two Maps_.
Of these his writings in _Land and Water_ are, at the present time, the
most important. Since the earliest stages of the war Mr. Belloc has
contributed to _Land and Water_ a weekly article. What is the nature of
this article? In the first place, it is a commentary on the current
events of the campaign. Mr. Belloc himself, when challenged recently to
defend his work, said very modestly (as we think)--"My work ... is no
more than an attempt to give week by week, at what I am proud to say is
a very great expense of time and of energy, an explanation of what is
taking place. There are many men who could do the same thing. I happen
to have specialized upon military history and problems, and profess now,
with a complete set of maps, to be doing for others what their own
occupations forbid them the time and opportunity to do."
With part of this description we may heartily agree; with the rest we
must disagree. We agree with Mr. Belloc when he refers to his work as
being accomplished "at a very great expense of time and of energy."
There may be some who doubt the truth of this statement. There is
undoubtedly a large section of the public which, led astray by that
cynicism and that distrust of newspapers and journalists which a certain
section of our Press has engendered in the public, has come to regard
all newspaper reports on the war as unreliable and the writings of
so-called "experts" as mere vapourings, undertaken in the hope of
assisting the circulation of the paper in which they appear rather than
the circulation of the truth. If, then, any reader be inclined to
include Mr. Belloc in such a denunciation and to doubt that his weekly
commentary in _Land and Water_ is written as he says, "at a very great
expense of time and of energy," let him turn to one of Mr. Belloc's
articles, reprinted in _The Two Maps_, on "What to Believe in War News."
In this article Mr. Belloc asks the question--"How is the plain man to
distinguish in the news of the war what is true from what is false, and
so arrive at a sound opinion?" His answer to this question is that "in
the first place, the basis of all sound opinion are the official
_communiques_ read with the aid of a map." And to this he adds the
following explanation:
When I say "the official communiques" I do not mean those of the
British Government alone, nor even of the Allies alone, but of
_all_ the belligerents. You just read impartially the communiques
of the Austro-Hungarian and of the German Governments together with
those of the British Government and its Allies, or you will
certainly miss the truth. By which statement I do not mean that
each Government is equally accurate, still less equally full in its
relation; but that, unless you compare all the statements of this
sort, you will have most imperfect evidence; just as you would have
very imperfect evidence in a court of law if you only listened to
the prosecution and refused to listen to the defence.
Mr. Belloc then proceeds to show what characteristics all official
_communiques_ have in common, and then to outline the peculiar
characteristics of the _communiques_ of each belligerent. Although not
one unnecessary sentence is included, this short summary of his own
discoveries covers seven pages. The final sentence of the article is as
follows: "Nevertheless, unless you do follow fairly regularly the Press
of all the belligerent nations, you will obtain but an imperfect view of
the war as a whole."
This comparison of the _communiques_ of the belligerents, which is seen
in these pages to be no light task, naturally forms but a small part of
Mr. Belloc's work; so that further proof of his own statement, that his
work necessitates the expenditure of much time and energy, need hardly
be adduced.
This slight insight into the nature of Mr. Belloc's work will also serve
to emphasize the point in which we disagree with Mr. Belloc's own
description of his work. If, let us say, a bank manager, who may be
regarded as a type of citizen of considerable intelligence and leisure,
were to adopt and faithfully to pursue the methods described in this
article, the methods which Mr. Belloc himself has found it necessary to
adopt, he would certainly find his leisure time swallowed up. In so far
as this alone were the case, we might agree with Mr. Belloc when he says
of himself--"I ... profess now ... to be doing for others what their own
occupations forbid them the time and opportunity to do." But our bank
manager, when he had accomplished the long process of sifting out the
only war news that is reliable (and he would be only able to accomplish
this much, be it noted, with the aid of Mr. Belloc) would still be
unable, in all probability, to grasp the full meaning and importance of
that news. To do that he would need what, in common with the majority of
Englishmen, he does not possess, and what it would take him years to
acquire, namely, a knowledge of military history and military science.
We see then that Mr. Belloc, in his weekly commentary in _Land and
Water_, is doing for others not merely "what their own occupations
forbid them the time and opportunity to do," but _what they could not do
for themselves_, even had they the time and opportunity.
To undertake this task he is peculiarly qualified. In his writings on
the war, indeed, Mr. Belloc appears as an expert, in the true sense of
that much abused word. He says of himself, in the paragraph already
quoted--"I happen to have specialized on military history and problems."
That is again too modest an estimation of the facts. He has done far
more than merely to specialize on military history; he has given
military history its true place in relation to other branches of
history. The study of history at the present time is specialized. We
subdivide its various aspects, classify facts and speak of
constitutional history, economic history, ecclesiastical history,
military history, and so forth. Now Mr. Belloc, in addition to his study
of all the branches of history, has not merely made a special study of
military history, but has realized and proved, more fully than any other
historian, of what tremendous importance is the study of military
history in its relation to those other branches of the study of history,
such as the constitutional and economic. "In writing of the military
aspect of any movement," he says, "it is impossible to deal with that
aspect save as a living part of the whole; so knit into national life is
the business of war."
In those words, "so knit into national life is the business of war," Mr.
Belloc has finely expressed his conception of war as one of the
weightiest factors in human events. In accordance with this attitude Mr.
Belloc has shown us, what no other historian has ever made clear, that
the French Revolution, "more than any other modern period, turns upon,
and is explained by, its military history." In the preface to his short
thesis _The French Revolution_ there occurs this passage:
The reader interested in that capital event should further seize
(and but too rarely has an opportunity for seizing) its military
aspect; and this difficulty of his proceeds from two causes: the
first, that historians, even when they recognize the importance of
the military side of some past movement, are careless of the
military aspect, and think it sufficient to relate particular
victories and general actions. The military aspect of any period
does not consist in these, but in the campaigns of which actions,
however decisive, are but incidental parts. In other words, the
reader must seize the movement and design of armies if he is to
seize a military period, and these are not commonly given him. In
the second place, the historian, however much alive to the
importance of military affairs, too rarely presents them as part of
a general position. He will make his story a story of war, or
again, a story of civilian development, and the reader will fail to
see how the two combine.
In this short excerpt we catch a glimpse, not only of Mr. Belloc's
attitude towards military history, but also of his method in dealing
with it; and since this aspect of Mr. Belloc's work is of such capital
importance we may perhaps quote that passage which begins on page 142 of
_The French Revolution_ and is so illuminating in regard both to Mr.
Belloc's attitude and to his method:
The Revolution would never have achieved its object; on the
contrary, it would have led to no less than a violent reaction
against those principles which were maturing before it broke out,
and which it carried to triumph, had not the armies of
revolutionary France proved successful in the field; but the
grasping of this mere historic fact, I mean the success of the
revolutionary armies, is unfortunately no simple matter.
We all know that as a matter of fact the Revolution was, upon the
whole, successful in imposing its view upon Europe. We all know
that from that success as from a germ has proceeded, and is still
proceeding, modern society. But the nature, the cause and the
extent of the military success which alone made this possible, is
widely ignored and still more widely misunderstood. No other signal
military effort which achieved its object has in history ended in
military disaster--yet this was the case with the revolutionary
wars. After twenty years of advance, during which the ideas of the
Revolution were sown throughout Western civilization, and had time
to take root, the armies of the Revolution stumbled into the vast
trap or blunder of the Russian campaign; this was succeeded by the
decisive defeat of the democratic armies at Leipsic, and the superb
strategy of the campaign of 1814, the brilliant rally of what is
called the Hundred Days, only served to emphasize the completeness
of the apparent failure. For that masterly campaign was followed
by Napoleon's first abdication, that brilliant rally ended in
Waterloo and the ruin of the French army. When we consider the
spread of Grecian culture over the East by the parallel military
triumph of Alexander, or the conquest of Gaul by the Roman armies
under Caesar, we are met by political phenomena and a political
success no more striking than the success of the Revolution. The
Revolution did as much by the sword as ever did Alexander or Caesar,
and as surely compelled one of the great transformations of Europe.
But the fact that the great story can be read to a conclusion of
defeat disturbs the mind of the student.
Again, that element fatal to all accurate study of military
history, the imputation of civilian virtues and motives, enters the
mind of the reader with fatal facility when he studies the
revolutionary wars.
He is tempted to ascribe to the enthusiasm of the troops, nay, to
the political movement itself, a sort of miraculous power. He is
apt to use with regard to the revolutionary victories the word
"inevitable," which, if ever it applies to the reasoned, willing
and conscious action of men, certainly applies least of all to men
when they act as soldiers.
There are three points which we must carefully bear in mind when we
consider the military history of the Revolution.
First, that it succeeded: the Revolution, regarded as the political
motive of its armies, won.
Secondly, that it succeeded through those military aptitudes and
conditions which happened to accompany, but by no means necessarily
accompanied, the strong convictions and the civic enthusiasm of the
time.
Thirdly, that the element of chance, which every wise and prudent
reasoner will very largely admit into all military affairs, worked
in favour of the Revolution in the critical moments of the early
wars.
The reader who could make closer acquaintance with this aspect of Mr.
Belloc's work, and it is an aspect, as has been said, of capital
importance, need only turn to the too few pages of _The French
Revolution_, where he will find ample evidence not only of Mr. Belloc's
understanding of the importance of military history, but of his vast
knowledge of military science; and the same may be said of those little
books Mr. Belloc has published from time to time on some of the
outstanding battles of the past, such as _Blenheim_, _Malplaquet_,
_Waterloo_, _Cressy_ and _Tourcoing_.
It is apparent, then, that Mr. Belloc brings to a task which the mass of
the English public is quite incapable of undertaking for itself peculiar
advantages, in that he has combined with a long and careful study of
military history a thorough technical knowledge of military science.
In addition to this major and essential qualification he possesses, as
the outcome of his pursuits and experience, other minor and subsidiary
though still very necessary qualifications. In this war, as in all wars
of the past, the lie of country and the fatigue of men are two of the
weightiest factors; and Mr. Belloc is enormously assisted in attempting
a nice appreciation of these factors by the knowledge acquired in the
long pursuit of his topographical tastes and by his practical experience
in the ranks of the French army.
On this latter point too much insistence should not be laid, though to
ignore it entirely would be as foolish as to exaggerate its importance.
We may best assess its value, perhaps, by saying that Mr. Belloc has
been in possession for more than twenty years of certain definite
knowledge which the vast majority of Englishmen have only acquired in
the past year. More than twenty years ago he learnt the elementary rules
of military organization and the ordinary facts of army life which are
common knowledge in conscript countries. In England we have remained
ignorant of these facts. Many of us have learnt them for the first time
since August, 1914; many of us, though we have come to a consciousness
of them, will never learn them. In a passage in _A General Sketch of the
European War_, in which Mr. Belloc exposes "the fundamental contrast
between the modern German military temper and the age-long traditions of
the French service," though he brings into play much information that
he has doubtless acquired in more recent years, we can see shining
through, the memory of early experiences.
This contrast [he says] appears in everything, from tactical
details to the largest strategical conception, and from things so
vague and general as the tone of military writings, to things so
particular as the instruction of the conscript in his barrack-room.
The German soldier is taught--or was--that victory was inevitable,
and would be as swift as it would be triumphant; the French soldier
was taught that he had before him a terrible and doubtful ordeal,
one that would be long, one in which he ran a fearful risk of
defeat, and one in which he might, even if victorious, have to wear
down his enemy by the exercise of a most burdensome tenacity.
No useful purpose would be served by entering here into details of the
nature of Mr. Belloc's service in the French army. There occurs,
however, in _The Path to Rome_, a short passage which is too interesting
and too amusing not to quote. Arriving at Toul, Mr. Belloc is reminded
of the manoeuvres of 1891:
For there were two divisions employed in that glorious and
fatiguing great game, and more than a gross of guns--to be accurate
156--and of these one (the sixth piece of the tenth battery of the
eighth--I wonder where you all are now; I suppose I shall not see
you again, but you were the best companions in the world, my
friends) was driven by three drivers, of whom I was the middle one
and the worst, having on my livret the note "Conducteur mediocre."
In _Hills and the Sea_ Mr. Belloc says:
In the French Artillery it is a maxim ... that you should weight
your limber (and, therefore, your horses) with useful things alone;
and as gunners are useful only to fire guns, they are not carried,
save into action or when some great rapidity of movement is
desired.... But on the march we (meaning the French) send the
gunners forward, and not only the gunners, but a reserve of drivers
also. We send them forward an hour or two before the guns start; we
catch them up with the guns on the road; they file up to let us
pass, and commonly salute us by way of formality and ceremony. Then
they come into the town of the halt an hour or two after we have
reached it.
But of far more vital interest is that vast fund of special knowledge
which Mr. Belloc has amassed in the indulgence of his tastes in travel
and topography. Of this knowledge the evidence to be found in Mr.
Belloc's writings is so voluminous and overwhelming that it is as
unnecessary as it is impossible to quote freely here. A detailed
examination of Mr. Belloc's books on travel will be found in another
chapter; if one point more than another needs emphasis here, it is that
Mr. Belloc primarily views all country over which he passes from a
military standpoint. To accompany Mr. Belloc on a motor run through some
part of his own county of Sussex suffices to convince one of this.
Whether tramping along causeways and sidepaths, or speeding over railway
lines, he cannot pass through any considerable stretch of country
without exercising his mind as to the possible advantages that might be
afforded opposing armies by this or that natural formation. It is fair
to say that this question, if we may call it such, has been uppermost in
Mr. Belloc's mind throughout every journey of an extent that he has
undertaken, whether in Southern, Western or Eastern Europe. It would be
false to imagine that the prime motive of all Mr. Belloc's journeys was
to view country purely from the military standpoint, but it is fair to
say that almost the first question Mr. Belloc asks himself when he
strikes a stretch of country with which he is unfamiliar, and the
question he repeatedly and continually asks himself as he traverses that
country, is--"How would the natural formation of this country aid or
hinder a modern army advancing or retreating through it?" That great
stretches of country, notably in France and Belgium, have been visited
by Mr. Belloc, moreover, with the definite object of viewing them from a
purely military standpoint, it is almost unnecessary to state; no reader
who will turn to the pages of _The French Revolution_ or of _Blenheim_
or _Waterloo_, can fail to realize as much for himself. Common sense,
indeed, plays a great part in Mr. Belloc's study of history. He regards
it as virtually essential that a historian who would describe the action
of a great battle of the past should be in a position faithfully to
reconstruct the conditions under which that battle was fought. Mr.
Belloc himself has settled the vexed question of why the Prussians did
not charge at Valmy by visiting the battlefield under the conditions of
the battle and discovering that they could not have charged.
Through the vast store of knowledge acquired in this way Mr. Belloc
enjoys an advantage in his treatment of the present war which cannot be
overestimated. In writing of the country in which the campaigns of
to-day are taking place he is not writing of country as he sees it on
the map. To him that country is not, as to the majority of Englishmen it
is, a conglomeration of patches, some heavily, some lightly shaded, of
larger and smaller dots, joined and intersected by an almost meaningless
maze of thin and thick lines. To him that country is hills and vales,
woods and fields, rivers and swamps, real things he has seen and among
which he has moved. As an example of this we may perhaps give his
description of the line of the Argonne which occurs on page 157 of _The
French Revolution_:
The Argonne is a long, nearly straight range of hills running from
the south northward, a good deal to the west of north.
Their soil is clay, and though the height of the hills is only
three hundred feet above the plain, their escarpment or steep side
is towards the east, whence an invasion may be expected. They are
densely wooded, from five to eight miles broad, the supply of water
in them is bad, in many parts undrinkable; habitation with its
provision for armies and roads extremely rare. It is necessary to
insist upon all these details, because the greater part of civilian
readers find it difficult to understand how formidable an obstacle
so comparatively unimportant feature in the landscape may be to an
army upon the march. It was quite impossible for the guns, the
wagons, and therefore the food and the ammunition of the invading
army, to pass through the forest over the drenched clay land of
that wet autumn save where proper roads existed. These were only to
be found wherever a sort of natural pass negotiated the range.
Three of these passes alone existed, and to this day there is very
little choice in the crossing of these hills.
We may compare with this extract a most remarkable description of
country given by Mr. Belloc in his article on "The Great Offensive" in
the issue of _Land and Water_ of October 2, 1915. Describing the chief
movement in Champagne, he points out that the French advanced on a front
of seventeen and a half miles from the village of Auberive to the market
town of Ville-sur-Tourbe. He continues:
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:
This doctrine of the "Frederician Tradition" does not mean that the
Prussian statesmen wantonly do wrong, whether in acts of cruelty or
in acts of treason and bad faith. What it means is that, wherever
they are met by the dilemma, "Shall I do _this_, which is to the
advantage of my country but opposed to European and common morals,
or _that_, which is consonant with those morals but to the
disadvantage of my country?" they choose the former and not the
latter course.
That this tradition not merely existed but was the paramount influence
in Prussian foreign politics Mr. Belloc had long realized, while, at the
same time, he had been very well aware of the fatuous illusions about
themselves under which the Prussians and a great portion of the
German-speaking peoples labour--illusions which necessarily led the
German national will into conflict with the will of the other European
nations. Proof of the fact that Mr. Belloc had long held this view of
Prussia may be found by any reader of his essays, while a passage which
occurs in _Marie Antoinette_ is especially illuminating:
It is characteristic of the more deplorable forms of insurgence
against civilized morals that they originate either in a race
permanently alien to (though present in) the unity of the Roman
Empire, or in those barbaric provinces which were admitted to the
European scheme after the fall of Rome, and which for the most part
enjoyed but a brief and precarious vision of the Faith between
their tardy conversion and the schism of the sixteenth century.
Prussia was of this latter kind, and with Prussia Frederick. To-day
his successors and their advisers, when they attempt to justify the
man, are compelled still to ignore the European tradition of
honour. But this crime of his, the partition of Poland, the germ of
all that international distrust which has ended in the intolerable
armed strain of our time has another character added to it: a
character which attaches invariably to ill-doing when that
ill-doing is also uncivilized. It was a folly. The same folly
attached to it as has attached to every revolt against the historic
conscience of Europe: such blindnesses can only destroy; they
possess no permanent creative spirit, and the partition of Poland
has remained a peculiar and increasing curse to its promoters in
Prussia....
There is not in Christian history, though it abounds in coincidence
or design, a more striking example of sin suitably rewarded than
the menace which is presented to the Hohenzollerns to-day by the
Polish race. Not even their hereditary disease, which has reached
its climax in the present generation has proved so sure a
chastisement to the lineage of Frederick as have proved the
descendants of those whose country he destroyed. An economic
accident has scattered them throughout the dominions of the
Prussian dynasty; they are a source everywhere of increasing danger
and ill-will. They grow largely in representative power. They
compel the government to abominable barbarities which are already
arousing the mind of Europe. They will in the near future prove the
ruin of that family to which was originally due the partition of
Poland.
To Mr. Belloc, then, holding this view of Prussia, it was obvious that
the conflict of wills between Prussia and the other nations would
inevitably grow so intense as some day to result in war.
Briefly to recapitulate, we may say that Mr. Belloc, in his weekly
commentary in _Land and Water_, has undertaken and carried on since the
beginning of the war a task which the vast majority of the English
public is quite unable to undertake for itself. He was qualified to
undertake that task, and has been enabled to carry it on by the fact
that he has combined with a deep study of military history an exact
knowledge of military science; by the knowledge he has gained from
practical experience of army service; by the wide acquaintance he has
made with the vast stretches of country in the indulgence of his tastes
in travel and topography; by the long and thorough training he has
passed through in the dispassionate examination of evidence; and,
lastly, by the fact that he had long envisaged the possibility of this
war.
With this brief summary we may usefully contrast Mr. Belloc's own
summary of his work already quoted in the early part of this chapter. In
this he says: "My work ... is no more than an attempt to give week by
week, at what I am proud to say is a very great expense of time and
energy, an explanation of what is taking place. There are many men who
could do the same thing. I happen to have specialized upon military
history and problems, and profess now, with a complete set of maps, to
be doing for others what their own occupations forbid them the time and
opportunity to do."