June 19, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
MR. BELLOC'S BOOK ON THE WAR. 
By PROFESSOR SECGOMBE. . 
{Professor of English, U.M.C., Sandhurst.) 
THE present war has at last elicited a tract of English 
prose comparable in many respects to some of the 
books evoked by the great war of a hundred years 
ago. National and racial contrasts, militai-y his- 
tory, topography and road-faring — these are Mr. 
Belloc's subjects; he has not many subjects really, but within 
the range of them he is versatile, his grip is sure, and his 
vision subtle and penetrating. How people do love the im- 
possible ! (Do not the proprietors of our weekly illustrated 
papers thrive on this fact?) They love to think that this 
unique war has produced a miraculous author. Long before 
the war, after a strenuous apprenticeship, Mr. Belloc had 
shown himself one of the greatest masters of English idiom, 
whether in prose or metre, that our country has ever pro- 
duced. Like a well known comedian, whose son one has been 
grieved to notice among the long roll of the wounded, he may 
well say, '" I was quite as good, perhaps better, for years 
before they found me out." 
En\'7, hatred, and all uncharitableness in regard to Sir 
Edward Grey, I more than suspect, precluded one section 
from perceiving what it was specially to their own and to 
the general interest that they should perceive, namely — that 
class int-erest was not going to transcend nationality; and, 
secondly, that some form of service insurance (the only re- 
liable form) was becoming general everywhere. Instead of 
noticing tliis they buried their heads and sought to nourish 
democratic jealousy of the aristocratic talent for war. Some 
of the politicians realised, but failed to communicate, the 
danger. They provoked the Kaiser's risibility by sending 
to Berlin to learn how to organise cur army " a lawyer, a 
man who could not ride." When he got back he had little 
choicebut to acquiesce in the sentiment that the Germans would 
hardly be so unreasonable as to anticipate the next election 
»ud one or two absolutely indispensable domestic alterations. 
To return to Mr. Belloc. In the first part of his book he 
envisages the general or historical causes of the war in a 
manner which will command almost universal assent. He 
interprets Germany's challenge convincingly. The data are 
not new. Well-informed people had them at their fingers' 
ends five years ago. Is it the atmosphere of the island that 
makes us so myopic and retards the action of our historians 
and publicists — cogent only after the event ! Now, here is 
the German brief. " Sad accidents, into which we need not 
ent-er here, retarded our growth to nationhood. France, a 
nation healthier formerly than now, but still of much baser 
etock than our own, has played the leading part in Western 
Europe up to 1815; then came England, a Teutonic country 
really, over-capitalised like France, with her vast oversea 
Empire, possessing a far greater hold over the modern world 
than her real strength warrants. Even the Slavs profited by 
our disunion to generate power and endanger our Culture, 
which, it need hardly be said, is by far the highest Culture 
of all. Fifty years since our statesmen achieved that un- 
realised dream of centuries — German unity — defeating in the 
most fundamental fashion the French whom the rest of 
Europe then conceived to be the chief military power." It 
will do less than justice to the author to continue the brief 
in any but his ov/n words : 
" From that moment [1870] we have incontestably 
stood in the sight of all as the strongest people in the world, 
and yet because other and lesser nations had the start of us, 
our actual International position, our foreign possessions, the 
Becurity that should be due to so supreme an achievement, 
did not correspond to our real strength and abilities. England 
bad vast dependencies, and had staked out the unoccupied 
world as her colonies. France, though decadent, was a 
menace to our peace upon the West. We could have achieved 
the thorough conquest and dismemberment of France at any 
time in the last forty years, and yet during the whole of that 
time France was adding to her foreign possessions, while we 
were obtaining nothing. The barbarous Russians were increas- 
ing con.'itantly in numbers, and somewhat perfecting their in- 
sufficient military machine without any interference from us, 
grave as was the menace from them upon our Ea.stern frontier. 
" It was evident that such a state of things could not 
endure. A nation so united and so immensely strong could 
not remain in a position of artificial inferiority. The whole 
equilibrium of Europe was unstable through this contrast be- 
tween what Germany might be and what the was, and a 
15* 
struggle to make her what she might be from what she wai 
could not be avoided. 
" Germany must, in fulfilment of a duty to herself, 
obtain colonial possessions at the expense of France, obtain 
both colonial possessions and sea-pov/er at the expense of 
England, and put an end by camjjaigns, perhaps defensive, 
but at any rate vigorous, to the menace of Slav barbarism 
upon the East." 
To this luminous challenge England responds :: 
" Unless we are all-powerful at sea our very existence ia 
imperilled (and if we do not stand up to this what will our 
children say and think of us ?) : if you ask whether we will 
allow any part of our colonies or dependencies to become 
German the answer is in the negative." France observes: 
'■ We are by no means convinced as to our decadence, corrup- 
tion, and the rest; but, if you ask will we submit to you as 
masters and leave Alsace at your mercy, the answer is in the 
negative." Russia protests: " We cannot help being nume- 
rically the stronger; we are not projoosing to reduce our- 
selves, thank you ; we are not really so very barbaric, and, 
if you persist in asking us to relinquish the Slav hegemony 
and leave our co-racials and co-religionists in the lurch, the 
answer is in the negative." 
So there is a real antagonism, no doubt. Was an appeal 
feasible to anything m.ighi.ier than the sword ? The lawyer 
and trader States were inclined to say " Yes." But Germany 
said " No," and, in spite of all the peace-pipe-smokers in the 
world, Germany was right. 
The precision of Mr. Belloc in regard to this particular 
war has been proved up to the hilt over and over again. He 
has used the divining rod before in relation to politics and 
other domestic affairs, and his diagnot;tic has nearly always 
been proved sound. La\d axd Water is not the first paper 
of which he has been the weekly oraclo. But he has not 
always used ciiseretion — generally, indeed, preferring valout 
—and he has not foreseen smooth things; and when 
he has disclosed things, they have not always been 
things agreeable for powerful people to hear. It 
is little use telling plain people unpleasant things 
they are not gradually and insensibly prepared to 
hear — -the shock of novelty may easily be too much 
for them. But he would go on anticipating history, as h« 
does in this book, and would never abandon his own stride 
to please either the demagogues or their political paymasters. 
He was, in fact, a prophet without honour, until the out- 
break of the war put such a premium upon information such 
as he (almost alone among laymen who could give expression 
to their knowledge) possessed that he became un hoimne 
nccessairf, an oracle that no man could afford to ignore. He 
has certainly tampered strength with mercy and used hia 
power with moderation. The grasp, the proportion, the 
justesse of his work as a war-guide and chronicler has been 
appreciated at home and abroad, by English and French 
readers. At the time of the fall of Namur he was, perhaps, 
the one un-uniformed man in this country who realised the 
full gravity of the situation. Happily, he never gave way to 
despair; his weekly appreciations have given comfort to 
thousands of half-despairing souls, whereby he has rendered 
a service to this nation that neither of two generations can 
ever possibly forget. 
After giving the immediate occasion of the war — the 
obstacle offered by Serbia to the German policy of the three 
B's (Berlin, Byzantium, Bagdad), the author goes on (pp. 
80-315) to illustrate, upon lines familiar to readers of Land 
AND Watek, the resources of the belligerents and the values 
of the forces opposed. Then in Part III. (316-377), he de- 
scribes the first shock, down to September 5 last. But the 
surprise of the book comes in the last few pages, where, in a 
passage characterised by superb historical vision, de«p con- 
viction, and emotional energy, Mr. Belloc deploys forces that 
only an historian and a prosemaster, who is also a poet, can 
ever dispose of. In this passage he describes not the causes 
or questions in dispute, but the issues fundamentally at stake. 
There ia no room to do justice to the beauty and insight of 
this peroration here and now, but it raises questions of such 
deep import that, with the permission of the editor, I must 
revert to it next week. 
A Generai. Sketch op the Euuoi'EAK Was, The First Ph-i-sCL— 
Bj Bilaire BcHoc Ndson, 6s. 
