portunity.

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