n 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,