Hilaire Belloc

He returned to England and was educated at the Oratory School Birmingham, under Cardinal Newman, and later at Balliol College, Oxford, but before Balliol he went back to France to honour what he saw as an obligation to do his military service there, though he was not legally required to. His experience in the artillery influenced him strongly and, like another of his great loves, the sea, never seems far from his mind in his writings.

At Oxford, Belloc was famed both for brilliance in debate and high energy. He became President of the Oxford Union, but, probably because of his decided, and not always, fashionable views, failed to be elected a don after graduating, and this remained a permanent disappointment and a grievance for him. His first book was a small volume of verse, published in 1896, and from then on a torrent of books, pamphlets, letters etc. poured from his pen. It astonishes, not only in its bulk but in its diversity; French and British history, military strategy, satire, comic and serious verse, literary criticism, topography and travel, translations, religious, social and political commentary, long-running controversies with such opponents as H.G. wells and Dr. G.G. Coulton, and hundreds of essays, fill over one hundred and fifty volumes. It is little wonder that A.P. Herbert described him as "the man who wrote a library".

In 1905 he stood for Parliament in the Liberal interest for a seat, South Salford, which had never returned a Liberal. His chances seemed minimal, the more so because of his Catholicism for the electors were solidly non- conformist, and his agent warned him at all costs to avoid any mention of religion.

At his first meeting, however, Belloc announced his faith, held up his rosary, and told the audience that as far as possible he attended the Sacrifice of the Mass daily. The good people of Salford not only elected him but at the next election, when he stood as an Independent, they elected him again. Soon, however, thoroughly disillusioned with the Party system, he left the House of Commons for ever.

During the 1914-18 war he added greatly to his already huge work-load by his immensely detailed and authoritative war commentaries, each week filling much of the journal Land and Water which was dedicated to news of the war. The Times paid high tribute to Belloc's amazing powers in the field, drawing attention to his article in London Magazine, over 2 and a half years before the start of the war "in which he predicted, with the most extraordinary accuracy, the proceedings of the Germans at Liege as they have happened at the opening of the present war". The Times described this as "one of the most astonishingly accurate prophecies of a great war in the history of journalism."

In that war, Belloc lost his son, Louis; then another son, Peter, died on active service in the war of 1939-46, so Belloc would certainly have recalled the saying of Herodotus that "In peace sons bury their fathers; in war fathers bury their sons". It was after that third great loss in 1940 (his wife, Elodie, had died in 1910) that his health began to fail. He suffered a stroke, and although he lived until 1953, wrote virtually no more.

Both during his lifetime and since, Belloc's refusal to tone down his views, and his contempt for the political, literary and social establishments of the day, militated against recognition of him as a major writer and thinker. Nor was he helped by the range of his work; critics like to pigeon-hole a writer as poet, historian, playwright, or novelist, and they could not cope with his diversity, huge output, and his overwhelming ebullience. They resented him. even today, that fear and resentment is to be seen in the dismissive little articles and reviews, but slowly the truth is emerging that Hilaire Belloc is among the great writers of English prose and that the best of his verse is of equally high quality. More importantly, he was a thinker of power, significance and - how rare these days - integrity. Where are the people today who would sacrifice the material rewards of public life and office as did Belloc when he demanded, in Parliament in 1908 and repeatedly thereafter, that the funds of political parties should be subject to audit?

Hilaire Belloc was a big, turbulent and complicated man, and no subject for hagiography. There can be valid and constructive criticisms of his work, and our aim is merely to lessen some of the inherited and uninformed prejudice so as to secure for him a calm and fair hearing.

( An unsigned biographical essay, courtesy of the Alliance of Literary Societies.)