Belloc and the Oecuphobes

I was looking up books by Hilaire Belloc on the web, and by chance came across this Wikipedia entry. This paragraph is from a section subtitled ‘On Islam’. The quote is from Mr. Belloc, and the italicized lines are from the anonymous editor.

Belloc’s 1937 book The Crusades: the World’s Debate made no pretence at being impartial. He wrote,

Our fathers all but re-established the spiritual mastery of Europe over the East; all but recovered the patrimony of Rome… Western warriors, two thousand miles and more from home, have struck root and might feel they have permanently grasped the vital belt of the Orient. All seaboard Syria was theirs and nearly the whole of that “bridge”, a narrow band pressed in between the desert and the sea, the all-important central link joining the Moslem East to the Moslem West … Should the link be broken for good by Christian mastery of Syria, all Islam was cut in two and would bleed to death of the wound.

In his [Belloc’s] view, had the Crusaders captured Damascus, the Islamic World would have been cut in two and “bled to death of the wound”—which, in Belloc’s explicitly stated view, would have been a highly desirable and positive outcome.

My comment: please note the fine craftsmanship with which the anonymous editor manages to maintain the pretense of objectivity while conveying a condescending sneer to Mr. Belloc.

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