Hilaire Belloc on Manzikert and Western Pacifism

Hilaire Belloc (The Crusades, 1937) warned us seventy years ago about Pacifism in the face of the Islamic barbarism. Read what he said in relation to the antecedents of Manzikert:

"[p.12] During the tenth century, at the end of what was for the West of Europe the Dark Ages (the generations when the Swabian German kings were wrangling for control of the Papacy, and when the Scandinavian pirates came so near to destroying our civilization in northern Gaul and Britain), Imperial Byzantium, the last heir of the Roman Empire, the last island of the ancient culture, passed through a period of military and political resurrection. It owed this to the vigorous character of its Macedonian emperors. These had not only stood up to the pressure of Islam on the eastern borders, they had found it possible to carry the counter-offensive into what had so long been Mohammedan territory. Christendom under their leadership pushed back Islam in spite of the successive waves of Turkish invasion. The Turks would raid into Byzantine territory in Asia Minor, but never came near to establishing a permanent foothold - until one fatal day, the day of Manzikert.

A Byzantine counter-attack upon Mohammedanism even [p.13] reached halfway down the Syrian coast. There was a moment when it threatened Mesopotamia.

But the strenght of this revival in the Christendom of the East, in the Christians of the Greek rite, was sapped by political intrigue at the center. That political intrigue was mixed up with an 'intellectual' disease comparable to the movement called today in Europe by the barbaric names of 'Pacifism', and 'Anti-Militarism.' The coming into power of such politicians as batten upon movements of that kind undermined the whole new strength which the Macedonian Emperors had built up. The last fighting emperor could no longer be certain of proper support in the field against the turk.

They still had admirable recruiting material in what was still the numerous peasantry, and ample finance from what were still the wealthy towns of Asia Minor. Their generals and leaders in the field were drawn mainly from the great landowners of that same Anatolian land which was still the bulwark of Christendom against Islam. But the politician had done his work; the armed power was sapped: a collapse must come and did. The whole situation disastrously changed in one decisive action. At Manzikert, on August 19, 1071, the great-grandson of Seljuk, the Turk, Alp Arslan, struck the fatal blow."

Sounds all-too familiar?