BELGIAN NEUTRALITY AND THE INVASION OF BELGIUM.

I.

THE violation of Belgian neutrality has brought forth a luxuriant crop of books, pamphlets, and articles in newspapers and reviews. Some indignantly denounce, others impudently defend the action of the German Government. The commentaries published on the treaties of 19th April 1839 have taught many Belgians who were ill-informed on the point what the permanent neutrality of their country really means. It was not a Heaven-sent blessing graciously poured out on the new State that had built itself up after the rising of the Flemish and Walloon provinces against the House of Orange. In recognizing it as an independent kingdom and granting it the privilege of permanent neutrality, the five Powers who at that time laid down the law to Europe invested it with a special character, as if it had been a creation of their diplomacy. The neutrality of Belgium was indeed to shield her from the grasping designs of her neighbours, but it was also destined to serve the interests of the great Powers by helping to maintain the balance of Europe. Thus the treaties of 1839 repaired the injury that had been done to the work of the Congress of Vienna, when that artificial fabric, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, was destroyed through Belgian efforts.

The assurance that we should enjoy the blessings of peace for an indefinite period carried with it no small obligations towards the guarantors of our neutrality. We could not let ourselves be induced to favour any one of them in particular, either through personal bias or through political considerations. The Belgian signatories to the pacts of 1839 fully realized the duties incumbent upon a perpetually neutral State, and their adhesion made it certain that their successors would always fulfil these duties. All Belgians are convinced that none of their ministers since then has failed to keep the engagements to which his loyal predecessors set their hand.17

More than twenty-five years ago, King Leopold, on the strength of some documents produced by two forgers, Mondion and Nieter, was repeatedly accused by sundry Parisian publicists, whose words carried a certain weight, of having entered into a secret convention with Germany against France. How little these writers knew of our King, and of his real sentiments towards our disconcerting eastern neighbours! Few rulers had a clearer insight than he into the ambitions that they had not yet laid bare. With his marvellous knowledge of men, he had read, as in open book, the erratic and overbearing character of William II. On one of the last occasions that he honoured me with his advice, he warned me to beware, when I went to Germany, of German civilities. As soon as the second King of the Belgians began once more, after a long interval, to visit Paris, the Parisians learnt to know him better; and the charges against his political good faith died down like an untended fire.

Was it impracticable for a Belgian sovereign to conclude a secret military convention? We learnt at the beginning of the present war that such a treaty existed between the King of Roumania and the Emperor of Austria, a treaty directed against Russia, and approved, whenever the time came for its renewal, by the Roumanian Prime Minister, whether Liberal or Conservative. When I was acting as representative of the Belgian Government at Bucharest, the existence of this pact was strenuously confirmed or as strenuously denied by several of my colleagues. The Russian minister, M. de Fonton, refused to believe in it; this was the only point on which he disagreed with his friend and ally, M. ArsÈne Henry, the French envoy. The convention was none the less real for all that, although it did not survive the ordeal of being dragged out from its hiding-place. In signing this futile agreement, King Carol had not overstepped his constitutional rights, as was proved by the counter-signature of the responsible minister. If such freedom of action was allowed to Roumania, why was it denied to Belgium?

The answer is not far to seek. Roumania is not, like Belgium, a neutral State. King Carol could pick and choose his secret allies, according to his political plans or his hereditary instincts; a King of the Belgians cannot. The diplomatic instruments sanctioned by our rulers have always been drawn up in the full light of day. Supposing (although the supposition is an insult to his memory) King Leopold had not wished to observe the 1839 treaties, or King Albert, who is the soul of honour, had been guilty of the same base intention. Neither would have found a minister to countersign a secret convention with France, England, or Germany. It is formally laid down by article 64 of our constitution, that without the signature of a responsible minister, no royal document can be valid. A treaty furnished merely with the royal seal would have been, in Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg’s immortal phrase, nothing more than a scrap of paper.

An underhand compact, when our Government takes counsel, debates, and acts in broad daylight, under the alert control of the Parliamentary opposition and of public opinion! A military convention, framed for the defence of the country, not transgressing indeed (according to the doctrine in vogue) the rights of a neutralized State, but wholly running counter to our deep-rooted belief in the sovereign virtue of our neutrality! A hidden pledge, out of all keeping with the friendly and trustful spirit that guided our relations with each of the guaranteeing Powers! I feel certain that not one of the statesmen who had the honour of succeeding FrÈre-Orban, Malou, Beernaert, our great ministers of the past, would have consented to sign such a covenant.

II.

On two separate occasions during the last two years, British military attachÉs at Brussels have spontaneously approached Belgian officers of the higher ranks, with a view to learning whether we had considered, in the event of a European war, the possibility of an attempt by an advancing German army to force its way through Belgium, and whether our means of resistance were adequate.

In 1906, Lieut.-Colonel Barnardiston had several interviews with General Ducarne, our Chief of Staff, on the subject of co-operation by British troops in the defence of our territory. This was soon after the first alarm, caused by Germany’s browbeating policy over the Moroccan question. The Belgian general had no reason for refusing to enter into these conversations. They were private, strictly confidential, and of great interest from a military point of view; but he had not received a mandate to pursue them in the name of the Royal Government. After they had ended, he wrote out a report and handed it in to his chief, the War Minister. The report contains in the margin a note of cardinal importance, purposely omitted by the German authorities in the text of the document, when they issued a translation last autumn: “The entry of the British into Belgium would take place only after a violation of our neutrality by Germany.”

The Belgian Government was greatly astonished at the initiative taken by the British military attachÉ. It had, however, no power to prevent a foreign officer from expressing his personal views as to the hostile aims of a neighbouring nation whose relations with Belgium were at that time friendly. Still relying on the pledges given in 1839 by the Powers, among them Prussia—which to-day means Germany, the offspring of the Prussian State and heir to its obligations—it determined not to act upon the confidential statements of Lieut.-Colonel Barnardiston. The latter had simply communicated the ideas of the British Staff; his conversations, as he himself realized, could not be deemed binding upon his Government. It will be noticed, by the way, that even at this date the British officers had a very clear conception of Germany’s schemes. The invasion of Belgium was an act of war foreseen in London ten years before the event.

Some years later, in April 1912, another British military attachÉ in Brussels, Lieut.-Colonel Bridges, had an interview on the same topic with General Jungbluth, who was then Chief of our Staff. This step would prove, if proof were needed, that no secret engagement previously existed between Britain and our country. The Englishman, in the course of his informal chat, remarked that during the crisis of 1911 his Government would have landed troops in Belgium even if their aid had not been invoked. This is perfectly in accordance with international law, by virtue of which the guaranteeing State, if it considers intervention to be necessary, must intervene of its own accord, even in the teeth of opposition from the neutral State concerned. This claim, however, was forthwith countered by General Jungbluth with the view that has always been upheld by the Belgian authorities—that the preliminary consent of Belgium is essential. Lieut.-Colonel Bridges did not press the point, and there the matter rested.

The Belgian Government, to whom the Chief of Staff sent a report, did not enjoin him to proceed with the conversations. In 1912, as in 1906, no convention was framed between Belgium and Great Britain nor between Belgium and France, who had not offered us military support for the defence of our neutrality. On the other hand, there was no need for the Belgian Government to inform the Berlin Cabinet of these private interviews. Our two neighbours had quite enough grounds already for picking a quarrel. We preferred not to throw into their midst a fresh element of distrust, a new apple of discord, in the shape of these utterances by foreign military attachÉs, no doubt very anxious to do their duty.

I will add, in passing, a detail that has not yet been made known to the world. In that same year 1912, General Jungbluth was invited to attend the British army manoeuvres, at which, owing to seniority, he would have taken precedence of all the other foreign officers. He thought proper to decline this invitation. He feared that his presence in England would perhaps be interpreted abroad as a sign, slender though it might appear, of an understanding between the Staffs of the two countries. How over-scrupulous such conduct seems to-day!

In the November of 1911 the Belgian Government had forwarded to its minister in Berlin, Count Greindl, particulars of the measures to be taken in the event of a Franco-German war. My predecessor expressed the opinion that one of the prospects to be considered was the entry of British or French troops into Belgium. This was a very natural answer, as coming from an old diplomat who, after fifty years of exceptionally useful service to his country, had acquired not only a wide experience but a certain scepticism as regards the great Powers. He held that they were all equally to be dreaded, whenever their conflicting interests threatened the free existence of the smaller States.

Such are the grievances, sifted and re-sifted a hundred times over, which the German Government has flaunted, in order to vindicate itself, and to make the civilized world believe that Belgium, by her secret agreements with England, had failed in her obligations as a neutral State. The cry of indignation that went up from Europe, and above all from the United States, over the invasion of our country, had aroused certain qualms in the Chancellor and his associates. How could this brutal aggression be justified, especially when the excesses of a frenzied soldiery made the crime still more heinous? Laborious researches into the archives of the Belgian Government offices led to the discovery, among the Staff’s papers, of the Ducarne and Jungbluth reports, besides a copy of Count Greindl’s. An unhoped-for treasure trove! The Norddeutsche Zeitung hastened to acquaint the public with this find, complaining at the same time that Belgium had made a military convention with England without informing Germany, and without proposing a similar pact to the latter Power, as a safeguard against a French or British attack. The organ of the Wilhelmstrasse, unable to supply any evidence of the convention—for the very good reason that it did not exist—took the liberty of garbling the Ducarne report by a mistranslation of one important word. In the phrase “Our conversation is confidential (Notre conversation est confidentielle), “conversation” is rendered Abkommen, which signifies “agreement.” Thanks to this fraud, the credulous German public, always ready to accept blindly anything that bears the Government hall-mark, had no further doubts as to Belgium’s treachery. Teutonic legal experts proceeded to draw up ponderous indictments of our unhappy country. It was not enough to plunder and destroy her; she had to be dishonoured as well.

Worst of all, the Chancellor actually declared to the Reichstag some months later that on the 4th of August he already possessed proofs of our Government’s treason against Germany, before any written evidence came into his hands. Is it credible that, in his speech of 4th August, when any means of lightening his remorse must have been welcome, he should have said no word of his suspicions? Is it conceivable that Herr von Jagow, when I went to ask him for an explanation of the outrage done to Belgium, should not have cast in my teeth the famous proofs of our misdeeds, instead of admitting that our conduct had been unblemished? Once Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg had entered boldly on the track of falsehood, in order to salvage the shipwrecked honour of his country, he soon made remarkable progress. He had the audacity to tell some American pressmen, who had come to Berlin in order to find out the truth about the horrors of this war, that after the first encounters Belgian girls amused themselves by gouging out the eyes of wounded German soldiers.18 Did he fully grasp the infamy of these unsupported charges? All the private honesty of the Hohen-Finow philosopher will not atone for his public calumnies.

There is no need to add that the British Government never intended to violate Belgian neutrality by sending troops to our country, so long as this neutrality was respected by others. This point is brought out clearly in a dispatch, since published, which Sir Edward Grey wrote to the British Minister at Brussels for the information of our Foreign Office.

III.

From the accession of King Albert to the invasion of our territory, Germany’s attitude towards Belgium always seemed friendly. Nevertheless, in the various pronouncements that it had occasion to make concerning its respect for our neutrality, the Imperial Government set itself to lull our suspicions whenever we began to feel uneasy in spite of ourselves, without committing itself to assurances of a very formal nature.

Germany had been one of the first to recognize the annexation of the Congo by Belgium. “What better testimony of her good will could she give?” some may ask. It remains to be seen whether this alacrity was not part of a very deliberate purpose. The Congo, annexed to a weak State, would be a prey far easier to capture later on than if it had been added to the French empire in Africa, on the strength of the pre-emptive right which King Leopold allowed France to retain. Furthermore, should there be a partition of the Free State (a very likely contingency), it was quite on the cards that Belgium, and even France, would be unwilling to saddle themselves with so heavy a burden. In that case Germany might step in, and manage to secure the choicest morsels. It was a clever stroke, therefore, to encourage the colonizing ardour of the Belgian people at the outset, until the time came for damping it and for ending their activities in this direction.

But Leopold II. had left us, together with his African domain, a whole skein of difficulties to unravel in connection with the frontiers of the new colony. When the negotiations skilfully conducted at the opening of the new reign for the fixing of the boundary between the Congo and German East Africa were nearing their end, our young Sovereign wished to give the Emperor a token of his personal feelings and of his sincere wish to keep up good relations with Germany in Africa as well as in Europe. Together with the Queen, he paid him an official visit at the close of 1910. I was in Their Majesties’ suite. Their reception at Potsdam was very cordial and of an almost intimate character, apart from the two customary spring parades, which our Sovereigns attended, and the military banquets that followed. Unfortunately, a slight illness of the Emperor’s robbed this visit of its chief attraction for spectators who, like myself, were eager to note the expression of the Imperial mask.

At the Court dinner the Crown Prince read the speech prepared by his father, and bade the Royal pair welcome. The most salient passages were those alluding to the wedded bliss that a princess of a German house had brought to our King, and recalling the ties of blood between the two families, besides the historical memories that linked the two countries. King Albert, in his reply, above all praised the Emperor as a man of peace, who had devoted his life to securing the welfare of his subjects and the economic advance of Germany. It was thus, under the aspect of a Solomon or a Titus, that he then appeared to the unsuspecting Belgians, and the compliment (of which he must have been weary) was not, we thought, calculated to displease him.

The German Sovereigns did not wait until the following year before returning the visit. They came to Brussels at the end of October, accompanied by their youngest daughter. The presence of the young princess bore further witness to their genuine friendship with King Albert and Queen Elizabeth. William II., both in his official after-dinner speeches and his private conversations, declared himself deeply touched by the welcome that he had received. His heart warmed to the Belgian people, and he was delighted at their successes in the sphere of industry and commerce, as revealed in striking fashion at the Brussels International Exhibition. Jovial, affable, enthusiastic in turn, and constantly breaking into his guttural laugh, he ran up and down the whole gamut of his nature. His hearers were spellbound. How could they have failed to be convinced that the great Emperor in their midst was a benevolent Titan?

Obvious attempts to gain for Germany the favour of the Belgian Court and society, amazement at our prosperity—such were the impressions left upon us by the mobile face and winning smile of our august visitor. Brussels, unused to receiving royal personages, had spared no effort in order to rise to the occasion. When the Emperor, from the balcony of the Town-hall, had feasted his eyes on the incomparable scene of the market-place, he exclaimed to the Empress: “We did not expect anything so beautiful!” While on his way back from a drive to Tervueren on the magnificent road constructed by the late King, he expressed his astonishment at the number of sumptuous villas along the way, and estimated the incomes of their owners. It is rash to parade one’s wealth before a stranger, especially if that stranger happens to be a neighbouring monarch, the head of an army of five million men. Belgium, which William II. had not seen for thirty-two years, must have seemed to him a fair jewel, worthy to be added to his crown.

The Grey Book published by the Belgian Government contains a message from the Chancellor transmitted to our Foreign Office by the German minister in 1911. The Foreign Office had suggested, in the course of the controversy over the Dutch Government’s scheme for fortifying Flushing, a public pronouncement by the German Government on the subject of Belgian neutrality. Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg stated that Germany had no intention of violating it, but that a public pronouncement would weaken her military position as regards France, who, if enlightened on this point, would concentrate all her forces on her eastern frontier. Thus in 1911 the Chancellor, in order to avoid binding himself by a solemn promise, already sheltered himself behind the plea that it would be dangerous to divulge the plan of campaign. On the eve of the war, it will be remembered, Herr von Jagow gave a similar answer to Sir Edward Goschen, when the latter sought to obtain from him a guarantee that our neutrality would be respected by the German troops.

Very vague, too, was the language used by Herr von Kiderlen-WÄchter in 1912. Scarcely had I taken up my post in Berlin before he complained to me about the excitement shown in Belgium during the Agadir crisis. As a mere measure of precaution, we had put our fortresses into a state of defence. “There was no reason,” the Foreign Secretary observed to me, “to fear that Germany would violate your neutrality or that of your Dutch neighbours.” Fine words, but nothing more!

A year later, on April 29, 1913, Herr von Jagow, urged by a Socialist, at a Reichstag Committee, to explain himself on the subject of Belgian neutrality, curtly replied that this question was determined by international agreements, and that Germany would respect those agreements. He obstinately refused to say any more to another Socialist member, who was not satisfied with this summary answer.

It is true that up to the last moment before the dispatch of the ultimatum the German minister and military attachÉ at Brussels endeavoured to tighten the bandage that they had been ordered to place round the eyes of the Belgian authorities. Even on the second of August, both vouched for the friendly intentions of the Imperial Government—that Government which now charges Belgium with duplicity and betrayal.

German military writers, on the other hand, showed no such reticence. That irrepressible spokesman of the war party, General von Bernhardi, in his book which the world loves to quote, since it faithfully confesses the rapacious instincts of the officer caste, scornfully treats the lawyer’s conception of permanent neutrality as a political heresy, and the protection that it affords as a bulwark of paper. With regard to Belgium, he hints that she might well be deemed to have already forfeited her neutral rights by her own act. How so, pray? Through clandestine treaties with Germany’s foes? No. Through becoming a colonial Power. “It may well be asked,” says this Jesuitical soldier, “whether the acquisition of the Congo was not ipso facto a breach of Belgian neutrality; for a neutral State which, at any rate in theory, is secure from all risk of war has no right to enter into political competition with other States.” Bernhardi deliberately ignores the fact that these other States, Germany first of all, recognized the Belgian annexation of the Congo, without any attempt to repudiate the treaties guaranteeing Belgian neutrality. Under the sway of these sophistries, however, the idea of a violation was gaining ground in the German intellectual world. When the Imperial Government passed from theory to practice, it met in Germany with a universal chorus of applause.

IV.

The geographical position of Belgium, devoid as she is of natural frontiers, in itself compelled her to adopt measures of defence: to build fortresses and to maintain an efficient army. The chequered history of the past served to the Belgian people as a warning for the future. Her plains had been the favourite cockpit for the struggles between Bourbon and Hapsburg, the theatre of the first victories of the French Republic, and the grave of the Napoleonic Empire. By a miracle, our country was saved from all peril in 1870, through the sacrifice of a French army, which chose to surrender at Sedan rather than seek refuge in neutral territory. The prospect of another war, which loomed large before us even during the most quiet hours of the last few decades, made it an imperative duty for our rulers to take far-reaching military precautions.

A no less cogent reason was the upholding of our neutrality. A neutral State, if attacked, is bound to defend itself. It owes this to its guarantors, in order to preserve that balance of interests which in their eyes is the motive that justifies its existence. In other words, a neutrality that cannot defend itself is nothing but a diplomatic fiction.

Our various ministries, Catholic or Liberal, have had this obligation impressed upon them, each in its turn. The progress of armaments (if the word “progress” can be applied to the monstrous development of these engines of destruction) has loaded the Belgians, in the same way as their neighbours, with an ever-growing mass of military burdens. A defensive system that seemed adequate in 1870 was no longer adequate ten years later, owing to the increase in the number of combatants and the power and range of artillery, both in France and Germany. To Antwerp, a fortress and an entrenched camp—our only real stronghold, called by us “the keep of our castle”—must be added the forts of LiÈge and Namur, intended to block up the valley of the Meuse. Experts agreed in pointing to this as the natural route for an army seeking to pierce into France from Germany, or vice versa, without coming into collision with the defensive works erected on both sides of the Vosges. The forts with steel cupolas at LiÈge and Namur, devised by our great military engineer Brialmont, were for a time considered the most finished product of the art of fortification. After exhaustive debates lasting for two years, the Belgian Parliament resolved in 1906 to devote a sum of £2,520,000 to reconstructing the defences of Antwerp, which were of an obsolete type. Fifteen new forts were built on both banks of the Scheldt, besides twelve redoubts, and the expenditure did not stop at the above estimate.

The Belgian army remained until 1909 on a peace footing of 100,000 men. It was recruited both by voluntary methods and by a system of conscription which allowed the providing of substitutes, an antiquated and undemocratic principle. This figure was obviously too low for a serviceable field army and garrison force, two indispensable factors in our defence. Among the bulk of the population, however, feeling was opposed to the introduction of compulsory service. This was not due to a distaste for the profession of arms—the Belgian has always been a first-rate soldier—but from an aversion to barrack life and a dread of the promiscuities that it entails. Moreover, among many of our people, the belief in the inviolability granted to us by the 1839 treaties was still as firmly rooted as though it had been an article of faith. Their attention, as enterprising traders and manufacturers, did not go beyond the restricted area of their business. The political entanglements that succeeded each other from year to year could not shake their robust optimism, which looked upon military sacrifices as useless.

Happily, the perils with which Belgium was beset did not escape the vigilant eye of our Sovereigns. Leopold II. was not only the brilliant creator of the Congo State, the prime mover in Belgium’s economic expansion, an expansion that, relatively speaking, is no less noteworthy than that of the German nation; he was also a great patriot. As such, he never let slip any single opportunity in public life of admonishing the Belgians to do all that was needed for the strengthening, first of their defensive resources, and then of their field army. Fortunately, his appeals did not go unheard, and a considerable advance was made on the day that the Schollaert Cabinet passed the measure enacting that one son in every family must undergo military training, the first step towards a general system of compulsory service. When the Prime Minister brought the act to be signed, the old King was on his deathbed. With a failing hand he wrote his name, then sank back into his last sleep, conscious of having fulfilled his duty to his country.

His successor applied himself with the same patriotic zeal to carrying out the same task. He had already vowed to bring it to completion. There is no topic on which the native eloquence of King Albert was heard to better advantage than that of making the army fit to meet the responsibilities that it would one day incur. The events of 1911 and 1912 showed, even to those who had tried the hardest to shut their eyes, how unerring was the insight of our Sovereign. Many statesmen whose brains had been clouded by the visions of a too lofty idealism now saw the error of their ways, and realized that the abolition of war was as yet an idle dream. The bill introducing universal service was passed in May 1913. M. de Broqueville, who had supported it with consummate skill before the Chamber, had the notable honour of inscribing his name underneath the King’s own on one of the most striking pages of Belgium’s internal history.

It was thus fifteen months before the German invasion that this much-needed law secured a majority of votes in the Belgian Parliament. It stands to reason that, if we had wanted to sign a secret pact with England and France some years earlier, their Governments would have insisted, before all things, on the strengthening of our inadequate army. The new bill was to furnish an annual contingent of from 33,000 to 35,000 men, and we could look forward to a total of 340,000 combatants, excluding a variable number of volunteers, as soon as the system was in full working order. The anticipated effectives, however, would not be obtained until 1925. In 1914, at the moment of taking the field, the Belgian army had some 226,000 men, together with 4,500 officers and 4,170 military police, wherewith to stem the tide of invasion.

The introduction of universal service in Belgium was not looked upon with favour in Germany. As a matter of fact, the Emperor ought to have been delighted. During his visit to Switzerland in the previous autumn, he had complained of the exposed state of his north-western frontier, as contrasted with the solid rampart provided in the south by the excellent troops of the Swiss Confederation. The German newspapers spoke of our military reforms without any malicious comments, but the same cannot be said of the German officer class. I was able to gather this from the remarks made to me by Baron von Zedlitz, colonel of a dragoon regiment of the Guards, and grandson, on his mother’s side, of a former Belgian minister at Berlin. No doubt the Belgian sympathies that he had inherited from his mother moved him to unbosom himself to me one day. “What is the good,” he said, “of enlarging the number of your troops? With the small number that you had before, you surely never dreamt of barring the way to us in a Franco-German war. The increase of your effectives might inspire you with the idea of resisting us. If a single shot were fired on us, Heaven knows what would become of Belgium!” This was the language of a friend, but not of a soldier. I answered the colonel that we should be rated still lower than at present, if we were craven enough not to defend ourselves, and that our guns would be ready to meet the invader, whoever he might be. I had occasion to repeat this phrase several times to other Germans. They listened with smiles, but they did not believe me.

V.

The passage of the belligerents through Belgium was a favourite theme with all writers, French, German, English, Dutch, and Belgian, who handled, more or less competently, the problem of the coming war. Some of Germany’s preparations for invading her neighbours could not be hidden, and these naturally gave a fillip to the discussion of various moot points. As early as 1911, ten railway lines, both single and double, ran from the Eifel region to the Belgian frontier or the Duchy of Luxemburg. Four others were under construction, and yet another four were projected. Most of these lines were quite needless for purposes of traffic, and their aim was purely strategic. Stations with full plant and special platforms for the arrival and departure of troops had been built with that methodical thoroughness for which the Germans are famous. An enormous concentration camp, with a range for artillery practice, had been established at Elsenborn, near MalmÉdy, a stone’s throw from our frontier. Which route would be chosen by the oncoming host?

Some critics pronounced for the passage by the gap of the Meuse, along both banks of that river. As the German army had the advantage of a more speedy mobilization, it was generally credited with the design of taking the offensive in this region of Belgian territory. So far, we had no cause for doubting that our fortresses were impregnable, still less that they were capable of resisting. The progress of ballistics in Germany and Austria, the terrible results gained by unremitting toil in the workshops of Krupp and Skoda, were still unknown to the outside world. No one suspected the existence of German 17-inch and Austrian 12-inch mortars, which would shatter a fort of concrete and steel in a few hours under a fire of projectiles weighing nearly a ton.

Other writers limited the German march to the right bank of the Meuse, across Belgian Luxemburg, despite the scarcity of roads and the obstacles that the broken nature of the country would offer to a rapid onset. Luxemburg, an outlying spur of our territory in the Ardennes district, seemed impossible for a Belgian force to defend. The force in question would have been too far distant from the base of operations.

Some military prophets, such as General DÉjardin in Belgium and General Maitrot in France, made a very shrewd conjecture. They held that the enemy would operate mainly in great masses on the left bank of the Meuse, where he would have ample room for deploying.

In point of fact, however, the plan of the German Staff had not been fathomed in all its bearings. Among those who could speak with authority, the greater number imagined that only a part—the right wing—of the army directed against France would pass through Belgium. They had not guessed the bold manoeuvre, the tremendous developments, that we have seen carried out: to leave a “curtain”19 of troops along the Vosges line, and with three-fourths of the army to cross the Meuse at several points, from VisÉ right down to Dinant; to take LiÈge and Namur by storm, if necessary; to march on Brussels, sweeping aside the Belgian army if it should try to withstand the advance; and from there to turn off southwards by the various routes that lead to Paris. The whole north-western section of France was unprovided with defences, excepting the fortress of Maubeuge. Once the plains of Belgium had been traversed, the road to Paris would be open.

The reader must picture to himself, not a stream or a torrent, but a veritable sea of men, inundating our country from Holland to Luxemburg, a million and a half to two million soldiers! The defensive plans of Germany’s opponents had not allowed for the inrush of such an avalanche through Belgium. At the outset of the war, according to an official Note issued by the Republican Government, the whole of the French forces were disposed over against the German border, from Belfort to the Belgian frontier.

The first condition of success for so daring an offensive was secrecy. The secret was well kept. The high German command did all it could to throw foreign military attachÉs off the trail and to encourage them in false notions. Among their various methods of hoodwinking the stranger, we may probably include the way in which the permanent stations of the twenty-five army corps were distributed. The map showed us ten of them massed together in Alsace-Lorraine, the Palatinate, and the Grand Duchy of Baden, as if ready to hurl themselves on France from that quarter. Along the Belgian and Dutch frontiers only one corps was stationed, and its command lived a long way off, at Coblentz. With so meagre a contingent, the chances of an attempt to enter Belgium seemed remote indeed. Yet the corps of Westphalia, of Hanover, of Holstein even, could be brought up to the western frontier in a very short time by the numerous railway lines. It was the two former, with that of Coblentz, that crossed the Meuse and attacked LiÈge, under General von Emmich, Commandant at Hanover, a leader of high repute. Assuredly the Staff did not await the order for a general mobilization before concentrating this vanguard at Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle.

VI.

From the first days of the Austro-Serbian dispute, the Belgian Government was on the watch. It did not shrink from taking the precautionary steps required in a country that Nature has left unsheltered. On 29th July, the Belgian army was put on the maximum peace footing. Two days later there was a general mobilization, and 180,000 men were called to the colours. Thanks to these prompt measures, the storm did not take us off our guard, although it came at such short notice.

The Brussels Cabinet, however, did not know, any more than I did, of the bargaining which the German Government had attempted during the last days of the crisis in order to wrest from England a promise that she would remain neutral. First it was France’s turn to be chaffered over; then came Belgium. Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, in his interview of 29th July with Sir Edward Goschen, had confined himself to stating that our country would suffer no loss of territory, provided it did not take sides against Germany. He gave no guarantee as to our independence. This engagement would be enough, he fancied, to make the English, who were reluctant to face the hazards of a Continental war, maintain the rÔle of impartial onlookers, since they would not have to fear either the dismemberment of France or the disappearance of the little Belgian kingdom. Nevertheless, on the morning of 4th August, when the Chancellor learnt that Belgium was girding herself for a vigorous resistance, he grasped the necessity for calming London’s excitement by a notable advance on his former bid. He telegraphed to the German ambassador, ordering him to tell Sir Edward Grey as soon as possible that under no pretence whatever would Germany annex Belgian territory. On the afternoon of the same day, growing uneasy at England’s silence, he repeated to the Reichstag, with an addition, the guarantee he had proffered to Sir Edward Grey: “So long as Great Britain remains neutral, we shall respect the integrity and independence of Belgium.”

It was too late. An irretrievable blunder had been committed on the evening of 2nd August: namely, the dispatch of a highly confidential Note, the most brutal of ultimatums, to the Belgian Foreign Minister. Not a word was said in this document of the 1839 treaties or of Belgian neutrality, beyond a vague hint that France was about to make use of Belgian territory in her advance against Germany, a proceeding that compelled the latter to come to our aid. Then various baits are held out to Belgium, if she will desert her trust as a neutral. By a diplomatic euphemism, the cowardly act demanded of her is cloaked under the name of “benevolent neutrality.” The integrity and independence of the kingdom will be respected to the full (nothing is said explicitly about the Congo), her territory will be evacuated after the conclusion of peace, the German troops will pay cash down for all that they require, and an indemnity will be granted for any damage that they may cause. The sting is in the tail; the threats are reserved for the end. If any armed resistance is offered, if any obstacles are placed in the way of the German march, if any roads, railways, or works of art are destroyed, Belgium will be treated as an enemy. This one word is enough to reveal the doom that will be meted out to her.

These offers and menaces, following on the shock of the ultimatum, were cunningly devised to tame our spirit still further. All had been thought out: the suddenness of the blow, after the plausible assurances of the German minister at Brussels had quieted all tremors; the interval of only twelve hours for a reply; nay, the very moment chosen for sending the Note, seven o’clock in the evening. Night that brings reflection, night with its unnerving darkness, would no doubt work upon the minds of the hapless victims, forced to choose between suicide and dishonour. Yet the German calculations were foiled. At the King’s Council, hastily summoned to the royal palace, there was no sign of giving way. The ministers present, from within and without the Cabinet, had shown all due regard for our eastern neighbour, and till then had firmly believed in the honesty of his intentions. The more cruel their disillusion, the more bitter their wrath must have been against the trickster who could lightly break the most solemn pledges. The King, with an unflinching resolve to do his full duty, first called upon the military members to set forth all the possibilities of defence. They were to speak the plain truth, without minimizing the fearful odds that our army had to face. When the Staff had told its tale, the same thrill of heroism swept the whole Council off its feet, even as on the next day it was to seize the whole Parliament and nation. Before the meeting dispersed, the reply to the German Note, of which a rough draft had already been made out by the Foreign Office, was drawn up and approved. On the following day, before the interval had expired, it was handed to the German minister. That was all. The absorbing drama, played within the space of a few brief hours, was over.

The style of the Royal Government’s answer, which no Belgian can read without tears of patriotic pride, is as noble and dignified—I cannot think that any one will refute this—as that of the German document is false and constrained. In a few words it brushes aside the pretexts fabricated by the Berlin Cabinet. It scorns to utter any useless complaint. It tries no subterfuge, no diplomatic shift that may leave it a loophole for revoking its words. It goes straight to the point. After declaring Belgium’s unswerving loyalty to her international obligations in the past, it proudly announces that her Government has chosen, without faltering for a moment, the path of duty and honour. “The Belgian Government, by accepting the proposals put before it, would not only sacrifice its own honour, but would betray its duty towards Europe. It is determined to repel any assault upon its rights by every means in its power.”

What will King Albert do? He knows Germany too well not to feel certain that the rejection of her demands will be followed by an instant swoop of her formidable army. Three days before, our Sovereign had written a personal letter to William II. Since the Emperor had professed to be his friend, he took the liberty of asserting Belgium’s right to see her neutrality respected. This appeal failed to move the stony heart of the Kaiser. On 3rd August, King Albert turned to the King of England. He telegraphed to him, not to utter an urgent call for his military support—as might have been expected, with the storm drawing nearer every moment—but to ask for his diplomatic intervention. Is not this a conclusive proof that Belgium had not sought by any secret alliance to screen herself in England’s arms from the attacks of the German colossus?

The envoy of the French Republic, who was fully posted up in the course of events, hastened of his own accord to offer French aid. Our Foreign Minister answered with thanks, but refused all succour for the time being: the Belgian Government, he said, would consider later on what should be done in the matter. Not till the evening of the next day, when every fleeting hour was of crucial importance, and after he had learnt of the invader’s entry into Belgium that morning—not till the deed was done, did he apply, with admirable coolness, to England, France, and Russia for help in the defence of our territory. Such scrupulous adherence to the hard-and-fast rules laid down in treaties, such faithfulness to a plighted oath when in the very jaws of death, would surely be hard to parallel.

VII.

I learnt on 2nd August, from our military attachÉ (who had the news from an officer of the Emperor’s household), that the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg had been occupied. The route followed by the German army left me no doubt as to the coming invasion of Belgian Luxemburg, and I telegraphed this pessimistic forecast to my Government. Yet I had not gauged the full measure of the disaster that was about to overtake my country. It was on the evening of Monday, 3rd August, that I received the official telegram informing me of the German ultimatum and of our reply. At first I was dumbfounded; then came a fierce glow of indignation. I tried my utmost to betray no sign of this to my young secretaries, in order that their sorrow and their anger might not be needlessly increased. After urging them to be calm and collected, I spent a part of the night in reflecting on the questions that I would put to the Foreign Secretary at the earliest opportunity. I felt it my bounden duty to go to him and insist upon a downright explanation of the nameless act perpetrated by the German Government.

The readiness with which Herr von Jagow let me know that he hoped to see me at the Foreign Office on Tuesday morning proved that he was no less impatient than I to have this decisive interview. When I arrived, at nine o’clock, the old building was still almost empty, but the Foreign Secretary was already at work in his room. I will not give here a full report of our conversation; it has already been published in that crushing indictment of Germany by my fellow-countryman, M. Waxweiler: La Belgique neutre et loyale.

Before many words had passed between us, I saw that we were speaking two different languages, and that neither could understand the other’s tongue. I invoked Belgium’s honour, the honour that is no less sacred to a nation than to an individual; her obligations as a neutral, her past conduct, always thoroughly loyal towards Germany (this the Secretary of State ungrudgingly admitted), and her inability to answer the Imperial Government’s proposal in any other way than she had answered it already. He could not help acknowledging this, but he did so with an effort for the most part, and merely in his private capacity, refusing, by a subtle distinction, to compromise himself as an official.

He replied with cynical arguments, which seemed to him unimpeachable: that it was a question of life and death to Germany; that she was compelled to advance through Belgium in order to overpower France as speedily as possible; that the French frontier south of Belgium, with its chain of strong fortresses, was difficult to pierce. He repeated the Chancellor’s guarantee that my country’s independence would be respected and that an indemnity would be paid her. I fancy that he was reciting, word for word, a lesson drilled into him by the Chief of Staff. To these strategic reasons and these alluring promises he added an expression of regret on behalf of himself, his Emperor, and his Government, that they should have been driven to this extremity. When I announced my intention of leaving Berlin and of demanding my passports, he remonstrated: he did not want to break off relations with me! What had he expected from this interview, and what did he expect now?

As I withdrew, I shot the Parthian arrow that I had kept in reserve: the violation of Belgian neutrality would mean for Germany a war with England. Herr von Jagow had been speaking with emotion, in an earnest tone, which he tried to make persuasive; but at this he merely shrugged his shoulders. My shaft—telum imbelle, sine ictu—was blunted by my opponent’s armour of resolution or indifference.

During the afternoon the Emperor’s speech in the Reichstag exhorted the nation’s delegates to help in carrying to a triumphant issue this war that had been forced upon Germany! William II. said nothing about the violation of Belgium, but called down upon his arms the blessing of the Most High, his wonted confidant. The next speaker was the Chancellor. More honest than he has been since then, he unhesitatingly confessed the wrong that had been done to Belgium, and promised to make amends so soon as the military aim should have been attained.

I had not been at fault, however, in predicting to Herr von Jagow a war with England, one of the guarantors of our neutrality. That same evening I dined alone at the Kaiserhof, a prey, as may be imagined, to the gloomiest forebodings. As I left the restaurant, a handful of papers was flung to me from a Berliner Tageblatt motor car. Marvelling at the swift fulfilment of my prophecy, I read that Great Britain had declared war on Germany, and that her Ambassador, a few hours earlier, had handed in an ultimatum to the Imperial Government. I at once bethought myself of rushing to the British Embassy, in order to obtain some further details of this wonderful news. Was it thus that Heaven answered the appeals of her favourite?

Round about that part of the Wilhelmstrasse in which the British Embassy is situated a large crowd had forgathered. Respectably dressed citizens of both sexes were bellowing out, with frantic enthusiasm, their best-loved hymn, Deutschland Über alles. The national anthem was succeeded by a volley of catcalls, after which came a shower of missiles—brickbats and lumps of coal, for no stones are to be found in the asphalt roadways of Berlin. The ground-floor windows of the Embassy were shivered to atoms, the two policemen posted on either side of the door making no attempt to interfere. I had seen and heard enough. As I was wending my way homewards, a gleam of hope stole into my heart amid all its grief and anguish. I saw a terrible face rising above the blood-red horizon—the face of the British Nemesis.

The invasion of Belgium was a blunder, both political and military. Political, because England—who no doubt would inevitably have come to take her stand by France, but not at the very opening of hostilities—was moved forthwith to intervene; military, because the heroic and unexpected resistance of the Belgian army frustrated the rapid march on Paris—in other words, wrecked the initial plan of the German Staff.

The Imperial Government did not anticipate that we should show fight. Our hearts would fail us, they thought, at the mere approach of that redoubtable monster, the gigantic German army. A proof of this is the first attack on LiÈge. It was made by three corps without a siege-train for reducing the forts. They imagined that every gate would open before them; that they would enter with banners flying and drums beating, and be received as conquering heroes, almost as friends.

As soon as this illusion was dispelled the Germans hastened to attack the forts. They tried to take them by storm, and left 36,000 dead on the field. When LiÈge was at last captured, they lost ten days in getting into proper trim again, before they resumed their forward march, this time fully provided with artillery. This forced respite affected the first issue of the campaign. The Staff, without taking the Belgian army into account, had mapped out beforehand all the opening stages—LiÈge, Namur, Mons, Charleroi, and so on, down to the Kaiser’s entry into Paris.

If our opponents went so far astray in their estimate of our fighting spirit, they must lay the blame on their diplomats and their military attachÉs, their journalists and their spies. The last German ministers at Brussels had certainly been of the same school as Herr von Jagow. They took no interest in the psychology of the Belgian people, and their contempt for the little country where they were received with open arms was only equalled, I should say, by their eagerness to leave its capital as soon as possible, since in their ambition they looked upon it as the mere stepping-stone to an Embassy. But what of their military attachÉs? Could they see in our soldiers nothing but marionettes of the parade-ground, and in our officers nothing but champion riders at army competitions? Stranger still was the lack of insight shown by the correspondents of German newspapers. They carefully noted the most trivial details of our public life, but their judgment of us was blinded by prejudice, and by the arrogance of a great nation which itself has only achieved unity at a recent date. They regarded Belgium as a mere geographical expression—the home of two hostile races, yoked together in spite of themselves, and determined never to fuse. The quarrels of Flemings and Walloons were depicted in their articles as the outcome of an implacable hatred, and the conflict of political parties as a war to the knife, for they only wished to see how far Germany could make capital out of this cleavage. But the love that all Belgians have for their freedom escaped the notice of these observers settled in our midst. They carefully dissected our national body, without discovering the national soul. Never had the Belgians seemed more divided than in the period preceding the war. Never were they in reality more united in a like devotion to their common country.

What should we have gained by yielding to the German threats? What confidence could we have in the promises of a Government that shamelessly tore up a solemn treaty in order to gain easier access to the country of its foe?

Had the Germans come into Belgium as friends and won the war, they would never have left our land after their victory. If any one is inclined to question this, let him consider the outburst of greed aroused in Germany by the invasion of Belgium. Intellectuals equipped with sham historical claims, manufacturers envious of our industrial successes, traders lusting to capture our markets, join hands to-day with the Socialists (who are no less infatuated than they with the ideal of a Greater Germany) in order to demand our annexation. The Berlin Cabinet would have resolved to break its word once more, and pretexts would not have been wanting—the need of seizing the whole North Sea coast, as a naval base against England; the strategical and commercial importance of Antwerp; perhaps, too, the inevitable wrangles between the Belgian authorities and the German officials who would have presided over the occupation of a part of the country. To what lengths, by the way, would this occupation not have gone? On what nook or corner of our soil should we still have been allowed to plant our national flag?

Perhaps (this is the best we could have hoped for) the Germans would have asked us, in a wheedling tone, yet leaving no room for refusal, to become members of the Germanic Confederation. At first a customs union, a Zollverein, before complete incorporation—the right of admission to the Holy Empire—had been decreed by our future CÆsar, on the advice of the Federal Council and in accordance with the progress of our Germanization. They would not have waited for this glorious day in order to control and regulate the output of our factories and our coal-mines, affiliating the workers to the German trade unions; to organize the activities of Antwerp, without injuring those of the German ports, and to restrict its commercial hinterland; to watch over our daily life, prohibit all displays of national feeling, instil German discipline into our army, and make our statesmen and our diplomats their submissive thralls. We should have been at once relieved of the Congo, too heavy a burden for our shoulders. We should have been compelled to learn German as a third language, soon to become the official tongue. Many a time, while reading in our newspapers the wretched controversies caused by the rivalry between our two languages, I have had occasion to say to the young men on my staff: “They don’t seem to realize in Belgium the danger of our seeing German one day become the language of instruction at Ghent university.”

If we had become attached to their Empire in this way—a process that every German would have regarded as an honour for us, the reward of our friendly neutrality—the outward form of our Government would have run little risk of being changed. William II., following the example of Bismarck, is not the man to overturn a throne without good reason. He will always prefer to bind other princes to himself by the strong chains of vassalage.

The same doom awaited Holland, although Herr von Jagow, shortly before the German ultimatum was sent to Brussels, had taken care to assure the Dutch minister that the neutrality of his country would be respected. Was not Holland in the Middle Ages one of the jewels of the Germanic Imperial crown? With her shores washed by the North Sea, and the estuary of the Rhine flowing through her midst, did she not command the course of Germany’s greatest river? According to the view of the Chancellor, as set forth in his telegram of 4th August to Prince Lichnowsky, would not an annexation of Belgium by force or guile involve similar treatment of the Orange Kingdom? The conversation in which Herr Zimmermann clumsily dangled before the eyes of the Dutch Socialist Troelstra an invitation to Holland to enter the Zollverein after the war gave our Dutch friends a glimpse of Germany’s designs on their country. The King of Bavaria took it upon himself to give them another glimpse, when he declared, with the blunt frankness of a peasant from his own highlands, that the Germans needed the whole course of the Rhine down to the sea. This would imply occupying the mouth of the Meuse and the estuary of the Scheldt. Denmark, again, possesses one of the keys to the Baltic; can she forget, after the bitter experience she has had, the voracious appetite of her dread neighbour?

This picture, by no means overdrawn, of the blessings in store for us after a German triumph, must prove to my fellow-citizens that, in order to escape them, our King and Government took the only path open to them in an agonizing Calvary—the path of honour. There was nothing for it but to defend our freedom, sword in hand, at the price of the nation’s best blood—a freedom that the Germans, after defeating France, would have withheld from us all the more scornfully if we had been weak enough to listen to them and cowardly enough to obey them.

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