Brussels to-day is rent by conflicting emotions. Frenzied rage, poignant anxiety, and boiling excitement are struggling not so much for mastery as for satisfactory expression. The news of the forthcoming occupation of Antwerp by a British Army Corps has not been received here with expressions of unmixed satisfaction. The very fact that the negotiations were kept wholly secret, with the result that the announcement of so important a decision first reached us through the public report of the debate in the House of Commons, has, whether justly or otherwise matters not, set a vast number of well meaning people by the ears. When the news reached Brussels yesterday it produced an extravagant sensation which grew as the night advanced. By tacit consent people refused to go to bed—clubs and cafÉs were kept open till morning, and all through the principal thoroughfares the noise of heated discussions might be heard in full blast round the tables outside the cafÉs and at every street corner. A large section of the population, in which ranked many of the better classes, were greatly incensed against the King’s Government. ‘It is not astonishing,’ they said, ‘that the measure was kept secret; otherwise the people would never have permitted so infamous a traffic!’ All the old arguments of 1859 and the half dozen succeeding years were revived, and in every group of angry disputants the name of Adelson Castiau continually recurrent, was flung passionately on the night with every varied accent of which the human voice is capable. ‘Il l’a bien dit, Castiau. He knew, he foresaw what must happen, and idiots that we were, we would not listen.’ This was the prevailing cry.

It must be explained that M. Adelson Castiau—who is just at present given posthumous rank as a hero and patriot—was an eminent lawyer and ex-deputy, who, from the first, vehemently opposed the fortification of Antwerp. From the day when in 1859 a committee of twenty-seven officers were appointed to discuss the subject until the completion of the immense work some six years later, M. Castiau waged war against the scheme. He spoke, wrote, organised committees, and headed deputations protesting against the plan. His argument was that, from a military point of view, the project involved in principle the abandonment of the country and a shameful flight by the army towards the ‘Polders de l’Escaut,’ where certainly no one would ever come to molest it, but would be quite content to leave it to be destroyed by marsh fevers. The fortification of Antwerp, he said later, meant the destruction of our neutrality. Antwerp offers to-day, with her forty kilometres of heavily-armed works, her citadel and her dozen attached forts, a standing invitation to invasion. It was handing over the country to the first comer, and building up one of the finest military and commercial positions in the world, only for the benefit of England, which had coveted it for over a century.

And to-day the good people of Brussels, and, I fear of Belgium generally, are regretfully recalling his words and indorsing his opinion. Hence the frenzied rage of which I have spoken leaping flame-like all the length of the Boulevards.

I have just heard that the British Army Corps, under Sir Evelyn Wood, has reached Antwerp, and that disembarkation is rapidly going forward. Until the transports with their escort of cruisers and torpedo boats actually steamed up the river, people here affected to believe that they would not come. Chatterers in the clubs boasted loudly that the wind of popular opinion would drive the English vessels back from the shores of the Scheldt. The obvious absurdity of this anticipation is but emphasised by the fact that the worthy Antwerpers have received the invaders, if not with enthusiasm, at any rate with a demeanour at once friendly and business-like. Telegrams in the clubs here comment rather bitterly on the fact, that instead of visiting them with haughty resentment, the townsfolk are doing a lively trade with the alien soldiers in light beers and other cheap beverages, which the troops are freely purchasing beneath the Rubens Statue in the Place Verte, where they are being rendezvoused before proceeding to their billets.

The fear has now grown into dread certainty that what we have always expected is about to happen. France intends to invade Belgium, and we have before us the prospect of another Waterloo. Why have the German troops delayed? It has been set forth again and again by strategists that Germany’s most obvious plan would be to concentrate her Army Corps of the North upon the Belgian frontier of France, that it would therefore be to her advantage either to make use of the two railway lines which, from Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle, run to Luxembourg, Thionville, and Virton—one by way of TrÈves and the other by Verviers—or, and by this even more important results might be obtained, she might combine with this movement the seizure of the line of the Meuse, when, by debouching a part of her forces by Chimay into the Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse, she would be able to attack in flank the French forces engaged in preventing the Northern Army Corps forcing the passage of the Meuse between Dun and MeziÈres.

It was always considered as certain, therefore, that instead of violating Swiss territory to attack France, Germany would certainly, immediately on the declaration of war, throw an Army Corps into Belgium. It was supposed that a German First Army Corps could be concentrated at Aix-la-Chapelle on the eleventh day of mobilisation, and that it would be established on the Meuse and on the Sambre to the south of Namur at latest by the evening of the fifteenth day—that is to say, twenty-four hours after the Second German Army Corps had deployed before the position on the Othain.

This has no doubt been Germany’s intention. A huge army is being concentrated on the Eastern frontier. But France is likely to forestall the movement, and to reach Namur before her adversary. The extraordinary rapidity of her mobilisation may be said to be due in great measure to the perfection of her railway system on the Belgian frontier. She has established between Dunkerque and MeziÈres no less than seven lines of railway, of which four are double lines, which place her in direct and immediate communication with Belgium. These roads are linked and tapped by a transversal line that follows the whole length of the frontier as far as Longwy. Then she has, moreover, on this frontier four huge entrenched camps capable of serving as manoeuvre pivots for her army, and as supports to her base of operations. These camps are Dunkerque (with its annexes—Bergues and Gravelines), Lille, Valenciennes (centre of a system of defence which comprises CondÉ, Bouchain, and Le Quesnoy), and Maubeuge. To ensure the retreat of her army in case of failure, she has created a first line of defence, formed by Valenciennes, Maubeuge, Landrecies, Hirson, and MeziÈres. For her second line she has the town of Reims, surrounded by forts commanding the valleys of the Aisne and the Marne, and the iron-bound triangle La FÈre, Laon, and Soissons which defends the valley of the Oise, and with the support of Peronne, the valley of the Somme.

Thus encouraged by the rapidity of mobilisation—a rapidity certainly never anticipated by Germany, and probably a little unexpected by her own officers—France has decided to attack Germany by Belgium. The seven natural obstacles in her path are not in themselves formidable. She has, indeed, to cross the Meuse, the Lower Rhine, the Teutoburgerwald, the Weser, the Hartz, and the Elbe. The Teutoburgerwald checked, it is true, the Legions of Varus, but to-day the great roads pierce it in several broad cuttings, and it is, moreover, traversed by two railway lines, running from Hamm to Hanover and Magdeburg. The Hartz also is traversed by good roads and girdled by two railway lines running to Berlin, one of which is the line which places the German capital in communication with Coblentz and Metz. Thus her advance should unquestionably be more rapid than by the inter-Moselle and the Rhine. If, moreover, she can make good her footing in Belgium before the German army, she will undoubtedly find there better roads, better cantonments, and far greater resources of every kind than she would find in Lorraine and Oldenburg and the Palatinate.

With this object, we hear that the 1st and 2d French Army Corps are being concentrated at Maubeuge, the 3d and 10th at Hirson, the 4th and 9th at Givet, and it is expected that all these forces will be united in the neighbourhood of Namur in the course of the next four days—that is to say, sooner by five days than any military authorities have believed possible.

The entire interest in this country is, therefore, centred in Namur, for which place I start at once.

The wildest excitement animates this place. Garrison and townsfolk alike are filled with generous enthusiasm for the French cause, a rapid change of feeling which may be attributed in some degree to the Antwerp episode. The most extravagant rumours are abroad. Belgian co-operation with the French forces is talked of openly, and with a grandiloquent disregard of consequences that would be almost amusing if it were not so grave. It is loudly proclaimed that Chartreuse and the old citadel of LiÉge are determined to resist the German advance, and here at Namur itself the populace (not the army) declare their intention of holding the ‘Key of Belgium,’ if need be, until their French allies can support them. As for Namur, its strategical position might well entitle it to be considered as one of the keys of Belgium. Till lately, however, the fortifications were in no condition to resist modern artillery. Thanks, however, to the wisdom of the Belgium Government in adopting the plans of General Briamont all this has been changed. Within the year 1892 the fortifications were so far completed as to furnish means for a strong defence. I give these rumours merely for what they are worth, and to show the temper of the populace.

As I write this telegram a report reaches me that French troops have crossed the frontier at Maubeuge and Valenciennes, and it is alleged that the small Belgian garrisons at Mons and Philippeville, after giving a wildly enthusiastic reception to their visitors, have valiantly offered their services to General Saussier.