It is the purpose of this book to show the great part played at a crisis in European history by a little People; the signal bravery of their decision; the vital importance, from a military standpoint, of their valiant defence of their Fatherland; and the moral effect in the struggle of that love of liberty which in the face of a devastation unparalleled in western Europe since the seventeenth century, has left their spirit unsubdued. Incomplete though at this juncture the record must be, the British people may be helped by it the more fully to appreciate the sacrifices made by the Belgians for those ideals of ordered independence and freedom on which the greatness of our own Empire has been reared; ideals whose reality has been tested and not found wanting in the fiery trial of war.