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 manœuvres, 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 manœuvre, 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.
VIII.
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.
CONCLUSION.
A sovereign, coming at an early age to the most conspicuous throne in
Europe, already too sure of his own talents, fretting with impatience
to rule without restraint or guardianship, pacific both by instinct
and by reason, but of a helmeted and mail-clad pacifism, which loved
to vent itself in needless threats. The same prince, twenty-five
years later, puffed up with pride over the marvellous expansion of
his country (in which he had certainly borne his share by keeping
the peace), but gradually won over to the schemes of conquest and of
domination whispered into his ear; ill-informed, for want of accurate
reports and of personal discernment, as to the state of public feeling
among his neighbours, and as to their capacity for resistance; ready,
without any qualms, to seize the first opportunity of starting a war
in which victory seemed to him certain and the risks hardly worth
counting; the responsible author, since he wields a despotic sway,
of all the horrors and disasters around us, bred by the relentless
militarism and the boundless ambition of a dynasty that deems itself
called upon to govern the world.
A royal family, void of prestige or distinction, obscured by the shadow
that the dazzling personality of the Emperor cast behind it, although
one figure strove hard to emerge from the darkness—the restless,
carping, bellicose Crown Prince. Federal rulers enjoying a mere puppet
sovereignty, and acquiescing in their subaltern rôle, from fear of
vanishing altogether from the German stage, a stage now too narrow to
let them stand by the side of their Cæsar. Statesmen as powerless to
make their counsels prevail as to defend the Imperial policy, over
which, perhaps, their conscience smote them at times. A Reichstag split
up into too many groups and parties, and divided on all questions save
that of the timeliness of this war, the Conservatives hoping thereby
to strengthen their influence and the Socialists expecting to gain, as
the price of their zealous support, those political liberties that they
were unable to win by main force.
A disciplined, credulous, and hard-working nation, concerned above all
with earning its daily bread, pacific for the most part, or rather
indifferent to foreign affairs, until the day when, on the strength of
official assurances, it believed itself to be attacked, and in peril
of losing its work, its national honour, its very existence. A lying
vision, yet hard to banish from its gaze; an erroneous belief, which
will drive it, until the bitter end, to face the most dire suffering
and to endure the most cruel sacrifices. The future will teach us
whether it will not demand later on a heavy reckoning from those who
have played it false.
A minority drawn from the intellectual and governing castes, dreaming
of victory and aggrandisement, with a passionate desire to see the
colossal fabric of German supremacy towering to the heavens, steeped in
a limitless hatred or disdain for those who have not the honour to be
Germans. From the very opening of hostilities, the morbid conceit of
the scholars and men of science was unveiled in clear outlines through
those amazing manifestoes on the rights that the superior science,
organization, strength, and culture of Germany empower her to claim.
In my opinion, however, it would be a mistake to look upon this select
band as typical of the nation, just as it would be wrong to make all
Germany answerable for the misdeeds of her brutal soldiery, and for the
frightful war waged by the military and naval chiefs.
Disheartening rebuffs to German and Austro-Hungarian diplomacy both in
Morocco and the Near East, where, despite all the efforts of Berlin
and Vienna, there arose a state of things inimical to the spread, nay
even to the prestige, of Germanism. As a result of these checks, a
vast increase of military preparations, while at the same time the war
parties in Germany (and in Austria-Hungary too) raged and clamoured
more than ever—warning symptoms, to which public opinion abroad,
misled by the peaceful solution of the previous crisis, paid but a
half-hearted attention.
All these causes, individual or collective, whirling us abruptly—on
the morrow of a murder that a little police precaution would have
averted—to the brink of an abyss in which the freedom of Europe has
come near to being engulfed for ever....
Such is the complicated picture that I have tried to sketch, with as a
background the crimes committed against Belgium and Serbia. I hope that
I may be pardoned for closing this book with a few words on the subject
of my gallant country.
Civilization is not a unique, exotic plant, the product of _Kultur_,
of a chosen people, but a cluster of varied flowers, grown on varied
soils, and the most modest of them are not the least hardy nor the
least beautiful. From the standpoint of human progress, the existence
of small States, contributing to that progress, has justified itself
as essential to the needs of mankind. Some have been fruitful fields
for experiment in the introducing or the improving of various social
or political systems. Others have outstripped nations far larger than
themselves in the universal realm of literature and the fine arts;
others on the broad path of industrial competition. In these and other
domains, how many deathless glories can one of them show on the long
and illustrious scroll of its history!
The political necessity for the existence of small States, as factors
of peace, is no less imperative. It has sometimes been their lot,
by virtue of their situation at the mouths of rivers, on the shores
of seas, or at the intersection of mountain-ranges, to restrain the
clashing and the jarring of the quarrelsome great Powers. They have
thus served as watertight compartments or solid buffers, if these
technical terms are worthy to express the services rendered by them in
maintaining the harmony of Europe.
The war party and the Prussian military writers, with their imperialist
doctrines, will not hear to-day of the European balance. To them it is
an outworn shibboleth, a mere historical relic. Yet one of the great
lessons to be learnt from a study of the past is that this balance
remains permanent and indestructible in a continent peopled by rival
races. In the end, it has always come to be restored on the ruins of
mighty empires, after the shocks and oscillations that it has suffered
from the ambitions of conquerors. At the beginning of the last two
centuries, the map of Europe, a shifting mosaic, was fixed anew by a
sort of historical process, and the small States were not the least
useful materials that went to the working of this transformation.
As a matter of fact, Belgium is one of the oldest among these States,
for she may fairly trace her career back to the days of the Duke of
Burgundy, to the reign of Philip the Good, who succeeded in reuniting
the Belgian provinces of the Netherlands. For four centuries—apart from
an interval of twenty years, during which these provinces were attached
to France and received from her their laws and their administrative
divisions—their Walloon and Flemish inhabitants lived side by side
under the same foreign rulers. They did not blend, it is true; each
element was careful to retain its distinctive language and character.
But they professed the same creed, kept up brotherly relations, and
enjoyed similar liberties, more happy and more free in their thriving
cities and mediæval communes than many a more ambitious nation. From
the time that Belgium acquired a dynasty of her own and took her seat
among the nations, wrapped in her neutrality as in a robe of spotless
white, she made remarkable headway in almost every branch of human
activity. The little people of a few million souls occupied before the
war the fifth place in the list of commercial and industrial countries,
standing above Austria-Hungary with its fifty million inhabitants! King
Leopold did not overrate either the energy or the spirit of enterprise
inherent in his subjects, when he opened up and finally handed over
to them the vast basin of his great African river. What a splendid
prospect of work and endeavour was offered to them in Africa as in
Europe! What a noble future for an industrious life, deserving the
respect of the whole civilized world!
Yet there was one thing lacking to Belgium: she had not been purified
by sorrow or hallowed by suffering. This crown of thorns was at last
thrust upon her head by the cruelty of the Germans. Then the little
nation was seen to stiffen under its martyrdom, without abandoning the
struggle to live and to resist. The shining example of heroism came to
it from above, from its young royal pair, to whom it was devoted, and
in whom it centred its fondest hopes. Ten months have passed, and King
Albert still remains planted, firmly as an oak, in the last shred of
territory, facing the enemy, whose strength is powerless to bend or
to break him. Around him is his young army, sadly thinned by unequal
struggles, but galvanized into new life, having repaired its losses by
an accession of fresh blood, certain of victory, for it knows that the
very heart of its country is throbbing beneath the folds of its flag.
Not far off is the Government, which would not yield up the honour of
Belgium at the German bidding, and which labours busily in its exile,
in order to relieve our refugees, to maintain the public services, and
to act as intermediary for the generous and sympathetic aid tendered
from foreign sources.
If Europe turns aside from the sight of this indomitable resistance,
and looks at our country, what does she see there? The head of the
Belgian clergy, the very incarnation of civic patriotism and priestly
virtues, stimulating his flock to courage and endurance, caring nought
for coercion or threats, and awaiting with full trust in the Divine
Judge the day when in his church (not spared, alas! by the invader)
he shall celebrate the _Te Deum_ of our deliverance. Everywhere she
sees devotion to the fatherland and to Christian solidarity: she sees
the burgomaster of Brussels, whose brave voice could only be silenced
by imprisonment, although even now his memory and his example still
hover, as an ever-present encouragement, above his fellow-citizens and
his city; she sees men who yesterday were rich, heads of banks that
to-day are closed and of workshops that to-day are empty, joining with
the intellectual flower of Brussels citizens to provide for the poor,
to ensure that the people shall not die of hunger and privation; she
sees women of all sorts and conditions turned into Sisters of Charity;
she sees fathers and mothers, stricken to the heart by the death of
their sons or anxious as to their fate, living often in homes that
the enemy has rifled, yet with calm, tearless eyes and faces ennobled
by sacrifice; and last of all she sees, behind the classes that once
were privileged, the admirable crowd, the army of humble toilers,
stoically enduring their forced loss of work or their inability to
help their country, watching in grim silence the countless dead and
wounded brought in from the enemy regiments, who do not cease to dye
with their blood that Belgian soil where they thought they had only to
appear in order to conquer!
No, such a people cannot die. The Belgian soul, whose existence some
dared to deny, has gained a new temper from the flame of battle, and it
still lives to-day, more vigorous than ever, to realize our national
motto—“Union makes Strength.” But Belgium is not yet at the end of her
long ordeal, at the limit of her travail, or on the eve of drying her
tears. The iron monster of German militarism cannot be battered down
in a day. I have seen him at too close quarters preparing and arming
for the fray to have any delusions on that score. The league of his
adversaries has swollen in number and grown in power; but at present
this only whets his rage, and thus for the time being his might, like
that of a man who suddenly goes mad, is redoubled. Germany is not yet
near to waking up, with a start, from her tragic dream of triumph and
domination. The day of liberation is slow to dawn for us, and we still
have a long agony to go through. But let no Belgian, whether he has
been forced to take the road of exile, or is suffering, with no word
of complaint, the well-nigh intolerable contact with the oppressor—let
no Belgian become for a single instant a prey to discouragement or
despair! The hour will strike without fail from the belfries of our
town-halls and the steeples of our churches—the hour when our country,
reconquered and ten times more dear, will press to her lacerated
bosom all her sons, once more united in an equal love for their common
mother; the hour when Belgium will recover her place among the nations,
a loftier place than ever, owing to her valour in the combat and her
steadfastness in adversity.
APPENDIX.
With regard to the view expressed in Chapter V. concerning the
subordinate part played by the economic causes of the war, it has been
pointed out to me that during the Agadir crisis the employers of labour
in the various German metal industries, grouped under the name of
“Steel Syndicate,” addressed a petition to the Chancellor asking that
war should be declared on France. Other industrial and economic leagues
suggested to him, in special memorials, annexations in Belgium, France,
and Russia.
Because the German iron-masters, egged on perhaps by Krupp and the army
contractors, and suffering on the other hand from a spell of reckless
over-production, were hunting for fresh markets, even at the price of
a costly and bloody struggle, and because other manufacturers embraced
similar schemes of conquest, it does not follow, first, that the
majority of employers, great and small, who wanted to work in peace,
became advocates of war; secondly—this point I have tried to prove in
the aforesaid chapter—that such a war would have obtained for Germany
the new markets that she hankered after.
Nor does it follow that the Imperial Government let itself be led or
dragged into the war by the manufacturers. Its opinions, I am ready
to admit, coincided with those of many among this class, as also with
those of the agrarian section. But in declaring war on France and
Russia it pursued above all a political aim. It did not take up arms
with the main object of securing for Germany an economic monopoly or
hegemony in Europe. To-day, for instance, when we see the Germans
endeavouring to change into an annexation their occupation of Belgium
and north-western France, we see that it is the possession of the North
Sea coast and the Strait of Dover that they mainly have in view, in
order from there to be able to strike a deadly blow at the British
power. The results of a German victory were admirably defined by M.
Poincaré, in his fine speech of 14th July; “We should fall for ever
into a political, moral, and economic thraldom.” The economic vassalage
would only be a consequence of the political thraldom.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] [The following are the German newspapers mentioned in this
book:—_Kölnische Zeitung_ (Cologne Gazette); _Kreuzzeitung_ (Cross
Gazette); _Vossische Zeitung_ (Voss’s Gazette); _Norddeutsche Zeitung_
(North German Gazette); _Berliner Lokalanzeiger_ (Berlin Local
Advertiser); and _Berliner Tageblatt_ (Berlin Daysheet).—_Translator’s
Note._]
[2] [Quoted from the _Times_ report, 3rd October 1914.—_Translator’s
Note._]
[3] [Quoted from the British Blue Book.—_Translator’s Note._]
[4] [In Racine’s _Britannicus_, Nero, although his wife Octavia has
done no wrong, proposes to divorce her and marry Junia. Junia replies:
“J’ai mérité
Ni cet excès d’honneur, ni cette indignité.”
—_Translator’s Note._]
[5] Report of Sir E. Goschen to Sir E. Grey, 8th August 1914, published
by the British Government (_Great Britain and the European Crisis_).
[6] These laws deal with the military and naval forces of the Empire,
finance, commerce, questions of domicile, means of communication, and
justice.
[7] [In Continental politics, blue is the colour of the Conservatives
proper, black that of the Clericals.—_Translator’s Note._]
[8] [The term applied in Continental politics to the temporary
combination of several parties or groups for some particular
purpose.—_Translator’s Note._]
[9] [This term arose out of the Social Democrats’ Congress at Baden
in 1912. The “revisionists,” headed by Eduard Bernstein, proposed to
abandon the old intransigent attitude, and to compromise with the
Government in certain matters, especially taxation.—_Translator’s
Note._]
[10] [This word bears the same meaning, for political purposes,
as “_bloc_.” It is the German form of “cartel,” a term used by
modern economists to denote a manufacturers’ union to keep up
prices.—_Translator’s Note._]
[11] Yellow Book concerning Morocco, 1905.
[12] [French _tour de valse_, German _Walzertour_—_i.e._, a step taken
without regard to the consequences, a light-hearted escapade. We may,
perhaps, trace here a flavour of Teutonic contempt for Southern airs
and graces.—_Translator’s Note._]
[13] Dispatch from M. Cambon, dated 5th November, Yellow Book for 1911.
[14] See especially reports 141 and 161 from Sir Maurice de Bunsen to
Sir Edward Grey (_Great Britain and the European Crisis_).
[15] Belgian Grey Book, annexe to No. 2.
[16] Yellow Book, No. 120.
[17] See M. Waxweiler’s _La Belgique neutre et loyale_ (Lausanne: Payot
et Cie.), and the pamphlet by M. van den Heuvel, Minister of State, _De
la violation de la neutralité belge_ (Paris: Louis de Soye).
[18] Statement made by the Chancellor on 6th November 1914 to the
representatives of the great American agencies, United Press and
Amalgamated Press.
[19] [It would have been a pity to drop this happy metaphor,
although it is not used, so far as I am aware, by English military
writers. A curtain, in fortification, is a plain wall connecting two
bastions.—_Translator’s Note._]
THE END.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.
End of Project Gutenberg's Germany before the war, by Eugène-Napoléon Beyens