The story of an alleged Anglo-Belgian agreement of 1906
published in the German press, and based on documents said to
have been found at Brussels, is only a fresh edition of a
story which has been reproduced in various forms and denied
on several occasions. No such agreement has ever existed.
As the Germans well know, Gen. Grierson is dead and Col. (now
Gen.) Barnardiston is commanding the British forces before
Tsing-tau. In 1906 Gen. Grierson was on the General Staff at
the War Office, and Col. Barnardiston was Military Attaché at
Brussels. In view of the solemn guarantee given by Great
Britain to protect the neutrality of Belgium against violation
from any side, some academic discussions may, through the
instrumentality of Col. Barnardiston, have taken place between
Gen. Grierson and the Belgian military authorities as to what
assistance the British Army might be able to afford to Belgium
should one of her neighbors violate that neutrality. Some
notes with reference to the subject may exist in the archives
at Brussels.
It should be noted that the date mentioned, namely, 1906, was
the year following that in which Germany had, as in 1911,
adopted a threatening attitude toward France with regard to
Morocco, and, in view of the apprehensions existing of an
attack on France through Belgium, it was natural that possible
eventualities should be discussed.
The impossibility of Belgium having been a party to any
agreement of the nature indicated or to any design for the
violation of Belgian neutrality is clearly shown by the
reiterated declarations that she has made for many years past
that she would resist to the utmost any violation of her
neutrality from whatever quarter and in whatever form such
violation might come.
It is worthy of attention that these charges of aggressive
designs on the part of other powers are made by Germany, who,
since 1906, has established an elaborate network of
strategical railways leading from the Rhine to the Belgian
frontier through a barren, thinly populated tract,
deliberately constructed to permit of the sudden attack upon
Belgium, which was carried out two months ago.