. War echoes; or Germany and Austria in the crisis .. . e alliance with the Triple En-tente and open its country to a Brit-ish army for the purpose of proceed-ing against Germany, the Belgiangovernment has violated the laws ofneutrality and has thereby exposedherself to the danger of surrender-ing her fortresses to her foreignfriends whom he deems not less dan-gerous than the Germans. The letterreads in part as follows: From the French side danger notonly threatens us in the south, byway of Luxemburg, but also alongour whole common frontier. Thisassertion is not based on conjecturesalone; we h
. War echoes; or Germany and Austria in the crisis .. . e alliance with the Triple En-tente and open its country to a Brit-ish army for the purpose of proceed-ing against Germany, the Belgiangovernment has violated the laws ofneutrality and has thereby exposedherself to the danger of surrender-ing her fortresses to her foreignfriends whom he deems not less dan-gerous than the Germans. The letterreads in part as follows: From the French side danger notonly threatens us in the south, byway of Luxemburg, but also alongour whole common frontier. Thisassertion is not based on conjecturesalone; we have positive support forit. An encircling movement from thenorth forms without doubt part of thescheme of the entente conliale. If thatwere not the case, the plan to fortifyFlushing would not have raised sucha hue and cry in Paris and the reasons have by no meansbeen kept secret, why it was desiredthat the Schelde should remain with-out defense. What-they wished wasto be able to transport English troopsto Antwerp without hindrance, i. e.,. Albert—King of Beleiunc to create with us a basis of opera-tion for an offensive movementagainst the Lower Rhine and West-phalia, and then to compel us to fallin line, a thing which would not havebeen difficult, for in handing overour national stronghold we shouldhave deprived ourselves, by our ownfoolhardiness, of every possibility ofresisting the demands of our ques-tionable protectors, once we had beenso unwise as to let them in. Theovertures, as perfidious as naive, ofColonel Bernardiston at the time ofthe conclusion of the entente cordialehave shown us plainly how the mat-ter really stood. When, eventually,we allowed ourselves to be intimi-dated by the pretended danger of aclosing of the Schelde, the plan in-deed was not given up, but so alteredthat the English auxiliary army wasnot to be landed on the Belgian coastbut at the nearest French ports. Forthis we have as witness the disclos-ures of Captain Faber which have 74 b
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectworldwar19141918
