personal opinion with regard to the security which Belgium had the right to expect from her eastern neighbours." On August 2, at three o'clock in the afternoon, von Below, interviewed by a Belgian journalist, stated: "Perhaps your neighbour's roof will be set on fire, but your house will be saved." Therefore when at 8 o'clock I met the King's Secretary and learnt from him that an hour before, the German Minister had asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs to grant him an interview, we both supposed that he had come to bring a fresh assurance of his government to respect the Belgian neutrality. Alas! the tragedy had begun, and it was the ultimatum that had been handed in. At ten o'clock in the evening, the Cabinet met at the Palace. There were two policies: to sell themselves, to accept gold—much gold—betray Europe, accept Germany's friendship, or remain faithful to their pledges and save their honour. The Cabinet did not hesitate. To gold they preferred honour—to friendship they preferred liberty.
Never shall I forget that historic night, pregnant with momentous and fateful issues, how, when there dawned the morning of a beautiful summer's day, I crossed the city still asleep and thought with a heavy heart: "What an awakening!"
Belgium sprang to arms with one heart and soul, and with but one cry: "All for honour, all for our country."
Germany has now at last understood the shame with which her brutal aggression has covered her in the eyes of the world, and she has sought to wash away the stain of mud and blood from her hands. She has invented pretexts, explanations, excuses, calumnies—labour lost! Impartial history will always remember the statement of the Chancellor in the Reichstag: "We violate the right of nations, but the security of the Empire makes it necessary, and necessity knows no law." Impartial history will also record the words of the Chancellor when addressing the English Ambassador, Sir Edward Goschen: "Neutrality is only a word; the treaty, is but a scrap of paper."
Then began the war, an unjust war against the pledged word and right. And what a war! Devastation and systematic terrorism! In the general confusion, most people clung to the hope that the idea of Right had so penetrated men's minds that the war would be accompanied by the minimum of cruelty, that human and chivalrous methods would prevail. Vain illusion! Belgium has suffered the atrocities of German warfare, fire, pillage, massacre, wholesale slaughter of innocent women and children, and crimes unmentionable. How the world
