r its size, Belgium was in a woeful state of military
unpreparedness for war, because it was supposed to be exempt from
conflict through an agreement of the great powers. All the great
nations of Europe had decided that it was safer and better to make
Belgium neutral ground, and one and all they had promised to protect
the neutrality of this little state with force of arms if necessary.
This, as we have said, had given the Belgians a feeling of security.
They believed that even if war broke out, Belgium would not be forced
into the conflict, but sinister signs of danger, like the distant
warnings of a hurricane, gradually obtruded themselves before King
Albert's clear sighted vision. He received letters, not from one but
from many sources, warning him that the Germans had decided in secret
council to send their invading armies across Belgium in case of war
with France, and he had seen only too clearly that German spies and
military experts were mapping out the country for their own secret
ends. So Albert struggled to increase the army and secured the passage
of a favorable bill in October, 1913.

But the iron forces of Germany were forged and ready; the uniforms and
equipment of her invading hordes were packed away in her storehouses
and arsenals. Only the stroke of a pen was needed to loose the blind
forces and mighty armaments of a war greater than any that history has
known. King Albert's efforts in behalf of the Belgian army were too
late, although he did not know it at the time.

In the summer of 1914, Albert went to Switzerland on a vacation, but
his fear that Germany was preparing for speedy war forced him to return
to Belgium in the middle of his holiday. And events soon proved that he
was justified. War leaped up over night like a devouring flame, and
immediately the German Government sent to Belgium a threat which
declared that it was the purpose of the German High Command to move
German troops across Belgium, and that the Belgians would resist at
their own peril.

Many a ruler would have acceded to the terms that Germany gave. If a
small boy is confronted by a trained pugilist of great weight and
gigantic stature, surely none can blame the boy for consenting to the
pugilist's demands. None could have blamed King Albert if he had
yielded to such force and accepted the tyrant's terms. But the King
determined to defend his country to the last drop of Belgian blood, not
sparing his own, and the Belgians sent t