Long ago, in his Commentaries, Julius Caesar said that Gaul was inhabited
by three tribes, the Belgae, the Aquitani, the Celts, "of whom the Belgae
were the bravest." History will show that Belgians have courage as their
native right, for only the brave could have survived. The southeastern
part of Belgium is a series of rock plains, and if these plains have
been her good fortune in times of peace, they have furnished the
battlefields of Western Europe for two thousand years. Northern France
and Western Germany are rough, jagged and wooded, but the Belgian plains
were ideal battlefields. For this reason the generals of Germany and of
France have usually met and struggled for the mastery on these wide
Belgian plains. On one of these grounds Julius Caesar won the first
battle that is recorded. Then came King Clovis and the French, with
their campaigns; toward these plains also the Saracens were hurrying
when assaulted by Charles Martel. On the Belgian plains the Dutch
burghers and the Spanish armies, led by Bloody Alva, fought out their
battle. Hither, too, came Napoleon, and the great mound of Waterloo is
the monument to the Duke of Wellington's victory. It was to the Belgian
plains, also, that the German general, last August, rushed his troops.
Every college and every city searches for some level spot of land where
the contest between opposing teams may be held, and for more than two
thousand years the Belgian plain has been the scene of the great battles
between the warring nations of Western Europe.

Now, out of all these collisions there has come a hardy race, inured to
peril, rich in fortitude, loyalty, patience, thrift, self-reliance and
persevering faith. For five hundred years the Belgian children and youth
have been brought up upon the deeds of noble renown, achieved by their
ancestors. If Julius Caesar were here today he would wear Belgium's
bravery like a bright sword, girded to his thigh. And when this brave
little people, with a standing army of forty-two thousand men,
single-handed defied two millions of Germans, it tells us that Ajax has
come back once more to defy the god of lightnings.

A THRILLING CHAPTER FROM BELGIUM'S HISTORY

Perhaps one or two chapters torn from the pages of Belgium history will
enable us to understand her present-day heroism, just as one golden
bough plucked from the forest will explain the richness of the autumn.
You remember that Venice was once the financial center of the w