efore. When France seemed to threaten
Belgium's existence, King Leopold I. concluded a secret treaty[143] with
the king of Prussia, whereby the latter was empowered to enter Belgium
and occupy fortresses in case of France becoming dangerous. The French
danger passed away, and its place was taken by a more awful menace--the
pressure of German potential energy; and when Belgium in turn opened her
heart (this is the unproved accusation which Germany makes
to-day--Author) to England, then she has violated her neutrality and
undermined the balance of power.[144] There is even a suspicion that
Leopold II. renewed this treaty with Germany in 1890, in spite of the
fact that the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Prince de Chimay, in an
official speech denied its existence.

[Footnote 143: Germans love anything which is "secret."
"Geheimniskraemerei" ("affectation of mysteriousness and secrecy") is a
national and individual characteristic of the German people.--Author.]

[Footnote 144: Karl Hampe: "Belgiens Vergangenheit und Gegenwart"
("Belgium Past and Present"), p. 49.]

Professor Schoenborn's essay on Belgian neutrality is the least
satisfactory exposition of the three professorial effusions; it is no
credit to a man of learning, and is merely the work of an incapable
partisan trying to make a bad cause into a good one. Schoenborn
commences[145] with the customary German tactics by stating that
Bethmann-Hollweg's "scrap-of-paper" speech, and von Jagow's (German
Secretary of State) explanations to the Belgian representative in Berlin
on August 3rd, 1914, are of no importance in deciding the justice of
Germany's violation of her pledged word. One is led to inquire, When is
a German utterance--whether given in the Reichstag by the Chancellor or
on paper in the form of a treaty--final and binding?

[Footnote 145: "Deutschland und der Weltkrieg" ("Germany and the World
War"), pp. 566-8.]

Subterfuges, insinuations, distortions, even brazen falsehoods, are
scattered throughout German war literature, thicker "than Autumnal
leaves in Vallombrosa's brook." It is to be feared that just as Germans
have lied for a century to prove that the English were annihilated at
the battle of Waterloo, and for over forty years to show that Bismarck
was not a forger, so they will lie for centuries to come in order to
prove that the invasion of Belgium was not what Bethmann-Hollweg called
it, a "breach of international law."

Like his _confreres_,