A year later, on April 29, 1913, Herr von Jagow, urged by a Socialist, at a Reichstag Committee, to explain himself on the subject of Belgian neutrality, curtly replied that this question was determined by international agreements, and that Germany would respect those agreements. He obstinately refused to say any more to another Socialist member, who was not satisfied with this summary answer.
It is true that up to the last moment before the dispatch of the ultimatum the German minister and military attaché at Brussels endeavoured to tighten the bandage that they had been ordered to place round the eyes of the Belgian authorities. Even on the second of August, both vouched for the friendly intentions of the Imperial Government—that Government which now charges Belgium with duplicity and betrayal.
German military writers, on the other hand, showed no such reticence. That irrepressible spokesman of the war party, General von Bernhardi, in his book which the world loves to quote, since it faithfully confesses the rapacious instincts of the officer caste, scornfully treats the lawyer’s conception of permanent neutrality as a political heresy, and the protection that it affords as a bulwark of paper. With regard to Belgium, he hints that she might well be deemed to have already forfeited her neutral rights by her own act. How so, pray? Through clandestine treaties with Germany’s foes? No. Through becoming a colonial Power. “It may well be asked,” says this Jesuitical soldier, “whether the acquisition of the Congo was not _ipso facto_ a breach of Belgian neutrality; for a neutral State which, at any rate in theory, is secure from all risk of war has no right to enter into political competition with other States.” Bernhardi deliberately ignores the fact that these other States, Germany first of all, recognized the Belgian annexation of the Congo, without any attempt to repudiate the treaties guaranteeing Belgian neutrality. Under the sway of these sophistries, however, the idea of a violation was gaining ground in the German intellectual world. When the Imperial Government passed from theory to practice, it met in Germany with a universal chorus of applause.
The geographical position of Belgium, devoid as she is of natural frontiers, in itself compelled her to adopt measures of defence: to build fortresses and to maintain an efficient army. The chequered history of the past served to the Belgian people as a warning for the future. Her plains had been the favourite cockpit for the struggles between Bourbon and Hapsburg, the theatre of the first victories of the French Republic, and the grave of the Napoleonic Empire. By a miracle, our country was saved from all peril in 1870, through the sacrifice of a French army, which chose to surrender at Sedan rather than seek refuge in neutral territory. The prospect of another war, which loomed large before us even during the most quiet hours of the last few decades, made it an imperative duty for our rulers to take far-reaching military precautions.