As far back as 1677, says Sorel (_L'Europe et la Révolution française_, vol. i. p. 338), a French agent in London wrote to Louvois: "It has been voted unanimously by the Lower Chamber that the English will sell their very shirts (this is the phrase they use) to make war on France for the preservation of the Low Countries." During the French Revolution, and later, under the Empire, the struggle between England and France was largely provoked by the desire to turn France out of Belgium. The Treaty of London (1839) makes no distinction between the five guarantors of our neutrality: Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia; but it is none the less unanimously admitted that England has the most immediate interest in the preservation of our independence, as it matters greatly to England that Antwerp--that loaded pistol aimed at the heart of England, as Napoleon used to say--should become neither French nor German. Therefore, as soon as Belgium was threatened by an armed invasion, the traditional policy of England was at once invoked. It was in virtue of this policy that Great Britain, in 1870, demanded of France and Germany whether they engaged themselves to maintain the neutrality of Belgium. The two belligerents gave and kept their promise. France, driven up against the Belgium frontier at Sedan, did not even then consider that she had the right to break her word; she preferred to allow herself to be crushed. If ever there were "strategic reasons" which would excuse the breaking of a promise, it was then! All this being so, no one was surprised when in August 1914 the newspapers announced that England had put the usual question to France and Germany. This time again France made the reply inspired by her sense of honour; Germany refused to commit herself. The historical facts which we have recalled suffice to show that the protective rôle of England was not invented for the needs of the moment, as Germany would have the world believe. The Chancellor cannot be ignorant of these facts; they are known to all. Why then does he persist in asserting that England would not have intervened had France been the country to violate our neutrality? 2. _The danger of a German Invasion._--For several years German generals have been agreed in admitting the necessity of marching the German army across Belgium in case of war with France.[7] In military circles this was a _secret de polichinelle_, as the _N.R.C._ remarked on the 22nd December, 1914 (evening edition). Moreover, the Germans themselves held that the Belgians could not have been ignorant of the threat of a German invasion; this idea is expounded, notably, in a booklet of official aspect, entitled _La_ _part de la culpabilité de l'Angleterre dans la guerre mondiale_.