In 1906, Lieut.-Colonel Barnardiston had several interviews with General Ducarne, our Chief of Staff, on the subject of co-operation by British troops in the defence of our territory. This was soon after the first alarm, caused by Germany’s browbeating policy over the Moroccan question. The Belgian general had no reason for refusing to enter into these conversations. They were private, strictly confidential, and of great interest from a military point of view; but he had not received a mandate to pursue them in the name of the Royal Government. After they had ended, he wrote out a report and handed it in to his chief, the War Minister. The report contains in the margin a note of cardinal importance, purposely omitted by the German authorities in the text of the document, when they issued a translation last autumn: “The entry of the British into Belgium would take place only after a violation of our neutrality by Germany.” The Belgian Government was greatly astonished at the initiative taken by the British military attaché. It had, however, no power to prevent a foreign officer from expressing his personal views as to the hostile aims of a neighbouring nation whose relations with Belgium were at that time friendly. Still relying on the pledges given in 1839 by the Powers, among them Prussia—which to-day means Germany, the offspring of the Prussian State and heir to its obligations—it determined not to act upon the confidential statements of Lieut.-Colonel Barnardiston. The latter had simply communicated the ideas of the British Staff; his conversations, as he himself realized, could not be deemed binding upon his Government. It will be noticed, by the way, that even at this date the British officers had a very clear conception of Germany’s schemes. The invasion of Belgium was an act of war foreseen in London ten years before the event. Some years later, in April 1912, another British military attaché in Brussels, Lieut.-Colonel Bridges, had an interview on the same topic with General Jungbluth, who was then Chief of our Staff. This step would prove, if proof were needed, that no secret engagement previously existed between Britain and our country. The Englishman, in the course of his informal chat, remarked that during the crisis of 1911 his Government would have landed troops in Belgium even if their aid had not been invoked. This is perfectly in accordance with international law, by virtue of which the guaranteeing State, if it considers intervention to be necessary, must intervene of its own accord, even in the teeth of opposition from the neutral State concerned. This claim, however, was forthwith countered by General Jungbluth with the view that has always been upheld by the Belgian authorities—that the preliminary consent of Belgium is essential. Lieut.-Colonel Bridges did not press the point, and there the matter rested.