What will King Albert do? He knows Germany too well not to feel certain that the rejection of her demands will be followed by an instant swoop of her formidable army. Three days before, our Sovereign had written a personal letter to William II. Since the Emperor had professed to be his friend, he took the liberty of asserting Belgium’s right to see her neutrality respected. This appeal failed to move the stony heart of the Kaiser. On 3rd August, King Albert turned to the King of England. He telegraphed to him, not to utter an urgent call for his military support—as might have been expected, with the storm drawing nearer every moment—but to ask for his diplomatic intervention. Is not this a conclusive proof that Belgium had not sought by any secret alliance to screen herself in England’s arms from the attacks of the German colossus? The envoy of the French Republic, who was fully posted up in the course of events, hastened of his own accord to offer French aid. Our Foreign Minister answered with thanks, but refused all succour for the time being: the Belgian Government, he said, would consider later on what should be done in the matter. Not till the evening of the next day, when every fleeting hour was of crucial importance, and after he had learnt of the invader’s entry into Belgium that morning—not till the deed was done, did he apply, with admirable coolness, to England, France, and Russia for help in the defence of our territory. Such scrupulous adherence to the hard-and-fast rules laid down in treaties, such faithfulness to a plighted oath when in the very jaws of death, would surely be hard to parallel. VII. I learnt on 2nd August, from our military attaché (who had the news from an officer of the Emperor’s household), that the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg had been occupied. The route followed by the German army left me no doubt as to the coming invasion of Belgian Luxemburg, and I telegraphed this pessimistic forecast to my Government. Yet I had not gauged the full measure of the disaster that was about to overtake my country. It was on the evening of Monday, 3rd August, that I received the official telegram informing me of the German ultimatum and of our reply. At first I was dumbfounded; then came a fierce glow of indignation. I tried my utmost to betray no sign of this to my young secretaries, in order that their sorrow and their anger might not be needlessly increased. After urging them to be calm and collected, I spent a part of the night in reflecting on the questions that I would put to the Foreign Secretary at the earliest opportunity. I felt it my bounden duty to go to him and insist upon a downright explanation of the nameless act perpetrated by the German Government.