England and France did not give up their plan of attacking Germany through Belgium, and by this means won the approval of the Muscovites. Three against one! It would have been a crime against the German people if the German General Staff had not anticipated this intention. The inalienable right of self-defense gives the individual, whose very existence is at stake, the moral liberty to resort to weapons which would be forbidden except in times of peril. As Belgium would, nevertheless, not acquiesce in a friendly neutrality which would permit the unobstructed passage of German troops through small portions of her territory, although her integrity was guaranteed, the German General Staff was obliged to force this passage in order to avoid the necessity of meeting the enemy on the most unfavorable ground. The Germans have not forgotten the tone in which the French and Belgian press reported the frequent excursions of French Staff officers and Generals for the purpose of making an exhaustive study of the territory through which the armies are now moving, and who were received with open arms in Belgium and treated like brothers. Belgium has become the vassal of France. In our place the Government of the United States would not have acted differently. "Inter arma silent leges"--in the midst of arms the laws are silent. Besides, England had interfered beforehand in Germany's plan of campaign by declaring that she would not tolerate an attack upon the northern coast of France. The German troops, with their iron discipline, will respect the personal liberty and property of the individual in Belgium, just as they did in France in 1870. The Belgians would have been wise if they had permitted the passage of the German troops. They would have preserved their integrity, and, besides that, would have fared well from the business point of view, for the army would have proved a good customer and paid cash. Germany has always been a good and just neighbor, to Belgium as well as to the other small powers such as Holland, Denmark and Switzerland, which England in her place would have swallowed up one and all long ago. The development of industry on the lower Rhine has added to the prosperity of Belgium and has made Antwerp one of the first ports on the Continent, as well as one of the most important centres of exchange for German-American trade. Without Germany Belgium could never have acquired the Congo. When England meditated taking possession of the Congo, claiming that great rivers are nothing but arms of the sea and consequently belong to the supreme maritime power, King Leopold turned to Germany for protection and received it from Bismarck, who called the Congo Conference of 1884-5 and obtained the recognition by the powers of the independence of the Congo State.