If you look at an ordinary map of Belgium you will see a number of crossed swords showing you the position of battlefields. So many battles have been fought in Belgium that it has been called the "Cockpit of Europe." Now why has Belgium been the scene of so many battles? You see that the country stands between England and France and Germany, and I must tell you that before Napoleon I. conquered Holland and Belgium they belonged to Austria. If Germany should go to war with France, and Great Britain should join in, their armies naturally meet in Belgium. An army from North Germany and an army marching north from France would come into contact somewhere on the rolling land between Brussels and the Meuse, where you see so many crossed swords. The French would find a shorter way into Germany, and the Germans into France, across the Ardennes and the high land, but an army with its food and baggage trains always avoids hill country if it can. The reason why the British have fought battles in this district is also clear. They had to meet their allies as rapidly as possible after crossing the sea, and the most convenient meeting-place was the rolling country between Brussels and the Meuse. You can easily understand that when these armies entered Belgium to fight their battles, the Belgians were sure to suffer. Their fair fields would be trodden down, their industries would cease, food supplies would be seized, houses and public buildings would be destroyed, and many innocent townsfolk and peasants who had no part or lot in the war would be killed by stray shots, or put to death because they gave information to the enemy. The plight of Belgium, when her big neighbours quarrelled and fought out their quarrels on her soil, was always terrible, so in the year 1839 the five great European Powers--Great Britain, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and _Prussia_--made a solemn treaty, by which they promised faithfully that they would never again trespass on Belgian soil in time of war. This is what we mean when we talk about the neutrality[112] of Belgium. * * * * * Now what has all this to do with the war between France and Germany in 1870? We shall soon see. When there was no doubt that Germany and France were going to fight, the British Government sent a message to each of them, saying that it would declare war against that Power which broke its plighted word with regard to Belgium. Bismarck replied by telegraph that she had no intention of invading Belgium, and France gave her answer in the same strain. Thus Belgium was spared untold suffering. A new treaty was made renewing the old one, and this treaty up to the beginning of the present war was Belgium's charter of freedom from foreign invasion. The Belgian people were very much relieved when they knew that they were to be left alone during the war, and the town council of Brussels sent a beautiful letter of thanks to Queen Victoria. It ran as follows:--