Once more there could be no suggestion that this connecting link, opened in October, 1913, was wanted in the interests of the ordinary traffic, the needs of which were adequately met by the diligence running twice a day between Malmédy and Stavelot. What was really aimed at was a rail connection with the Belgian system by means of which the troops concentrated in those extensive sidings on the Aix-la-Chapelle-St. Vith line could be poured into Belgium in a continuous stream for the achievement of designs on Belgium or--operating from either the Belgian or the Luxemburg frontier--on France. In helping to provide this connection, Belgium, as subsequent events were to show, was in a position akin to that of a man forced to dig the grave in which he is to be buried after being shot; but Belgium, we are told, "yielded in this and other matters because she could not resist without support, and no support was forthcoming." There certainly was an attempt to lull possible suspicions by the designation of the Malmédy-Stavelot link as a "light railway." It was, also, evident that the physical conditions of the Weismes-Malmédy branch, with which it was to connect, would not permit of any heavy traffic along it. But the so-called "light railway" was built with the same gauge as the main-line systems on each side of the frontier; the powers obtained in respect to it allowed of trains being run at a speed of forty miles an hour, as against the recognised speed of sixteen miles an hour on light railways proper; while no sooner had the link been established than Germany discarded the defective Weismes-Malmédy branch for the purposes of military transport, and built a new line from Malmédy to Weywertz, a station to the north or north-east of Weismes. This Malmédy-Weywertz branch would, it was understood, be used exclusively for military traffic, and the station at Weywertz was, in due course, provided with its own extensive platforms and network of sidings for the accommodation of troop trains. We now come to the third chapter of the story; and here we learn that what was happening in the immediate proximity of the German-Belgian frontier was but part of a much wider scheme, though one still designed to serve the same purpose--that, namely, of ensuring the invasion of Belgium by German troops with the greatest facility and in the least possible time.