Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/113

 hours before he presented his ultimatum the German Minister at Brussels issued a message of reassurance through the columns of Le Soir; well do I remember how avidly the citizens of Brussels not so much bought as tore out of the hands of the newsboys that issue of the 2nd of August with Herr von Below Saleske's message, and the sigh of relief that followed the reading of it. He employed an image the sinister fitness of which we did not then suspect.

"I have not done so, and personally I do not see any reason why I should have done so, seeing that it was superfluous. The view has always been accepted by us that the neutrality of Belgium will not be violated. If the French Minister had made a formal declaration to that effect it is doubtless because he wished to reinforce obvious fact by some words of reassurance. The German troops will not march over Belgian territory. We are on the eve of grave events. Perhaps you will see your neighbor's house on fire, but the flames will spare yours."

The vision of burning towns has come to have a sinister fitness.

We know now that already, on the 31st of July, Germany had declined to give any undertaking to respect Belgian neutrality because any reply to the British demand made in that sense "could not but disclose a certain amount of their plan of campaign in the event of war ensuing." There is no more