Lest We Forget Part 2

"King" is not a word that will go out of use when the world has been won for democracy. We shall still use it much as we do now, when we say, "He is a prince" or "He is a king among men"; for there are still good kings, as well as bad ones. Some countries that are really democratic prefer to keep kings as reminders of their past and as ornaments of their present.

England is really more democratic than the United States and yet England has a king; and as some one has said, he is a king and a democrat and a king of democrats. This was well shown by his letter to the first American soldiers who marched through London in April, 1918, on their way to the battle line in France. Each soldier was handed an envelope bearing the inscription, "A message to you from his majesty, King George V." In the envelope was the letter shown on the opposite page, from a democratic king to the American soldiers in the army of democracy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (hand written letter from the King of England)

WINDSOR CASTLE

Soldiers of the United States, the people of the British Isles welcome you, on your way to take your stand beside the Armies of many Nations now fighting in the Old World the great battle for human freedom.

The Allies will gain new heart & spirit in your company I wish that I could shake the hand of each one of you & big you G.o.d speed on your mission.

George R.I.

April 1918.]

No autocratic king or kaiser desires to shake the hand of each of his soldiers or to become in any way one of them. To an autocrat, to the German Kaiser, to the German officers, the German privates are only Things to be used as are swords and guns. A wounded German officer felt insulted because he was made well again in an English hospital in the same ward with German privates.

An interesting story is told of a Red Cross nurse, to whom a badly wounded man was brought at a field hospital during one of the battles in which the brave little Belgian army was trying to hold back the invading Germans. All the surgeons were busy, and the man needed a.s.sistance at once. The nurse knew what was needed to save his life until he could receive surgical treatment, and she knew how to do it; but she could not do it alone. She must have help at once, and of the right kind.

She was about to give up in despair, when she saw a man walking through the field hospital, cheering the sufferers and asking if he could be of any a.s.sistance. She called to him, and when he came she said, "You can save this man's life if you will help me and do just what I tell you, just when I tell you to do it. Do you think you can take orders and obey them promptly?"

"I think so," replied the man. "Let us save this poor soldier's life, if we can."

The nurse set to work, telling the stranger just what she wanted him to do. She wasted no words, but gave orders as if she expected them to be obeyed quickly and intelligently. The stranger proved himself equal to the occasion, and the delicate work which saved the man's life was soon done.

"Thank you," said the nurse, as she finished. "I see you are used to taking orders and know how to obey. I shall remain with this soldier, until he regains consciousness. He will want to know to whose a.s.sistance he owes his life. Kindly give me your name."

The stranger hesitated. Then he said, "The soldier really owes his life to you, but I am glad if I was able to help. If he asks, you may tell him the people call me Albert."

And all at once the commanding little Red Cross nurse understood that the tall, quiet man, who, she said, showed that he was used to taking orders, was Albert, King of the Belgians.

Italy has a king and Belgium has a king; but like King George of England they are democratic kings, exercising what authority is granted to them by the people in accordance with a const.i.tution. The German Kaiser claims to hold all authority of life and death over his people, including the right of declaring defensive war, by "divine right," by G.o.d's choice of him and his family to rule.

When Germany, at the outbreak of the war in 1914, resolved to break the treaty in which with other nations she had pledged herself never to violate, but always to defend, the neutrality of Belgium; when she was ready to declare to the world that a sacred treaty was only "a sc.r.a.p of paper" to be torn up whenever her needs seemed to require it, she sent on Sunday night, August 2, 1914, at seven o'clock, an ultimatum to the Belgian government--to be answered within twelve hours--in substance as follows:

The German Government has received information, of the accuracy of which there can be no doubt, that it _may_ be the intention of France to send her forces across Belgium to attack Germany.

The German Government fears that Belgium, no matter how good her intentions, may not be able unaided to prevent such a French advance; and therefore it is necessary for the protection of Germany that she should act at once.

The German Government would be very sorry to have Belgium consider her action in this matter as a hostile act, for it is forced upon Germany by her enemies. In order to prevent any misunderstanding, the German Government declares:

1. Germany intends no hostile act against Belgium, and if Belgium makes no resistance, the German Government pledges the security of the Belgian Kingdom and all its possessions.

2. Germany pledges herself to evacuate all Belgian territory at the end of the war.

3. Germany will pay cash for all supplies needed by her troops which Belgians are willing to sell her and will make good any damage caused by her forces.

4. If Belgium resists the advance of the German forces, the German Government will be compelled to consider Belgium as an enemy and will act accordingly. If not, the friendly relations which have long united the two nations will become stronger and more lasting.

In twelve hours Belgium must make a decision that would change her entire future history and, as later events proved, the history of Europe and of the world. She made it; and by that decision she sacrificed herself and brought death and destruction upon her people and her possessions, but she saved her honor and her soul. Germany had promised her everything, if she would only let the German armies march unhindered through Belgium into France. No Belgian should be harmed or disturbed, and anything needed by the German army would be paid for.

After the Germans had won the war, as they doubtless would have done if Belgium had not blocked their way, Belgium would have become a thriving, wealthy kingdom, under German protection. Antwerp would have been perhaps the greatest port in the world, and Brussels, next to Berlin, the world's most magnificent capital. But the Belgians did not hesitate nor did their heroic king.

The Belgian Government replied on Monday morning, at four o'clock, in substance as follows:

The Note from the German Government has caused the most painful surprise to the Belgian Government. The French on August 1 a.s.sured us most emphatically that they would respect our neutrality. If this should prove to be false, the Belgian army will offer the greatest possible resistance to invasion by them.

The neutrality of Belgium is guaranteed by the powers, among them Germany, and the attack which the German Government threatens to make on Belgium would be a violation of the Law of Nations. No military necessity can justify such a violation of right.

The Belgian Government, if it accepted the proposals of Germany, would sacrifice the honor of the nation and betray its duty to Europe; and it therefore refuses to believe that this will be demanded in order to maintain its independence. If this expectation proves unfounded, the Belgian Government is fully decided to resist by all means in its power any attack against its rights.

On Tuesday the King brought in person a message to the Belgian Legislature, as President Wilson has often brought such messages to the American Congress. King Albert's message was in substance as follows:

Not since 1830 has Belgium pa.s.sed through such an anxious hour.

Our independence is threatened. We still have hope that what we dread may not happen; but if we have to resist invasion and defend our homes, that duty will find us armed, courageous, and ready for any sacrifice. Already our young men have risen to defend their country in danger. I send to them, in the name of the nation, a brotherly greeting. Everywhere in the provinces of Flanders and of Walloon alike, in city and country, one feeling fills all minds--that our duty is to resist the enemies of our independence with firm courage and as a united nation.

The perfect mobilization of our army, the great number of volunteers, the devotion of the citizens, the self-denial of families have shown beyond doubt the bravery of the Belgian people. The moment to act has come.

No one in this nation will betray his duty. The army is ready, and the Government has absolute trust in its leaders and its soldiers.

If the foreigner violates our territory, he will find all Belgians grouped round their King and their Government, in which they have absolute confidence.

I have faith in our destinies. A nation which defends its rights commands the respect of all. Such a nation cannot die. G.o.d will be with us in a just cause. Long live independent Belgium!

Hardly had the King finished his n.o.ble message, when the Prime Minister announced to the Legislature that Germany had declared war upon Belgium, and that her troops were moving against Liege.

Never as long as men remember the history of these fateful days will the decisive action of the heroic Belgian people and of their heroic king be forgotten. The slightest hesitation between right and wrong would have set civilization and human liberty back perhaps a thousand years. And the decision had to be made not only by a people, but by a young king with German blood in his veins and married to a German princess--and between sunset and sunrise.

Did he see the horrors before him and his people? Did he see the destruction of the most beautiful buildings in the world, the pride of his people? Did he see the tearing down and burning of the entire city of Louvain, with its university and its valuable library containing some of the oldest and most nearly priceless books and ma.n.u.scripts? Did he see the children and the aged dying by the roadside of hunger and fatigue? Did he see the Belgian men carried off as slaves to work in Germany?

Do you think he or his Queen would have hesitated if he had? No one who really knows them thinks so. Nothing can justify choosing the wrong.

King Albert, the King of Heroes, and Queen Elizabeth of the Belgians are honored and respected by all who love liberty and justice, for it has been well said, "Treaties and engagements are certainly sc.r.a.ps of paper, just as promises are no more than breaths. But upon such sc.r.a.ps of paper and breaths the fabric of civilization has been built, and without them its everyday activity would come to an end." They represent truly the heroic Belgian people who by their decision on Sunday night, August 2, 1914, saved the world. Queen Elizabeth, although a Bavarian princess, has said of the Germans, "Between them and me has fallen a curtain of iron which will never again be lifted."

The Belgian Minister to the United States said of King Albert after the war had begun:

"It is when one talks with our soldiers that one perceives how he is loved; they say, all of them, that they will die for him. He is constantly at their side, encouraging them by his presence and his courage. At certain moments, he adventures too far; always he is in the very midst of combat."

[Ill.u.s.tration: KING ALBERT OF BELGIUM]

The King and Queen are both of them unusually brave and daring. Not many royal pairs would trust their lives to cross the English Channel and return in an airplane, as they did in the summer of 1918 to attend a celebration held by the King and Queen of England.

A Belgian soldier writing of King Albert said: "The King came and placed himself at my side in the trench. He took the rifle of a soldier so tired he could not stand, to give him a chance to rest, and fired, just like the other soldiers, for an hour and a half. He himself often carries their letters to the soldiers and distributes among them the little bundles which their friends and parents send them from the homes now destroyed. He shares their mess with the soldiers and he calls them always 'my friends.' He does not want that they shall do him honor; he wishes simply to be a soldier in all that the word _soldier_ means. One night he was seen, exhausted by fatigue, sleeping on the gra.s.s at the side of the road."

Do you wonder that the Belgians love their King and that the world honors him as the Hero King of a Nation of Heroes?