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He'll do for you." A more ridiculous proceeding cannot be imagined, but old Dupaty was perfectly enchanted. He was still more delighted when he succeeded in getting one of his works, a comic opera called Picaros et Diego given at the theatre in the Chateau of Compiegne, in honour of the marriage of my sister Louise and the King of the Belgians.
In fact, when the Germans entered Antwerp not a strand of barbed wire had been cut, not a barricade defended, not a mine exploded. This, mind you, was not due to any lack of bravery on the part of the Belgians Heaven knows, they did not lack for that! but to the fact that the Germans never gave them a chance to make use of these elaborate and ingenious devices.
Together they clambered over the roof of the German legation. They found that the wireless outfit was a rusty weather-vane that creaked. When the government moved to Antwerp Whitlock asked permission to remain at the capital. He believed that in Brussels he could be of greater service to both Americans and Belgians.
Already stories of German barbarity were rife, of women violated, of defenceless civilians being shot down for no object except to terrorise, and to bring home to the Belgians the unwisdom of presuming to cross the will of the sovereign people.
The Belgians are by nature a cheerful race, but these were brave men, and we felt glad that we had come out to do what we could for them. But if we give them credit for their courage and cheerfulness, we must not forget how largely they owed it to the devoted attention yes, and to the courage and cheerfulness of the nurses. I wonder how many of us realize what Britain owes to her nurses.
A few illustrations will suffice to show the absence of all foundation for the charges against the Belgians; charges, we must remember, which the German soldiery believed, and which convinced them they were performing a holy task at Louvain, Tirlemont, Dinant, etc. South of Cambrai a column of German motor-cars was attacked by a company of French cyclists.
The assertion that the Belgians are lacking in courage is as untruthful as it is cruel. Ask the Germans who charged up the fire-swept slopes of Liége those of them left alive if the Belgians are cowards. Ask those who saw the fields of Aerschot and Vilvorde and Termonde and Malines strewn with Belgian dead.
In the course of the night a brigade of Belgians, who were with the French army, having heard that their country had declared for their legitimate king, passed over to our side, and surrendered. On the 12th there was heavy firing and hard fighting, all day, to our left, but we remained perfectly quiet.
It was on this occasion that Gordon was first brought into contact with the King of the Belgians, and had his attention drawn to the prospect of suppressing the slave trade from the side of the Congo, somewhat analogous to his own project of crushing it from Zanzibar. The following unpublished letter gives an amusing account of the circumstances under which he first met King Leopold:
Other visits are described in her Journals, to the Queen Dowager, the Duchess of Kent, the Duchess of Gloucester, and others of the Royal Family; having interesting conversations about "our dear young Queen, Prince Albert, and their little ones; about our foreign journey, the King of the Belgians, and other matters."
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