This assurance
has been given several times. The President of the
Republic spoke of it to the King of the Belgians, and the
French Minister at Brussels has spontaneously renewed the
assurance to the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs to-day.
From the German Government the reply was:
The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs could not
possibly give an answer before consulting the Emperor and
the Imperial Chancellor.
Sir Edward Goschen, to whom I had said it was important to have an
answer soon, said he hoped the answer would not be too long delayed.
The German Minister for Foreign Affairs then gave Sir Edward Goschen
to understand that he rather doubted whether they could answer at all,
as any reply they might give could not fail, in the event of war, to
have the undesirable effect of disclosing, to a certain extent, part
of their plan of campaign. I telegraphed at the same time to Brussels
to the Belgian Government, and I got the following reply from Sir
Francis Villiers:
The Minister for Foreign Affairs thanks me for the
communication, and replies that Belgium will, to the
utmost of her power, maintain neutrality, and expects and
desires other Powers to observe and uphold it. He begged
me to add that the relations between Belgium and the
neighbouring Powers were excellent, and there was no
reason to suspect their intentions, but that the Belgian
Government believe, in the case of violation, they were in
a position to defend the neutrality of their country.
Pages:
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523