LEOPOLD ACCUSED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 May 1940, Page 6

LEOPOLD ACCUSED

RELATIONS IN LAST DAYS WITH MINISTERS

CONSTITUTION VIOLATED. BETRAYAL OF COUNTRY TO ENEMY. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received This Day, 12.30 p.m.) PARIS, May 30. In a remarkable dispatch in which it declared that King Leopold’s treachery was not. only military but was an organised and premeditated felony, the Havas Agency states that King Leopold after the outbreak of war, forbade his ministers to leave Belgium, particularly for France. King Leopold refused to present himself to Parliament before assuming the Army command, as his father did in 1914. He also refused to condemn the invaders, showed signs of a defeatist spirit and opposed collaboration between the French and Belgian authorities to prepare for the evacuation of civilians. King Leopold acted equivocally at Ostend. Members of the Cabinet tried to persuade him to accompany them from Belgium and reproached him for not following Weygand’s advice. The king was evasive, saying the Army was too tired to make a withdrawal which would have saved the situation. The Ministers protested that the Army was in excellent fettle and morale, on which they were informed by Army officers, who did not hesitate to use the word treason. It was only by chance that Ministers learned, after their last interview with the king on May 25, that the Germans were only six kilometres away. King Leopold showed signs of extreme exasperation, declaring that he was determined to make peace in order to preserve relative independence. M. Pirlpt (Prime Minister) without avail pointed out that the King was about to violate the constitution. The Government on May 26 received a request from the King for a blank sheet signed by a member of the Cabinet. The King explained that it was needed to enable him to nominate another Minister constitutionally, with the obvious intention of summoning a new Prime Minister. The ruse failed, all the Ministers refusing to sign. Soon afterwards the King ordered the “cease fire.”