FAILURE OF A KING

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21176, 27 July 1940, Page 20 (Supplement)

FAILURE OF A KING

A TRAGIC REIGN LEOPOLD IN' PEACE AND WAR Sir Robert Clive, who was British Ambassador to Belgium from 1937 to 1939, writes in the London Times:— King Leopold 111. of the Belgians always made on me the impression of a very sad man. He was born, I imagine, with no sense of fun, let alone a sense of humour. I have never seen him laugh. I doubt if lie ever has laughed since the tragic death of his consort, that gay and lovable woman Queen Astrid, in the summer of 1935. By nature morbid and introspective, at the same time very obstinate and autocratic, yet

{ with an intense love of his country, i he is today really an object of pity. I His temper, never easily controlled, |at times became violent. No one in ; his entourage ever dared to stand up ito him. He is lacking in geniality, j though he has a charming smile and i a soft and attractive voice. He was j starved of friendship both of men j and of women. The loss of his wife | was irreparable. It is to be regret- : ted that he did not marry again. His ! chief confidant in the last two years | has been General van Overstraeten, I who was both head of the Ecole Mili- ! taire and his principal aide-de- | camp. The General was notoriously ' anti-French, and shared to the full the King’s policy of neutrality at any price. The Blinding Obsession The French maintained he was pro-

No one ever questioned King Leopold’s patriotism, however misguided. He was ardently pro-Belgian. German. Ido not believe this, but he certainly was not pro-French. The so-called policy of independence which he announced to an astonished world in October, 1936, was inspired by the hope, which developed into an obsession, that in this way alone would he be able to save Belgium from the horrors of war. This obsession made him blind to other considerations. Equal weight, he felt, must be attached to the German and to the British and French guarantees. The fiction must be maintained that Belgium was as liable to attack from the French as from the German side. No details of the Belgian defence plans could be given to us or to the French for fear of infringing the policy of absolute neutrality. All

i'/ea of staff conversations was taboo. In this attitude of stand-offishness from his former allies he was aided and abetted by his evil genius, General van Overstraeten. One of the chief functions of the latter was to act as the King's go-between with his minister of National Defence and the General Staff over the head, of General van den Bergen, the Chief of the General Staff, a very competent andi experienced officer, whose position in the end became intolerable until, in January, he was superseded by General Michiels, an officer hardly known by name outside his immediate circle. The result of this policy was that, in spite of the definite warning the Belgian Government received on November 10, when at the very last moment Hitler accepted the advice of his generals to defer the attack until after the winter, in spite, too, nf the p\’pr-inrrensin2 dancer to Bel-

gium, no staff conversations at all took place between the Belgian and Allied staffs before the invasion of Belgium on May 10. An Angry Refusal

When last October, after the subjugation of Poland, I was instructed again to raise the question, the King reacted violently and returned an angry refusal to the British proposal. Through his blindness to see the danger which threatened his country and his obstinate refusal to discuss it, King Leopold must bear the chief responsibility for the recent tragedy. On the King’s order to the Belgian Army to capitulate it is best to reserve judgment, as the Prime Minister told the House of Commons, until all the facts are fully known, although his failure to inform the French General in command and Lord Gort seems quite inexplicable. The Belgian Army had fought with the utmost gallantry against overwhelming force. No blame devolves on them for the action of their Com-mander-in-Chief, which has been disowned by the Constitutional authority, the Belgian Prime Minister and the Belgian Ministers in Paris. King Leopold’s brief rsign has indeed been a tragedy both for himself and for the world.