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The Battle of the Nations, 1914-1918; A Young Folks' History of the Great War
The Battle of the Nations 19141918 A Young Folks' History of the Great War Author:Frederic Arnold Kummer General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1919 Original Publisher: The Century Co. Subjects: World War, 1914-1918 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to... more » Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER n THE BEGINNING OF THE WAS OF all the nations of Europe which we have mentioned in the preceding chapter, Belgium was perhaps the most peaceable. More densely populated than any other country in the world, devoted to industry of every sort, Belgium when the war began was quietly pursuing her way, happily governed by her democratic king, Albert, asking nothing from her neighbors except to be let alone. Owing to her geographical position, Belgium had been the "cock-pit of Europe" for centuries. Wars had been fought upon the fields of Flanders ever since the days of Julius Caesar and before. The epoch-making Battle of Waterloo took place almost within hearing of her capital city, Brussels. To free Belgium from the perpetual danger of war the great nations of Europe made, early in the last century, a solemn treaty guaranteeing her neutrality; that is, agreeing among themselves that in case of war troops were not to be moved into Belgian territory. Germany was one of the powers that signed this treaty, and the world at large supposed that she would prove faithful to her obligations. So confident was France that the neutrality of Belgium would be respected in case of war that she took no steps to fortify her Belgian frontier. All of France's great border fortresses, such as Verdun, Epinal, Belfort, were situated along her eastern frontier, where her territory joined that of Germany. It did not occur to the French people that Germany would ever dare to attack them by way of Belgium. One wonders at this confidence on the part of th...« less