TREACHERY?

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 147, 22 June 1940, Page 8

TREACHERY?

LEOPOLD'S ACT.

SURRENDER ORDER.

OLD DEFEATIST SPIRIT.

QUABBBL WITH MINISTERS.

What caused King Leopold to surrender, to leave in the lurch the armies which the Allies had sent into Belgium in response to his own appeal?

In Britain, as the cables, told us, there was at first a disposition to withhold judgment. But later, as newspaper reports just received show, the available evidence seemed to point to treachery.

The "Daily Mail," in an article on May 31 compiled from dispatches received from its Paris correspondent and from the Havas (French), Reuter and Exchange Telegraph agencies, declares that at the moment Leopold called to the Allies for aid he was "playing the Nazi game."

From the very beginning of the war lie forbade his Ministers to leave Belgian soil, particularly for France, so as to avoid any personal contacts there. He attempted to put a muzzle 011 the Belgian Press, and was only for the time prevented from doing so by the bitter resistance of some of 3iis Ministers.

He refused on any account to {.resent himself before Parliament before taking the leadership of the Belgian Army. He refused to condemn the invaders in a radio speech. He opposed collaboration between Belgian and trench authorities to prepare for the evacuation of the civilian population. From the first he showed a defeatist spirit.

In private, that is; and to his Minis ters.

The tide of invasion i.ot then having encountered the Allied forces, swept on. Brussels was evacuated perforce aS the seat of government. The King maintained his equivocal position when he went to Ostend.

Army "Too Tired." Most of the Belgian Cabinet retired to La Panne, but four of the leading Ministers went to Belgian Army Headquarters to plead with the King'to place the post of command of the army, which he occupied, second to that of the Chief of the State. Leopold refused. Later they tried to persuade him to leave with the Government if necessary, and reproached him for not following the military advjee of General Wevgand. J

King Leopold was evasive, saving that the Belgian Army was "too tired" to make the withdrawal which would have saved the situation. The Ministers protested that the King was wrong, the army being then in excellent fettle and with good morale. They were advised dlrf l y officers who - even then, c*"n ! l V* te to use the word treason. Still patriot Ministers pleaded with a. yielding King. Their last interview with him as a body was at Bruges on May 20, the Germans being only about Ave miles away. Leopold was then in a state of "extreme exasperation." To the Belgian Premier, M. Pierlot, who made a final attempt to prevent him from giving in, the King violently refused to listen, declaring that he was determined to make peace so as to preserve relative independence." (^a ? r ' a^er > when the Ministers were conferring having so barely escaped with their lives that the German wireless had announced them shot—thev received a request from Leopold that they should send him a blank sheet signed by one or other of them. He explained that this was needed to enable him to nominate another Minister constitutionally, hoping thus to appoint a new Premier and Government obedient to the Germans. But all the Ministers refused to sign.

The Final Appeal. So the way was prepared bv Leopold for the supreme act of surrender last week-end. British, French and Belgian soldiers were then still valiantly, and not unhopefully, defending the "soil of Belgium against the enemy. Belgian Ministers were in France.

King Leopold remained at a convenient place near the front line from which he could send his envoy of surrender to the Germans. That envoy was soon on his wav.

Then came anotheV appeal from M. Pierlot to the King begging him to give over the command of his Army to a loyal general, and come to France. In vain. The die was cast. With Leopold's consent, but at the German dictation, the orders for surrender were issued to the Belgian troops. For this, for the present. Leopodd is graciously permitted by the Germans to retire to a "castle in Belgium."

Another View. On the other hand, Sir Robert Clive. who was British Ambassador to Belgium in 1937-39, wrote in "The Times": "No one ever questioned King Leopold's patriotism, however misguided. He was aidently pro-Belgian. The French maintained he wa<s pro-German. Ido not believe tlii's, but he certainly was not pro-French. The so-called policy of independence which he annoiinced 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." Nevertheless. Sir Robert said the Kings failure to inform the British and French generals 'of his decision to surrender "seems quite inexplicable." King Leopold's brief reign has indeed been a tragedy both for himself and for the world."

"No Palliation." I Mr. G. L. Garvin, describing the King's act as an "unparalleled desertion." said: "He saw no hope. His wild dishonour sprang- from innate despair. Impulsive and obstinate, self-willed and ill-starred, lie never had his father's faith, judgment or. character. His solicitude for his own subjects separately can be understood. There is no palliation for abandoning the Allies he liad called to his aid."

But the defeat of the Allied armies in Belgium, Mr. Garvin added, was not due to Leopold's desertion. "However bad, it was a symptom rather than a cause. The root and origin of the matter was that the glorious young armies of the Western democracies were thrown into the inferno of modern battle without being equipped by the former administrations of Britain and France for the requirement* of modern war. In the way of conventional short-sightednens it was one of the blunders that in their effects are more disactrou* than crimes."