BELGIUM'S TRAGIC KING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23719, 27 July 1940, Page 6 (Supplement)

BELGIUM'S TRAGIC KING

real hobbies. His boyhood had been too chequered. He would stride up and down the long rooms at Laeken, stopping at a fixed position each time and making some special gesture, such as tapping a pattern on the carpet twice with his left foot and the next time with his right.

These habits had begun in early youth. His wife took them in hand. After her death, when they grew worse again, he consulted the same psychologist at Vienna as did the Duke of Windsor.

Leopold wished to be admired as a great ruler. He had his father's quick sympathy, but he had his mother's German obstinacy. Queen Elizabeth of the Belgians played a great and noble part in her country's struggle from 1914 to 1918. ' When her husband died tragically in "1934, she shut herself up in complete mourning. When her daughter-in-law was killed and Leopold stood alone, his mother came back to help him. She took charge of his children. She advised him in his work as King. Albert Canal In the lonely life after his wife's death, Leopold looked around for a maior interest. From inclination, and on his mother's advice, he concentrated on the army. Thanks to his untiring efforts, he built up the disciplined, well-trained force it was. With technical experts and generals he planned the fortification of the frontier. He went himself to watch the building of the Albert Canal, which to his mind formed a kind of substitute for a Maginot Line along the BelgoGcrman frontier, for which the French had pressed. Just over a year ago Leopold went to the opening of the Liege Exhibition to celebrate tho Albert Canal's com-

I HAVE seen Leopold, ex-King of the Belgians, many times.* "* "I have heard him laugh, I have never seen him smile. I have never seen him out of uniform, not even at an informal children's party last summer before war began. He is used to being lonely, but not to being hated. There is (or was) a picture of him in every public office in Belgium, at railway stations, in the smallest houses. An American magazine ran a contest for the most popular figure. Leopold won. Had the votes for this contest been taken among his own entourage, among people who knew him well, lie wouldn't have come out so high. For all his personal charm, he was difficult and moody. He was quickly angry, often for absurd reasons. He had a distinct streak of cruelty. He was as impulsively generous as he could be hastily unkind. He had no

Was He Swayed

By HESTOR MARSDEN-SMEDLEY Sunday Express Correspondent in Brussels Until the Nazi Invasion.

pletion. In public speech lie emphasised the canal's commercial, rather than its strategical, importance. German officials laughed at these speeches and mocked at the camouflage of attempted protection against them. A civic leader at Liege reported this to Leopold. Hq was told in unkingly terms to be quiet. The rapid growth of the new army in Germany, the comprehensive training of the young men, the new ideas in strategy and defence appealed to him. Ski-ing Holiday About the middle of the winter of 1938, observers in "the King's circle noticed another influence at work. Leopold had met a beautiful German girl on a ski-ing holiday in Switzerland. He continued seeing her, often meeting her at Strasbourg in France, sometimes in Belgium, but never on bis visits to Germany. Many say her role was planned. That I do not believe. _ But the friendship strengthened his interest in Germany and gave opportunities for other German contacts. A cousin of this girl is at the German War Ministry. His mother, who had disapproved of an earlier friendship with the daughter of a leading French politician, encouraged this German girl. He was never seen in public with her, but she stayed near the Queen's pnlace in Flanders. Leopold's surrender may have been made on impulse, it may certainly have been influenced by fear. Not personal fear, for he is no coward, but fear that Belgium, for which he has a genuine love, would be utterly destroyed. But it Was really a crowning act of masterly German propaganda which had worked on his fears and hopes and ambitions during the eight months of Belgium's armed inaction and before.