The Belgian King Capitulates

Southland Times, Issue 24138, 29 May 1940, Page 6

The Belgian King Capitulates

MORE than once since the outbreak of war Mr' Churchill lias warned the British people to expect disappointments and hard blows. One of the heaviest blows was struck last night when the French Prime Minister announced that the King of the Belgians, in defiance of the wishes of his Cabinet, had capitulated to the enemy. M. Reynaud explained that King Leopold had taken this step without advising even the commanders of the British and French forces with whom he was fighting, much less the British and French Governments, and that the capitulation of the Belgians had completely exposed the left flank of the Allied armies in the north, placing them in a position later described by Mr Duff Cooper as of “extreme gravity.” . The French Prime Minister spoke with intense bitterness of the actions of a King who had refused to hold military staff talks with the Allies before the war, who Had appealed to them for help immediately his country was attacked, bringing them out of their fortified lines and making possible the German thrust across northern France, and who had now suddenly surrendered, contrary to the decision of his Government, and exposed the Allied armies in the north to possible destruction. M. Reynaud used strong words, but no one will feel that they were unjustified. Subsequently it was reported that King Leopold had been deposed and that the Belgian Army was fighting on with the Allies, but later messages indicated that this was only partly true. 'Hie Belgian Government, now sitting in Paris, has pledged itself to continue the struggle with all the forces it can muster; but apparently the greater part, if not the whole, of the army which has been fighting in Belgium has surrendered with the King.

Forcing the Gap

Until the situation within the Belgian Army is clarified, comment must remain provisional. If the whole of the Belgian forces which form the left flank of the Allied line in Flanders has surrendered, as now appears likely, then the way has been opened for the German columns to reach Ostend and perhaps Dunkirk. This means—and there is no escaping the grim fact—that the British and French forces, amounting perhaps to 1,000,000 men, will be surrounded by the Germans except on a short length of the Channel coast. The incessant bombing of the Belgian Channel ports must already have made it difficult to send supplies to these forces, and may make it impossible to evacuate them from Belgian territory. The only other way of rescuing them is the forcing of the Arras “gap” which separates the troops in Flanders from their French comrades on the other side of the Somme. It was reported two days ago that this gap, once 30 miles wide, had been narrowed by the French to 12 miles; but it is still not closed. The failure to close it remains, as we have said, the strangest mystery of the war. But if the troops in Flanders cannot be provisioned, reinforced or moved by sea, then a superhuman effort will have to be made to reach them by land. Without doubt it will be made, in the next few days.