“Great cause, indeed, have we to thank God for trials successfully met and victories won.  Still more should we thank Him for the golden future, with its wealth of opportunity and its hope of a permanent, universal peace.”

THE HOMECOMING OF KING ALBERT

The world rejoiced with Belgium when King Albert and the Queen returned in triumph to Brussels, November 21, 1918, just a little over four years after the bodeful day when they left it, in 1914.  Belgium, the first martyr to German ferocity, had come back to its own—­had justified the historic words of its King to the insolent Germans, “Belgium is a country, not a road,” and stood firm, a David of the Nations, against the onslaught of the most awful and bloody hordes the world has seen since Attila, the other Hun, drove with his swarming savages over Europe, centuries ago, roaring that grass would never grow again where their horses trod.

Civilization had been justified.  The “scrap of paper” had come to life.  It was a great day, an hour of right and might, a soul-stirring climax to a most stupendous drama.  The hero rode in triumph; and the villain, after ignominious flight, was hiding behind the skirts of a Dutchwoman, over the border.

No finer troops marched through Brussels on this gala day than the Yanks, who were given a conspicuous place in the celebration.  A battalion of infantry from the Ninety-First American Division and a battery from the Fifty-Third Brigade, fresh from the beating they had given the Huns at Oudenark a few days before, were prominent in the lines, and shared in the plaudits a liberated people showered upon their own heroic troops.  Troops that had held the last strip of Belgian soil through all those bitter years with a tenacity the Huns could never shake.  These Belgian soldiers, had, of course, the place of honor.  French and British troops, with bands playing and colors flying, shared in the glorious triumph.

The King and the royal family rode at the head of two Belgian divisions—­a column of veterans stretching out fifteen miles.  The day was like midsummer—­bright and fair.  All the roads leading to the Rue Royale and the Boulevard Anspach were packed hours before the King’s arrival.  At the Port de Flandre the throngs were so dense they were impassable.  The whole city was gorgeously decorated.  Aircraft were overhead, dropping confetti.  The balconies all along the route were draped with flags and colored banners, and filled with people who, when the King and his family rode by, showered them with flowers and little flags.  At one place a company of five hundred young women sang the Brabanconne, the Belgian national song, and the American, French and British national anthems.

The royal progress ended at the Palais de la Nation, where the King dismounted and entered, to address the parliament in its first assembly after the war—­an historic session.  Then he reviewed the troops in the great square, and thence went to the Hotel de Ville to receive the address of the Burgomaster Max, that sturdy figure, which the Germans at the height of their tyranny had not been able to budge.