The North-German Gazette also publishes certain passages of a report of the Belgian Minister at Berlin in December, 1911, relating to another plan of the Belgian General Staff, in which the measures to be taken in case of the violation of Belgian neutrality by Germany are discussed.  Baron Greindl pointed out that this plan dealt only with the precautions to be taken in the event of an aggression on the part of Germany, while, owing to its geographical situation, Belgium might just as well be exposed to an attack by France and England.  The North-German Gazette draws from this discovery the strange conclusion that England intended to drag Belgium into the war, and at one time contemplated the violation of Dutch neutrality.

We have only one regret to express on the subject of the disclosure of these documents, and that is that the publication of our military documents should be mangled and arranged in such a way as to give the reader the impression of duplicity on the part of England and adhesion by Belgium, in violation of her duties as a neutral State, to the policy of the Triple Entente.  We ask the North-German Gazette to publish in full the result of its search among our secret documents.  Therein will be found fresh and striking proof of the loyalty, correctness, and impartiality with which Belgium for 81 years has discharged her international obligations.

It was stated that Col.  Barnardiston, the military representative at Brussels of a power guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium, at the time of the Algeciras crisis, questioned the Chief of the Belgian General Staff as to the measures which he had taken to prevent any violation of that neutrality.  The Chief of the General Staff, at that time Lieut.  Gen. Ducarne, replied that Belgium was ready to repel any invader.  Did the conversation extend beyond these limits, and did Col.  Barnardiston, in an interview of a private and confidential nature, disclose to Gen. Ducarne the plan of campaign which the British General Staff would have desired to follow if that neutrality were violated?  We doubt it, but in any case we can solemnly assert, and it will be impossible to prove the contrary, that never has the King or his Government been invited, either directly or indirectly, to join the Triple Entente in the event of a Franco-German war.  By their words and by their acts they have always shown such a firm attitude that any supposition that they could have departed from the strictest neutrality is eliminated a priori.

As for Baron Greindl’s dispatch of Dec. 23, 1911, it dealt with a plan for the defense of Luxembourg, due to the personal initiative of the Chief of the First Section of the War Ministry.  This plan was of an absolutely private character and had not been approved by the Minister of War.  If this plan contemplated above all an attack by Germany, there is no cause for surprise, since the great German military writers, in particular T. Bernhardi, V. Schlivfeboch, and von der Goltz, spoke openly in their treatises on the coming war of the violation of Belgian territory by the German armies.