Word: belgians
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...German artillery batteries had deliberately shattered Louvain University's Library in 1940, the second time in two wars. Just before the shelling, a German officer gave a German reason for it: "These Belgian swine have an insulting inscription about us on their library." The officer was wrong. Cardinal Mercier's proposed inscription-Furore Teutonico Diruta, Dono Americano Restituta (Destroyed by German Fury, Restored by American Gift)-was never used because Herbert Hoover, Nicholas Murray Butler and U.S. pacifists denounced it as hate-breeding...
Bound up with the election was the fate of Belgium's exiled King Leopold III. All parties wanted the monarchy, but only the Catholics, fervently keynoting the Belgian anthem's refrain, "Le Roi, la loi, la liberté" had campaigned to have Leopold back. Brussels thought the reluctant left-wing parties would agree to recall him-to abdicate in favor of his 15-year-old heir, Prince Baudouin...
Because Premier van Acker's Socialist-Communist-Liberal coalition had kept the nation's nose close to the grindstone, Brussels shop windows bulged with food, clothing, luxuries. The size and variety of Belgian rations made French mouths water...
...days before the Belgian elections, the New York Times's wise Anne O'Hare McCormick ascribed the Continent's swing to the left largely to postwar upheaval. She wrote: "People voting in Europe this year are not voting their permanent political convictions. They are voting their . . . reactions to immediate circumstances." Well-fed Belgians seemed to be the first to bear out this analysis. They added a piquant touch of their own: a predominantly leftist Government had led the return to prosperity, which resulted in gains for the friends of Leopold...
Something which never really existed was formally ordered out of existence last week. In 1926 Belgium wanted to protect the Belgian franc from the skidding of the French franc (the two currencies had long been interchangeable). So Belgium established the belga, worth five francs...