Word: belgians
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...first German ground troops crossed the Belgian border at 5:30 a.m. at Gem-menich, only 15 miles from Vise, where they first entered in 1914. Furious air-bombing ahead of their mechanized advance made up for any lack of surprise. They overwhelmed the key fortress of Eben Emael, commanding the junction of the Albert Canal and the Meuse River. Its commandant and 1,000 men surrendered within a few hours, paralyzed by "nerve gas" or some other secret German weapon. But unlike 1914, Belgium was not wholly unprepared this time. And even more than then, she was heartened...
...When it is a question of sacrifice or dishonor, the Belgian in 1940 will hesitate no more than his father...
...Liege up the Meuse to Namur and down through the hills into the rough, forested Ardennes, ran fort systems calculated to hold the mass invader until mass help arrived. From Antwerp through Louvain to Namur ran another line of forts, completed in the last seven months. And across the Belgian hills for 100 miles ran a flexible wall of heavy steel fence set on rollers, calculated to enmesh all tank advances until defensive cannon could demolish them. In 1914, King Albert had to withdraw his forces from Liege after twelve days, first to Brussels, which fell in another four days...
That this help was pre-arranged constituted the burden of Germany's bill of particulars last week against Belgium. Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop extended the accusation to include spying by Belgians to help Britain and France mount an offensive against the Reich's industrial heart in the Rhineland. The German High Command protested that Belgium's fortresses and military obstacles were all directed against Germany, none against France; that 14 out of 21 Belgian divisions mobilized last October were stationed in the east; that "this one-sided deployment" was not changed when Britain and France massed troops...
...democratic young prince (no great contrast, except among gay ladies, to Britain's then Prince of Wales) who accompanied King Albert through the U. S. in 1919, playing poker with them, driving the locomotive. With his father he visited Brazil and Egypt. He went alone to the Belgian Congo and wrote a report on it so thorough that it earned him ranking as his father's colonial adviser. Later he visited The Netherlands East Indies to inspect Queen Wilhelmina's colonial administrative methods. He prepared himself to unify his bilingual country by learning and speaking Flemish...