Word: leopold
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...King Leopold and his Government had been aware that the German Army was again on the march as early as 9 p.m. the night prior. It was moving up from Dusseldorf and Cologne and Aachen to cross the Dutch appendix province of Limburg and strike at the Liege forts (see map, p. 23); from Trier to strike through Luxembourg at Arlon and Neuf-chateau. At 5:20 a.m. the bombs started thudding into Brussels from 100 raiders that sloped over in waves. They killed 41 civilians, wounded 82. One gutted a house across the square from the U. S. Embassy...
...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 to resist. In his war proclamation, King Leopold said...
...Last time, Belgium could muster only 120,000 men for her field Army-six divisions of infantry, one of cavalry. Her main defense line was the Gette River protecting Brussels. Last week King Leopold's regulars numbered 170,000, including two cavalry divisions, a small mechanized force, 25,000 fortress troops and a division of Ardennes Chasseurs (guerrilla forest fighters). Another 480,000 men with some training were mobilized, though there was fighting equipment for only about 130,000 of these. Instead of a trench-furrowed valley, Belgium's defense line now was the 250-foot-wide Albert...
...withdraw his forces from Liege after twelve days, first to Brussels, which fell in another four days; then to Antwerp, which held out 67 days longer, after the Germans turned on it to end Belgian sorties which were hampering their southward drive upon the French. Last week King Leopold had to wait only 90 minutes, instead of 17 days, before Belgium's sworn Allies marched in to his rescue and their own defense...
...this was speaking solemnly of undisputed things. It was no state secret that Belgium feared invasion by Germany and not by the Allies. No bones were ever made by King Leopold about his 1936 policy of "immunity," to replace "neutrality." He ended his alliance with Britain and France only lest it drag Belgium into war when they went. He desperately hoped and worked for peace right up to last week. He retained the Allies' pledge of defense in case Germany sought to attack them again through Belgium, because he more than guessed, he knew, that Germany would...