Word: leopold
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Before long the placid inhabitants of the placid Dutch seat of government were spreading the news that for some unexplained reason-and they feared the reason was ominous-Leopold III, King of the Belgians, was paying an unheralded visit to their Queen Wilhelmina. Despite a constant drizzle, a sizable crowd gathered on the sidewalks outside Her Majesty's little Palace...
Once they glimpsed King Leopold pacing up & down inside, gesticulating while he talked. Later they saw Prince Bernhard zu Lippe-Biesterfeld, husband of Princess Juliana and a member of the Dutch Army General Staff, dash out of the Palace's single entrance, get into a car and leave. At 1:30 a.m. Dutch Foreign Minister Eelco N. van Kleffens left. Gradually the Palace lights went...
Next day the conferees were at it again early. The mystery and the tension grew. Rumors flew that German troops were about to strike through The Netherlands, that a Nazi ultimatum had been delivered to the Low Countries. Not until nightfall, after Leopold had returned to his own capital, was released the text of an appeal for peace signed by the two sovereigns and sent to George VI of Britain, President Lebrun of France, and Führer Hitler of Germany...
...August 23, only nine days before Adolf Hitler ordered his Army to invade Poland, Leopold and Wilhelmina, joined by the heads of the three Scandinavian States and Finland and Luxembourg, had offered their "good offices" in mediating Europe's crisis. Five days later the offer was repeated. Since these appeals, then politely rejected, presumably still stood open, observers wondered why the two practical sovereigns found it necessary to renew their peace effort at a time when there was less likelihood than ever before that the belligerents would lay down their arms. Moreover, this new appeal contained no formula...
BERLIN--Fuehrer Adolf Hitler was described in Nazi quarters tonight as being "highly skeptical" of the peace proposal and mediation offer sent to him and the other warring nations by King Leopold of the Belgians and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands...