Word: spaak
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...West. Before the French and British Embassies in Brussels, students paraded, carrying banners that said: "VIVE LA FRANCE!" "VIVE LA GRANDE BRETAGNE!" At night columns of Belgian troops clumped along mined roads, across barricaded bridges, toward Liege and the German frontier. Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak called in Allied diplomats to deny that Germany had presented an ultimatum demanding Belgian neutrality, to reaffirm that Belgium was neutral anyway-until Belgium or The Netherlands was invaded. Minister of Defense Lieutenant General Henri Denis told correspondents: "If any invader sought ... to cross our territory, he would find there only slim advantages...
...struggle month ago a mediocre physician, Adrian Martens, who had been sentenced to death in 1918 (and later reprieved) for plotting Flemish autonomy with Germany, was appointed a charter member of the newly created Flemish Academy of Science. The Walloons were furious and the Cabinet of Premier Paul Henri Spaak fell on that issue. It was suspected that King Leopold had backed the appointment. After that Belgian statesmen struggled to form Cabinets, failed in dizzy succession. Soon the suspicion was rife that the King had dictatorial ambitions. Last week a shortlived Cabinet-that of Walloon Premier Hubert Pierlot-was again...
...Belgian Cabinets these days are as flimsy as playing-card castles. Month ago King Leopold III accepted Premier Paul Henri Spaak's resignation in the Flemish v. Walloon crisis caused by patriotic War veterans (TIME, Feb. 20). He asked Walloon Catholic Henri Jaspar, who had been Premier from 1926 to 1930, to form a new Cabinet. After two days of fruitless interviews, Jaspar gave up; 36 hours later he died of a stomach ulcer about which he had told no one. Former Cabinet Minister Hubert Pierlot, also a Walloon-Catholic, tried next. He built up a Cabinet of Catholics...
...mediocre medical man who had worked for Flemish autonomy. Sentenced to death, Martens escaped to The Netherlands in 1918. The Belgians burned him in effigy. After the passage of the amnesty bill, he returned unobtrusively to take up practice in Ghent. Some time ago, Belgian Premier Paul Henri Spaak proposed Dr. Martens for membership in the newly created Flemish Academy of Science and King Leopold gave the proposal his royal signature. The Premier went before the Parliament and, after a riotous session, finally came out with its reluctant approval. But when he reached his home the veterans were waiting...
Last week Premier Spaak did. King Leopold turned the job of forming a new Cabinet and placating the angry veterans over to onetime Premier Henri Jaspar...