BELGIUM: THE INNOCENT BYSTANDER 



By William Joseph Showalter 



IF E\^ER a nation played the role and 

 got the reward of the innocent by- 

 stander, the Kingdom of Belgium has 

 done so since the mighty dogs of war 

 of all the powerful nations of Europe 

 were unleashed and set at one another's 

 throats. When the avalanche of militant 

 humanity reached their f^ates, the people 

 of Belgium had no heart for war and no 

 desire for participation in the fray ; but 

 the Belgians concluded that better is a 

 war to the death and the sacrifice of all 

 than a violated neutrality, and the result 

 of that conclusion is being written in 

 history in letters of blood. They have 

 suffered as seldom a people have suffered 

 before, and the end of that suffering 

 seems not yet to be in sight, for their 

 people have received the baptism of fire, 

 and today they stand overpowered, over- 

 whelmed, and helpless, yet undaunted, 

 before a foe that outnumbers them many 

 to one. 



Who are these Belgians that defied the 

 imperial German army as Ajax defied 

 the lightning; that dared stake their all 

 on maintaining their purpose of keeping 

 out of the war, and who, trying to keep 

 out, found themselves in the thickest of 

 it? What is their brave country, what 

 is their mode of living, and what their 

 history? 



Julius Csesar himself bears early wit- 

 ness to their bravery and the cause of it 

 in his comments on the Gallic wars. He 

 says : "Gaul, taken as a whole, is divided 

 into three parts, one of which is inhab- 

 ited by the Belgze, another by the Aqui- 

 tani, and the third by a people who call 

 themselves Celts. . . . Of these peo- 

 ples the bravest are the Belgse, and they 

 are nearest the Germans, who dwell on 

 the further side of the Rhine, and are 

 constantly at war with them." 



soMi; size; comparisons 



The Belgium of today has an area 

 less than one-fourth as great as Missis- 

 sippi, and yet it has four times the popu- 

 lation of that State. Twenty-two and a 



half countries like Belgium would be re- 

 quired to make a State like Texas, and if 

 Texas were as densely populated as Bel- 

 gium it would have as many people as 

 the United States and Germany together 

 now possess. If the entire United States 

 had as many people to the square mile 

 as Belgium — that is, continental United 

 States, exclusive of Alaska — we would 

 have more people here than there are in 

 the entire world today. You could con- 

 centrate all the people of the seven seas 

 and of all the continents here and still 

 have room for enough more to repopu- 

 late the continent of Europe as it now 

 stands. 



It must follow from this that such a 

 vast population, living within such nar- 

 row confines — 7,579,000 souls within an 

 area of 11,373 square miles — must be a 

 frugal people, accustomed to self-denial, 

 skilled in the art of economical living, 

 and masters of the science of intensive 

 industry ; yet with all this density of pop- 

 ulation, with all the exactions of forced 

 economy, they are a people who had so 

 ordered their relations with one another 

 and with their government that happi- 

 ness and contentment seemed to dwell 

 with them as with but few other peoples, 

 and this in spite of diverse descent and 

 diverse tongues. 



DIVERSE TONGUES UNITED 



The area of Belgium is only 11,373 

 square miles, while its population is 7,- 

 579,000, and yet within this small terri- 

 tory, smaller in area than Massachusetts 

 and Connecticut, there are nearly three 

 million Flemings who cannot talk with 

 their compatriot Walloons, and about as 

 many Walloons who cannot hold con- 

 verse with their countrymen Flemings. 

 In their habits of mind and their methods 

 of gaining a livelihood the two peoples 

 differ as widely as the English and the 

 French, and in their speech they are as 

 different as the Germans and the Scandi- 

 navians ; and yet there is a tie that has 

 bound them together for generations, 



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