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Beautiful Europe

Belgium


by

Joseph E. Morris




I.


It needs, indeed, an effort of the imagination at the moment of writing
to think of Belgium as in any sense a component part of "Beautiful
Europe." The unhappy "cockpit" of the Continent at the actual hour is
again in process of accomplishing its frightful destiny--no treaty, or
"scrap of paper," is potent to preserve this last, and weakest, of all
the nations of Western Europe from drinking to the dregs the cup of
ruin and desolation. Tragic indeed in the profoundest sense--in the
sense of Aristotle--more tragic than the long ruin of the predestined
house of Oedipus--is this accumulated tragedy of a small and helpless
people, whose sole apparent crime is their stern determination to cling
at any cost to their plighted word of honour. I have been lately
glancing into a little book published about five years ago, in which a
view is taken of the Belgian character that no one could term
indulgent. "It is curious," says the writer in one place, "how few
Belgians, old or young, rich or poor, consider the feelings or
convenience of others. They are intensely selfish, and this is
doubtless caused by the way in which they are brought up." And, again,
in another chapter, he insinuates a doubt as to whether the Belgians,
if ever called on, would even prove good soldiers. "But whether the
people of a neutral State are ever likely to be brave and
self-sacrificing is another thing." Such a writer certainly does not
shrink--as Burke, we know, once shrank--from framing an indictment
against an entire people. Whether Belgium,