The Belgians would have been wise if they had permitted the passage of
the German troops. They would have preserved their integrity, and,
besides that, would have fared well from the business point of view, for
the army would have proved a good customer and paid cash.
Germany has always been a good and just neighbor, to Belgium as well as
to the other small powers such as Holland, Denmark and Switzerland,
which England in her place would have swallowed up one and all long ago.
The development of industry on the lower Rhine has added to the
prosperity of Belgium and has made Antwerp one of the first ports on the
Continent, as well as one of the most important centres of exchange for
German-American trade.
Without Germany Belgium could never have acquired the Congo.
When England meditated taking possession of the Congo, claiming that
great rivers are nothing but arms of the sea and consequently belong to
the supreme maritime power, King Leopold turned to Germany for
protection and received it from Bismarck, who called the Congo
Conference of 1884-5 and obtained the recognition by the powers of the
independence of the Congo State.
The struggle of the German States in Europe has some points in common
with the struggle of the Independent States of North America (from 1778
to 1783), for it is directed chiefly against England's scheming
guardianship, and her practice of weakening the Continental powers by
sowing or fostering dissension among them.
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