Since then Belgium has fulfilled all her neutrality obligations; she has
acted in a spirit of absolute impartiality. She has left nothing undone
to maintain and make respected her neutrality. Germany's obligation to
respect Belgian neutrality was even more emphatically affirmed by one of
Germany's greatest men, by the creator of the empire. Prince, then
Count, Bismarck, wrote to Baron Nothomb, Belgian Minister in Berlin, on
the 22nd of July, 1870, as follows:
In confirmation of my verbal assurances, I have the honor to give
in writing a declaration which, in view of the treaties in force,
_is quite superfluous_, that the Confederation of the North and its
allies will respect the neutrality of Belgium on the understanding,
of course, that it is respected by the other belligerents.
On July 31 of the present year the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs
and the Secretary General of the Foreign Office had a long conversation
with the German Minister in Brussels. It was pointed out to him that in
the course of the controversy raised in 1911 by the introduction of the
Dutch project for the fortification of the Scheldt, that his
predecessor, Herr von Flotow, had assured the Belgian Government that in
the event of a Franco-German war Germany would not violate Belgian
neutrality; that Mr.
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