Did
the conversation extend beyond these limits, and did Col. Barnardiston,
in an interview of a private and confidential nature, disclose to Gen.
Ducarne the plan of campaign which the British General Staff would have
desired to follow if that neutrality were violated? We doubt it, but in
any case we can solemnly assert, and it will be impossible to prove the
contrary, that never has the King or his Government been invited, either
directly or indirectly, to join the Triple Entente in the event of a
Franco-German war. By their words and by their acts they have always
shown such a firm attitude that any supposition that they could have
departed from the strictest neutrality is eliminated a priori.
As for Baron Greindl's dispatch of Dec. 23, 1911, it dealt with a plan
for the defense of Luxembourg, due to the personal initiative of the
Chief of the First Section of the War Ministry. This plan was of an
absolutely private character and had not been approved by the Minister
of War. If this plan contemplated above all an attack by Germany, there
is no cause for surprise, since the great German military writers, in
particular T. Bernhardi, V. Schlivfeboch, and von der Goltz, spoke
openly in their treatises on the coming war of the violation of Belgian
territory by the German armies.
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