"Belgian Neutrality and the British Decision for War" Terry Boardman

welcome

everybody we are very pleased to see all

of you here we are in a heavy

competition tonight because there's the

public debate between the two or other

candidates for the presidency of the

European commission mainly two but

there's four I think Al together and uh

apparently you thought this is much more

important event and I can only agree

with you this is

a very topical issue we are going to

talk about a very controversial topic

for some it's the most crucial issue to

talk about the first world war what's

about the neutrality of Belgium there

are different ways to address this issue

if you're a lawyer you will prefer to

talk about the legal aspects there's of

course the issue of the uh secret

military talks between the Belgian and

the British there is the big Congo issue

and some other topics of course and all

of them are

interrelated and if I understood

correctly Terry you will address some of

them tonight and mainly Terry bortman

will concentrate on the role of the

neutrality with regard to the British

decision to go for

war just to introduce Terry bourman he's

a very knowledgeable author and writer

especially focusing on the background of

the first world war he has published

several books I don't know if you have

put them on the table here perhaps later

on you can show them so feel free to

talk to him perhaps afterwards if you

like to know more about his activity

there's a website of Terry you'll find

all the information about Terry's

activities and I think I'll leave it

there Terry not to cut too much time

from your short time only the idea is to

have more or less one hour a little bit

more perhaps presentation by Terry and

then hopefully a lively debate again

welcome that you are here thank you very

much

thank you very much Hugo and good

evening and thank you all for coming and

sacrificing your hearing of the

important EU debate which he's just

referred to um certainly this is a very

complicated subject which I'll speak

about tonight and even even the question

of even the question of Belgian

neutrality is a complicated

question um and I only have 1 hour a bit

more perhaps to to do it in so I

certainly won't be able to do justice to

all of the aspects of it some of them I

will only be able to touch on but um I'm

particularly going to look at it from

the perspective of Britain's

geopolitical interests in relation to

the issue of Belgian

neutrality and how the British saw the

function the role of Ben Belgian

neutrality as something which enabled

them to get into the

war now but I'm going to start with just

very briefly with today because Ukraine

is a small country compared to Russia

and

America Belgium is a small country

compared to the British Empire and the

German Empire although of course the

Belgian Congo was very

large um and we see today with the

situation in Ukraine how a small country

can find

itself between caught between the

interests of two great

powers and that was exactly the

situation that Belgium found itself in

caught between the interests of two

blocks of powers two Alliance

systems um 100 years ago

now recently uh on our national day on

the 23rd of uh April which is St

George's day the English national day

not the British national day the English

national day Tony Blair I'm sure you all

probably haven't forgotten him T most

many of us have but Tony Blair popped up

again in the media and made a big

speech and he spoke about the need for

the world the West China Russia to come

together because of the danger as he

sees it of radical

Islam and he said that we have to

cooperate Russia China and the West to

cope with radical

Islam and if you look at his speech if

you read his speech which you can do

online you'll find that he's speaking

very

directly to an old Mythos an old myth we

could say which speaks very directly to

the English because they have heard it

many times before and it is the myth of

St

George St George rescuing the princess

from the terrible dragon and in this

case England and America are St George

moderate Muslims are the princess and

radical Islam is the

dragon well exactly 100 years ago the

same Mythos was given to the English

people through their propaganda Outlets

particularly obviously through the

newspapers in those

days and there the Mythos was England is

St George Belgium is the princess and

Germany is the

Dragon and this is a story which has

been told to the English again and again

in or by their establishment in order to

justify usually in order to justify

entry into a war into a strug an armed a

violent struggle of some

kind and I'm afraid to say that it has

been successful many times and it was

very successful in

1914

this man I'm sure many of you will know

was the individual who I think probably

had more responsibility on his shoulders

in 1914 than perhaps any other

individual in British history because

more than any other individual he took

the country into the war the foreign

secretary sir Edward

gray and in those days the foreign

secretary was very much his own man

and he worked very much alone you might

say and this was particularly the

case in the last week of the war of the

the buildup to the war the last week

before the

war and I'll speak a little bit more

about s Edward gray uh later

on but in his famous speech to the House

of Commons in Parliament on the 3rd of

August 1914 one day before Britain

declared war on Germany he spoke to the

MPS the members of parliament in

Parliament to present to them the mind

of the cabinet as they used to say in

those

days this was an official

statement given to the MPS of how the

cabinet saw the problem including the

problem of Belgian

neutrality and they had discussed this

and come to a kind of decision only the

day before on the 2nd of

August and in fact that was actually the

very first day where the cabinet really

got to grips with the issue of Belgian

neutrality two days before England

declared war Britain declared war on

Germany

so in the House of Commons Blair Blair

um so Edward gray said that he would be

speaking to them from three perspectives

British interests British honor and

British

obligations and it's very interesting to

see if you read that text it's online

where Belgian neutrality comes in those

three

topics it's not

actually in Bel in British legal

obligations it doesn't come there it

comes in the section on British

interests and it's with British

interests that I want to begin and I

want to begin again in a surprising

place for many of you I want to begin

with this gentleman who was the first

president of the Republic of China in

1912 sunen

so this man and his movement brought to

an end the Chinese Empire of 2,200 years

and the Republic began now in

1917 he wrote a book called the vital

problem of

China and China was trying to decide at