"Mr. Minister:
"The British Minister requested to see me very urgently and communicated to me the following:
"'Sir Edward Grey has asked the French and German Governments, separately, whether each of them was prepared to respect the neutrality of Belgium.
"'In view of the existing treaties, I am also instructed to inform the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Belgium that Sir Edward Grey presumes that Belgium will do her utmost to maintain her neutrality.'
"I immediately thanked Sir Francis Villiers for this communication, which the Belgian Government appreciates very highly, and I added that Great Britain and the other nations, guarantors of our independence, might be sure that we would neglect no effort to maintain our neutrality, and that we were convinced that the other powers, in view of the excellent relations of friendship and confidence which we have always enjoyed with them, would observe and maintain this neutrality."
At the decisive moment, the attitude of Belgium was thus irreproachable. She was not bound to any other nation; she had her hands free. She declared that she was ready to make the necessary sacrifices to defend her neutrality and to resist any aggression from whatever source, and she added that, trusting in her friendly relations with the powers, she was unwilling to believe that any of them would violate her neutrality.
On Aug. 3, at 7 A.M., after having received the ultimatum from Germany, Belgium declared that she refused to repudiate her engagements.
The next day, the 4th of August, at 3 P.M., the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs received from Sir F. Villiers, Minister of England in Brussels, the following note:
BRUSSELS, Aug. 4, 1914.
I am instructed to inform the Belgian Government that if Germany exercises pressure for the purpose of compelling Belgium to abandon her position of a neutral country, the Government of his Britannic Majesty expects Belgium to resist by every possible means. The Government of his Britannic Majesty is ready, in that event, to join with Russia and France, if desired by Belgium, to offer to the Belgian Government, at once, common action for the purpose of resisting the use of force by Germany against Belgium, and at the same time to offer a guarantee to maintain the independence and the integrity of Belgium in the future.