It needs indeed an effort of the imagination at the moment of writing to think of Belgium as in any sense a component part of "Beautiful Europe". The unhappy "cockpit" of the Continent at the actual hour is again in process of accomplishing its frightful destiny no treaty or "scrap of paper", is potent to preserve this last and weakest of all the nations of Western Europe from drinking to the dregs the cup of ruin and desolation. Tragic indeed in the profoundest sense in the sense of Aristotle more tragic than the long ruin of the predestined house of Oedipus is this accumulated tragedy of a small and helpless people, whose sole apparent crime is their stern determination to cling at any cost to their plighted word of honour.
