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"This same King, without a word of gratitude or admiration for the soldiers of the Allies, has now handed the Belgian Army over to the invader. This decision was taken in strict contradiction to the feeling of his country and of the soldiers who had been putting up a magnificent effort."
The press of Paris and London let go with a broadside of invective. "King Quisling," sneered the London Evening Standard. "King of the Fifth Column," echoed the Daily Mirror. In Paris the best that Leopold was called was "traitor" and "felon king." Paris-soir reported that General Walter von Reichenau's peace terms, which Leopold accepted, included the turning over to the Germans of all war materiel intact, free passage of the German Army to the sea. The French Legion of Honor struck Leopold's name from its rolls.
Crowed Berlin: "The Belgian troops . . . were about to be deserted by the Allies."
The first moderate voice raised last week was that of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, the old hero of Zeebrugge and British special attache to King Leopold, who was with him up to the hour of surrender. Said he: "I trust that judgment will be suspended on a very gallant soldier until all the facts are known." Prime Minister Churchill agreed.
The Facts were not all known last week, but many that were known were overlooked or distorted. No coward is the King of the Belgians, but a very sensitive and high-principled gentleman. He has always wanted to be a Peace King, as his father, Albert I, was a War King. So great is his abhorrence of bloodshed that he despises hunting (one of his pet projects was a bird sanctuary at his villa at Le Zoute). Above all, he is a patriot, and it was a supreme irony that his pity for his people led to the surrender of his country.
As King of a nation containing two racial groups, Leopold considered himself as much a Fleming as a Walloon. The nationalist Flemish writer, Herman Teirlinck, taught him the Flemish language, later became one of his closest friends and the tutor of his children. But the most significant influence on his policies was wielded by General Van Overstraeten, the brilliant, energetic, overbearing military tutor who became his chief military adviser. General Van Overstraeten did his best to dislodge pro-Ally War Minister General Henri Denis, succeeded only in getting rid of Chief-of-Staff General E. Van den Bergen. Younger Belgian Army officers called General Van Overstraeten "vice-roi."
This officer's respect for German military power, plus Leopold's conception of absolute neutrality and his will for peace, led the King in 1936 to abandon Belgium's alliance with France. After that he became more & more subject to the influence of Flemish, anti-French thought. He had no personal liking for the French, used to vacation in the Austrian Tyrol and Italy, caused a mild scandal in 1938 by letting his picture be taken bathing near Bolzano with a certain Frau Rosa Weisinger (see cut, p. 32). Leopold had the most solemn assurances from Adolf Hitler that his country would not be invaded, and right up to May 10, 1940, based his policy on them. And Leopold's policy was Belgium's policy, for, as a political King, he ruled.