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More than once since September he had vetoed mutual staff talks with the Allies, hoping that if he remained scrupulously neutral, Hitler would keep his word. Even when Hitler betrayed him, he took the line that the Belgian Army should defend only Belgium, should not continue the fight after Belgium had been lost. Nevertheless, he placed himself and his forces under the Allied High Command. When the Allied forces in Belgium had to retire, Leopold was faced with a conflict of loyalties. His friends, his hatred of bloodshed, his conscience, his patriotism as he saw it—those decided him.
Cause Celebre. Historians will doubtless write many volumes on the Leopold case. Already last week Paris speculated that, with Wilhelmina a fugitive, Leopold might have sold out for a united, greater Flanders, embracing Hitler's pet project of a union of the Low Countries and northern France (TIME, June 3). This would provide Hitler with a neat finesse by which to hold the Belgian and Netherlands colonial empires under a puppet ruler, if Hitler need longer think in terms of finesse.
Bitter were the Belgians in France. Premier Pierlot and Foreign Minister Spaak silently laid a crepe-bound wreath at the foot of the statue of Leopold's fighting father, Albert I. Refugees carrying Vive Albert banners strewed flowers on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The refugee Parliament met at Limoges to declare the throne vacant, but was unable to muster a quorum. The Cabinet, in Paris, announced that Leopold no longer reigned. Belgians in France agreed unanimously to carry on the war, and diplomats abroad pledged allegiance to the Government sans King. The Pierlot Government announced that it had saved 250 tons of Foreign Office records, would publish a White Book on Leopold's defection. Leopold, a prisoner of war, said nothing.