Why Leopold Quit

In the old moated castle of Wynendaele, south of Bruges, the pale young man with sunken eyes and rumpled curly brown hair faced another sleepless night. For 14 days he had watched terror-stricken people fleeing across the fertile fields and meadows of North Flanders. For 14 nights he had seen the moonlit May sky turn murky yellow from the glow of burning villages. Four-fifths of his country had been devastated and overrun; how many of his countrymen had been slaughtered he did not know. As Commander in Chief of the Belgian Army holding the Allied left flank, he had seen it beaten back with frightful losses toward the English Channel. On this night the Germans were at the gates of Bruges. Leopold III, King of the Belgians, sent for his Ministers.

When they arrived--Premier Hubert Pierlot, Foreign Minister Paul Henri Spaak, two others--they faced a King who was agitated and harassed, with tears in his eyes. Latest military reports, said the King, showed that the Belgian Army was bearing the brunt of the German attack. Behind it the British and French were already backing toward the Channel. Further resistance would not save Belgium. In his opinion, King Leopold said, the Belgian Army should withdraw from the war.

Not one of the four Ministers agreed with him. The Allied cause was not lost, they argued; if Belgium fought on, she would be restored after the war. The King was sure he knew better. His aide-de-camp and chief military adviser, Major General R. Van Overstraeten, was in Rome and had already sent the King an urgent personal message. Furthermore, the King was conscious that his first duty was not to the Allies, but to Belgium. Too many Belgians had died already, for a cause that was doomed from the start.

All night the argument went on, growing bitter as time passed. The Ministers urged the King to quit the Army and go to France or England. According to the account of Foreign Minister Spaak, Premier Pierlot finally said:

"It is time to leave. I shall stay with you up to the last minute on condition that you go with me."

"I stay with my Army in my country," Leopold replied. "You remain with me to govern."

"Do you think Hitler would permit it?" M. Pierlot exclaimed.

"No," said the King, "but you can stay with me as privy councilor."

"But a government will be formed in France," M. Pierlot persisted.

"It will be against me," said Leopold. "I wish to have Ministers. I am no dictator."

"In that case we leave," Premier Pierlot said. The Ministers quit the castle and went to Dunkirk.

"This Same King. . . ." It was not until 72 hours later that Belgium's Army laid down its arms--a fact that was slurred over by bitter Britons and Frenchmen last week--and Leopold's warning gave the Allies time to prepare for the blow. French Premier Paul Reynaud flew to London to consult Prime Minister Winston Churchill, then, back in Paris, told France over the radio that Belgium had given up. His tone was almost a snarl when he spoke of Leopold:

"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.

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.

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