File No. 768.72111/357
The Belgian Minister (Havenith) to the Secretary of State
Washington, August 20, 1914.
[Received August 24.]
[Translation]
I have the honor to inform your excellency that the King’s Government has instructed me to bring the following to your excellency’s knowledge.
By the treaty of April 19, 1839, Prussia, France, England, Austria, and Russia declared themselves guarantors of the treaty concluded on that day between His Majesty the King of the Belgians and His Majesty the King [Page 72] of the Netherlands. The treaty provides that “Belgium will form an independent and perpetual neutral State.” Belgium has met all her international obligations: she has performed her duties in a spirit of loyal impartiality; she has spared no effort to maintain and enforce her neutrality.
It therefore caused painful emotion to the King’s Government to learn that the armed forces of Germany, a power which guaranteed our neutrality, have entered the territory of Belgium in violation of the engagements that have been assumed by treaty.
It becomes our duty indignantly to protest against an outrage upon the law of nations which could not have been provoked by any act of ours.
The King’s Government is firmly resolved to repel by every means at its command the attack made on its neutrality and calls to mind that under Article 10 of the convention of The Hague of 1907 respecting the rights and duties of neutral powers and persons in case of war on land, the fact of a neutral power resisting, even by force, attempts to violate its neutrality cannot be regarded as a hostile act.
Be pleased [etc.]