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Brave Belgians
From the French of
Baron C. Buffin
By
Alys Hallard
Preface by
Baron de Broqueville
Belgian Minister of War
Awarded the Audiffred Prize by the French Academy ofMoral and Political Science
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1918
Copyright, 1918
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
Foreword
St. Pierrebrouck.
January 15, 1916.
My dear Friend:
I am glad to hear that you have now completed the work you undertook ofcollecting, from our soldiers themselves, these accounts of the war.They will certainly help people to know, and to appreciate, what you sorightly call our heroic and valiant Belgium.
You could not have employed your talent and activity in a better way.As it is not yet possible to write the History of the tragic dayswe are living, it is highly necessary to collect the most strikingepisodes, and to prevent the loss of testimony to which posterity canappeal when it wishes to judge the men and things of our times. Theaccounts that you have collected so patiently help us to live overagain the whole campaign, from the startling revelation which theglorious days of Liége were for many of us, down to the hard momentsthrough which our army is passing in its victorious defence of the Yser.
"The determined resistance," our King called it in his memorable speechto Parliament. How we see this determined resistance in the magnificententhusiasm of our soldiers, arresting, around the Liége forts, thefirst wave of invaders, without troubling about the human torrentrolling onwards towards them from the whole of Germany! How we see it,too, in the tragic episodes of the invasion, in the bold adventures ofour volunteers, in those glorious deaths of which your book reminds us,deaths of which we cannot think without a pang at our hearts!
Your accounts prove to us how the unanimous will of the nationgalvanised the army and how the example of our chiefs, from the Kingdown to the merest sub-lieutenant, encouraged and brought about themost noble self-sacrifices. These accounts prove to us, thanks to manydetails of episodes lived through during these eighteen months of war,what a quantity of virtues our magnificent little army, brave andstudious as it is, held in reserve