Bismark, being asked what he would do if his right flank were protected by fortifications and his left flank by a promise replied he would prepare for an attack through the promise. So, in 1914, peaceful Belgium was protected by a promise, but, unlike the Iron Chancellor who was a German and judged others by himself--Belgium looked for an attack from nowhere. She rested in false security, as everyone knows. Her government was riddled with German espionage; the forts surrounding Antwerp had been electrically wired by a German firm, so that when the stege later came, the wiring was worse than useless. Practically every high government official took orders from the Williamstrasse.

Only one man had the German thoroughness neglected. That man was Albert, the King. And in overlooking him, the Germans signed their own death-warrant. But for that one high, courageous soul, the Germans might have swept through Belgium unresisted, smashed the French Army before the British "Old Contemptibles" could have interposed their thin line, and then and there the war would have been won by the forces of evil.

Albert, the First, honors Harvard with his presence tomorrow. It is a privilege to live in a generation which has seen men like Albert of Belgium.