Page:Above the battle.djvu/96

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VI

TO THE PEOPLE THAT IS SUFFERING FOR JUSTICE

(For King Albert's Book.)[1]

Belgium has just written an Epic, whose echoes will resound throughout the ages. Like the three hundred Spartans, the little Belgian army confronts for three months the German Colossus; Leman-Leonides; the Thermopylæ of Liége; Louvain, like Troy, burnt; the deeds of King Albert surrounded by his valiant men: with what legendary grandeur are these figures already invested, and history has not yet completed their story! The heroism of this people, who, without a murmur, sacrificed everything for honour, has burst like a thunderclap upon us at a time when the spirit of victorious Germany was enthroning in the world a conception of political realism, resting stolidly on force and self-interest. It was a liberation of the op-

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  1. Published by the Daily Telegraph, London, 1914.