Certain facts have, however, recently come to hand which
enable one to review the German explanation. One of these facts embraces
a project for railway expansion engineered and carried out on the
Belgian frontier, which can leave no doubt in any reasonable mind that
Germany deliberately planned to violate Belgium's neutrality the moment
it became a military expediency to invade France.[8]
[Footnote 8: Compare the railway maps of Northern France and Northern
Germany in "Cook's Continental Time Tables" for the years 1908 and 1914.
A confidential agent of the British Government examined the ground in
May, 1914. Part of the results of his work has been published from time
to time by the military correspondents of The Times and The Morning Post
of London and all is particularly designated in the British Foreign
Office Memorandum secured by Prof. Hibben of Princeton on Nov. 9, 1914,
and published in THE NEW YORK TIMES of Nov. 25. In this memorandum it is
stated:
"The strategic dispositions of Germany, especially as regards railways,
have for some years given rise to the apprehension that Germany would
attack France through Belgium."
The disposition of the Third, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh
Germany Army Corps and the First, Fourth, and Fifth Cavalry Divisions,
from Aug. 2 to 5, shown on French war maps, reveals that the attack was
so made.
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