Word: overstraeten
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Warning from the East. Moscow's Pravda sounded a warning: "Strange reports are coming from Belgium. . . . Patriots consider that Belgium will be finally freed when she is rid of her fifth column . . . inspired by General van Overstraeten [Chief Aide-de-Camp, close friend and adviser of King Leopold] ... an active agent of Nazi Germany. . . . The fact that he is at liberty while patriots are being disarmed is ... remarkable...
...four Ministers agreed with him. The Allied cause was not lost, they argued; if Belgium fought on, she would be restored after the war. The King was sure he knew better. His aide-de-camp and chief military adviser, Major General R. Van Overstraeten, was in Rome and had already sent the King an urgent personal message. Furthermore, the King was conscious that his first duty was not to the Allies, but to Belgium. Too many Belgians had died already, for a cause that was doomed from the start...
...racial groups, Leopold considered himself as much a Fleming as a Walloon. The nationalist Flemish writer, Herman Teirlinck, taught him the Flemish language, later became one of his closest friends and the tutor of his children. But the most significant influence on his policies was wielded by General Van Overstraeten, the brilliant, energetic, overbearing military tutor who became his chief military adviser. General Van Overstraeten did his best to dislodge pro-Ally War Minister General Henri Denis, succeeded only in getting rid of Chief-of-Staff General E. Van den Bergen. Younger Belgian Army officers called General Van Overstraeten "vice...
...Telegraph explained, when suspicions of German intentions seemed confirmed by reports of troop concentrations, King Leopold summoned his ministers to determine the country's atti tude. Guided by "the views and wishes" held by General van Overstraeten, they decided the following: "1) If the German forces attacked Holland but did not come south of Nijmegen and the Rhine, Belgium would not move; 2) if the German advance were directed south of Nijmegen and especially across Dutch Brabant, Belgium would order immediate general mobilization and declare that her own security was threatened." The German Ambassador in Brussels telephoned Berlin...
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