n and brought some good clerks
with him. He also hung up his hat and went to work, making all sorts of
calls at the Foreign Office, seeing callers, and going about to the
different Legations. Granville Fortescue came in from Ostend, and I
should have put him to work but that he had plans of his own and has
decided to blossom forth as a war correspondent. He is all for getting
to the "front" if any.

Just to see what would happen, I went to the telephone after lunch and
asked to be put through to the Embassy at London. To my surprise, I got
the connection in a few minutes and had a talk with Bell, the Second
Secretary. The Cabinet had been sitting since eleven this morning, but
had announced no decision. I telephoned him again this evening and got
the same reply. Bell said that they had several hundred people in the
chancery and were preparing for a heavy blow.

As nearly as we can make out the Germans have sent patrols into Belgian
territory, but there have been no actual operations so far. All day long
we have been getting stories to the effect that there has been a battle
at Vise and that fifteen hundred Belgians had been killed; later it was
stated that they had driven the Germans back with heavy losses. The net
result is that at the end of the day we know little more than we did
this morning.

Parliament is summoned to meet in special session to-morrow morning to
hear what the King has to say about the German ultimatum. It will be an
interesting sight. Parliament has long been rent with most bitter
factional quarrels, but I hear that all these are to be forgotten and
that all parties, Socialists included, are to rally round the throne in
a great demonstration of loyalty.

All the regular troops have been withdrawn from this part of the country
and dispatched to the front, leaving the protection of the capital to
the Garde Civique, who are patrolling the streets, to examine the papers
of everybody who moves about. This is a sort of local guard made up of
people who have not been called for active military service, but who
have volunteered for local defense. They are from every class--lawyers
and butchers and bakers and dentists and university professors. They
have, of course, had little training for this sort of work, and have had
only elementary orders to guide them. These they carry out to the letter.
There are detachments of them at all sorts of strategic points in the
city where they hold up passing vehicles