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Vol. 7, No. 8:
Published Quarterly
October, 1935
A Message of Sympathy to the Belgian People.
SINCE our last issue a terrible tragedy, sudden and relentless, has fallen upon
the Belgian Royal Family and the Belgian people, and our members, particularly
those resident in and around Ypres, will desire to offer, in conjunction with the
whole world, their sympathy and condolence to our neighbours across the Channel
in the hour of their national grief.
Ties of mutual sacrifice and suffering, woven in a past still recent, have united
our two countries in warm kinship and have made the welfare of the Belgians one of
our close interests, to foster which it has been the constant endeavour of the Ypres
League. The bereavementcoming so soon after the tragedy which deprived them
of their late heroic and beloved Kingcalls forth from our members the sincerest and
most profound sorrow.
Queen Astrid, who came from the North, from the Royal Family of Sweden, had
won widespread admiration and affection by her simplicity and whole-hearted loyalty
to the Belgian people. She was a devoted mother, a loving wife and companion, a
woman who looked and acted as a Queen. Her marriage had been one of real affection,
and in both the discharge of their public duties and in their personal relationship the
King and Queen proved themselves an ideal pair.
For King Leopold's preservation his own people and Belgium's friends will thank
Providence, and to him, above all, and his three children, bereaved of a mother who,
amid the obligations of State, set an example to all mothers, our hearts go out in their
own personal and most bitter sorrow.
His Majesty now faces the future with a heavy handicap, for the love that crowned
his youth has been taken from his side. Still, his courageous and gallant bearing ever
since the hour of the tragedy is an earnest to his people that he will not fail under the
blow that has made desolate his heart and his home.
Members of the Ypres League share in a very real sense the bereavement which
has fallen upon the Belgian nation.
H.B.
