I've been using rather heroic language to describe the Belgium of 1914, elevating King Albert I to heroic status and at times over simplifying the underlying political currents of the early 20th century. The truth about the world at the time is far more complicated, and while it's easy to pick favorites, it doesn't mean that the First World War was a true battle between good and evil.
Likewise, it can sometimes be a little easy to vilify German... and there were certainly times when warranted, but it's important to remember that all these European states existed in a context of their own design for centuries before the eruption of these enormous world wars.
The truth is that Belgium operated as a pre-war European nation just as all the other nations had. While Belgium was in a position at the outbreak of the Great War to stand on higher moral principle, it has never been by any means a charity. It was part of a political system of national self interest which I have argued dates back to Roman nobility and diplomacy. While it's right and true that we honor the innocents massacred by Germany in Belgium during the war, including those killed in the first months under the pretext of fighting armed civilian resistance, and those that died from Germany's harsh economic starvation of the country, Germany was not the sole actor responsible for what happened.
Nor is Germany the only source of European cruelty. In fact, I believe that the culmination of European savagery, the Second World War and the Holocaust, need not have only happened in Germany. Under the right circumstances most European countries might have evolved a similar set of ideas and acted the same way. The history of the Soviet Union can attest to my belief.
The most well known of Belgium's colonies was in the Congo, and is well renowned for it's brutality. Before it was annexed in 1908, the Congo was considered the property of King Alberts predecessor and uncle, King Leopold II. The harsh and extractive rule of Leopold leaves a death toll behind that dwarfs the one inflicted upon Belgium by 1914 Germany, and each one of those African victims are as people worthy of remembrance as much as any European. I write more of the Belgian victims only because they were fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to be in the center of a greater political upheaval.
Credit should be given to King Albert I for his attempts to reform Belgian policy in the Congo, as he is known for doing, but in these particular efforts, he was merely trying to improve what was most fundamentally an evil, global institution which we as the world have yet to recover from.
The European system of Imperialism would be in its death throws for decades yet, and would even outlive King Albert himself who died while (presumably heroically) mountaineering in 1934. 19th century European Imperialism was birthed from the aging system of Monarchial power games which again Albert was a central part of, for it's also worth remembering that the most powerful ruling class in Europe at the time were related to one another. Even King Alberts arch enemy, the German Kaiser Wilhelm II, were distant cousins.
All of us live and act in worlds not of our own defining, and under constant change and evolution. Within these confines we are given our specific gifts, talents and opportunities. One hopes that each person chooses to act in a way that elevates them above the prevailing standard of conduct, which in all times has always had need of improvement. Within the realistic context which I have described, I believe in the instance of the Belgian conflict with Germany in 1914, King Albert I and Belgium meets did rise to meet that specific challenge. But it did not mean they would again in the next conflict, nor does it mean they do in this era. Acts of virtue must be renewed again for each new age.
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