Mechelen Incident - Climax and Anti-climax

Climax and Anti-climax

The Belgian Government's desire to keep their possession of the plans a secret was yet further undermined, this time by the King himself. On the morning of 14 January, he had sent a message to Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, via Admiral Sir Roger Keyes asking for certain guarantees. This was sent through Keyes because he had established himself as the secret link between the British Government and the Belgian King. The aforementioned guarantees included assuring that the Allies would not open negotiations for a settlement of any conflict without Belgium's agreement. Keyes added a rider that he believed Leopold might be able to persuade his government to call the Allies immediately if the guarantees were forthcoming. This was of interest to the Allies because both Britain and France had been trying to persuade Belgium to let their troops in ever since the beginning of the war.

There is no transcript of Keyes conversation with Churchill but if Keyes really did say what he meant to say then it was changed the further down the line it went. By the time that it reached the French that afternoon, there was no reference to the fact that Keyes was only giving his personal opinion about the calling-in of the Allies. The French record of what was on offer stated that 'the King would ask his Government to ask the Allied armies to occupy defensive positions inside Belgium immediately', if the Belgians received satisfaction in related guarantees. Édouard Daladier, the French Président du Conseil in January 1940, quickly told the British Government that, as far as France was concerned, the guarantees could be given. So the French believed that the Belgians would receive a satisfactory response from the British Government in relation to the guarantees, and would then immediately invite the Allied Armies to march in.

At 15:50 Daladier informed Gamelin that the Belgians had in principle agreed to a French advance and asked whether he was ready to execute it. Gamelin was very pleased, responding that due to heavy snowfall in the area of the Belgian-German border the Germans would be themselves unable to advance quickly, that a German invasion was therefore unlikely and that this posed an ideal situation for a French entrenchment, adding "We must now seize the occasion". Gamelin ordered that the Allied troops under his control during the night of 14–15 January should make their approach march to the Franco-Belgian border so that they would be ready to enter at a moment's notice.

At 16:45 Gamelin was however telephoned by his deputy, the commander of the Western Front General Alphonse Georges. Alarmed by the order, Georges worried that the decision was irreversible and would set a series of events in motion that would make a German invasion inevitable at a moment when the French army and airforce had not yet completed their rearmament. Gamelin lost his temper and abused Georges, forcing him to agree with the order. During the night, the Belgians were told of the manoeuvre. It was only at 8 a.m. on 15 January that Gamelin saw the British response to the guarantees: they were offering a watered down version that was most unlikely to be acceptable to the Belgians. At the same time he received messages from the advancing forces that the Belgian border troops had stopped removing the border obstacles and had not been ordered to allow them entrance into their country. Three hours later Daladier, prompted by the desperate Gamelin who insisted that the premier would make the Belgian government "face up to its responsibilities", told Pol le Tellier, Belgium's Ambassador in Paris, that unless the French had an invitation to enter Belgium by 8 p.m. that evening, they would not only withdraw all British and French troops from the border but would also refuse to carry out similar manoeuvres during further alerts until after the Germans had invaded.

The Belgian cabinet that day proved unable to come to a positive decision about the invitation. The invasion had after all already been predicted for the 14th but failed to materialise. Heavy snowfall continued on the eastern border, making an immediate German attack unlikely. The King and Van Overstraeten, both staunch neutralists, hoped a diplomatic solution could be reached to end the war and had no intention of involving their country unless it were absolutely necessary. At about 12:00 Van Overstraeten ordered the Belgian border troops to rebuild the barriers and reminded them of the standing order to "repulse by force any foreign unit of whatever nationality which violated Belgian territory". At 18:00 Daladier told a disappointed Gamelin he "could not take the responsibility of authorising us to penetrate preventively into Belgium", i.e. violate Belgian neutrality.