The German ultimatum was delivered on Sunday 2 August 1914 and requested the Belgium maintain an attitude of friendly neutrality towards Germany and allow the transit of German troops across Belgian territory.
The ultimatum was delivered at 8.10pm and at 10pm a meeting was held of the King and cabinet plus the Belgian Army Chief of Staff, General Selliers and his deputy General Ryckel. After the German ultimatum was explained King Albert said that they needed to clearly understand what the implications of war were; that most, if not all of the country would almost certainly be occupied by the Germans. General Selliers said that the army would not be able to offer effective resistance; even if mobilisation could be completed the fortresses at Liege and Namur could hope to hold out for a month at best and only Antwerp might be able to hold out indefinitely if the surrounding fortifications held by the bulk of the Army. General Ryckel dissented, arguing that the line of the Meuse could be held and even that the Belgian army could launch attacks into Germany towards Aachen and Cologne. It was an abysmal assessment of the relative strengths of the Belgian and German Armies and Belgium’s overall capacity to fight, but it won favour, strengthened the confidence of the cabinet and put steel into the spine of the King.
Had Rykel not been in attendance at the meeting things in all likelihood would have been different. General Selliers’ very realistic assessment of their situation presented without dissent would have been very sobering and led to an extremely sombre meeting and possibly leading to a different decision being made; Belgium opting to maintain her neutrality, issuing a formal objection to Germany of the ultimatum and any subsequent violation of Belgian territory, mobilising the Army but informing the Germans that no direct action would be taken against German forces so long as they did not try to assault the Belgian fortresses or occupy Brussels and Antwerp but otherwise acquiescing to the inevitable transit of Belgian territory.
This would not make Belgium a German ally by proxy; she would still be neutral. Egypt was neutral in both world wars but was occupied by the British and invaded, by the Ottomans in the First World War and Germans and Italians in the Second. Greece also was neutral in World War One until 1917 but permitted Britain to use the islands of Imbros and Lemnos to launch the Dardanelles Campaign from and later to land an army at the Greek port of Salonika to fight against the Bulgarians, all while insisting that Greece was neutral.