and Rabe von Pappenheim, while their conversations were secretly recorded. During this meeting Reinberger informed Wenninger that he had managed to burn the papers enough to make them unreadable. This act of deception was fairly successful, at least in the short term. After the meeting at the police station, Vicco von Bülow-Schwante, Germany's ambassador to Belgium, telegraphed his superiors: 'Major Reinberger has confirmed that he burnt the documents except for some pieces which are the size of the palm of his hand. Reinberger confirms that most of the documents which could not be destroyed appear to be unimportant.' This appears to have convinced General Jodl. His diary for 13 January included the entry: "Report on conversation of Luftwaffe Attaché with the two airmen who made forced landing. Result: despatch case burnt for certain." Belgian reaction During 10 January the Belgians still doubted the authenticity of the documents, which had been quickly translated by the Deuxième Section (military intelligence) of the general staff in Brussels. Most had indeed been badly damaged by Reinberger's consecutive attempts to burn them, but the general outlines of an attack against Belgium and the Netherlands were clear from the remaining passages, although the date of the attack was not mentioned and most of the text was concerned with specific instructions to 7. Flieger-Division only. As their content conformed to earlier warnings from the Italian Foreign Minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, about a German attack to take place around 15 January, on 11 January General Raoul Van Overstraeten concluded that the information was basically correct. That afternoon King Leopold III of Belgium decided to inform his own Minister of Defence, General Henri Denis, and the French supreme commander, Maurice Gamelin. At 17:15 the French liaison officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Hautcœur, was given a two-page abstract of the contents, albeit without any explanation of how the information had been obtained. Lord Gort, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force, was also warned, and Leopold personally telephoned Princess Juliana of the Netherlands and Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg, telling the former "Be careful, the weather is dangerous", and the latter "Beware of the flu", both predetermined code phrases indicating the Belgians considered a German attack to be imminent. French reaction On the morning of 12 January, Gamelin held a meeting with the highest French operational army commanders and the Chief of Military Intelligence Colonel Louis Rivet. Rivet was sceptical of the warning