On the 20th of July, 1814, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, together with
England, agreed to recognize and support the new Kingdom of Holland and
to add to the territory of the old republic the former Austrian
possessions in Belgium. This meant the revival of a state which greatly
resembled the old Burgundian Kingdom. The allies did not found this new
country out of any sentimental love for the Dutch people. England wanted
to have a sentinel in Europe against another French outbreak, and
therefore the northern frontier of France must be guarded by a strong
nation. To further strengthen this country England returned most of the
colonies which during the last eighteen years had been captured by her
fleet. But before the new kingdom could start upon its career General
Bonaparte had tired of the monotony of his island principality and had
started upon his well-known trip to Waterloo. The new Dutch army upon
this occasion fought well and at Quatre Bras rendered valuable services.
[Illustration: KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS]
General Bonaparte was dispatched to St. Helena, a fate which of late has
inspired many sentimental folk to the point of writing books, and the
Kingdom of Holland-Belgium could begin its independent existence in all
seriousness. King William, in this new country, remained the absolute
ruler. Instead of one there were to be two chambers in his new domains.
But the executive and legislative power was all vested in the hands of
his Majesty. He, on the whole, made use of them for the very best
purposes. In a material way he attempted every possible remedy for the
poverty of the country. As far as dollars and cents go he was an
excellent king. Canals were dug all over the country; commerce was
encouraged in every possible way; the colonies were exploited with
energy; factories were built with and without support of the state, and
the mineral riches of Belgium were fully developed. A plan for a Panama,
or, rather, a Nicaraguan Canal was seriously discussed. And yet William
failed. The task to which he had been called was an impossible one.
Belgium and Holland had nothing in common but their mutual dislike of
each other. Protestant Holland, proud of its history, had no sympathy
for Catholic Belgium, where the Middle Ages had peacefully continued
while the rest of the world had moved forward. Catholic Belgium returned
these uncordial sentiments most heartily, and with the worst of
prejudices awaited the things which must be inflicted upon it by a
Protestant king.
A man of such pronounced views as King William was certain to have many
and sincere enemies. Furthermore, the French part of Belgium, following
the example of its esteemed neighbours, enjoyed a noisy opposition to
the powers that were as a sort of inspiring political picnic. But the
real difficulties of William's reign began when he got into a quarrel
with the Catholic Church. This well-organized institution, which will
provide all things to all men, under all conditions and circumstances,
was directly responsible for the ultimate break between the two
countries. We are not discussing the Church as an establishment for the
propagation of a certain sort of religious ethics; but we must
regretfully state that the entrance of the Church upon the field of
practical politics has invariably been followed by trouble in the most
all-around sense of the word.
William as King of the Netherlands felt his responsibility and felt it
heavily. He and He Only (make it capitals) was the head of the nation.
And when it appeared that the Bishop of Rome or the Bishop of Liège or
any other bishop aspired to the rôle of the power above the throne he
found in William a most determined and most sincere enemy. The Church,
assured of her power in a country which for so many centuries had been
under her absolute influence, became very aggressive, and her leaders
became very bold. William promptly landed the boldest among the bishops
in jail. And that was the beginning of a quarrel which lasted until
Catholics and Liberals, water and fire, had been forced to make common
cause against their mutual enemy and started a secret revolution against
William's rule, which broke forth in the open in the year 1830.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT VAN SPEYCK BLOWS UP HIS SHIP]
The northern part of the country, for the first time in almost thirty
years, began to take an interest in politics and commenced showing
hopeful signs of life. And when in February, 1831, the commander of a
small Dutch gunboat, Lieutenant van Speyck, blew his ship and all his
sailors into the kingdom of brave men rather than surrender to the
Belgian rabble which had climbed on board his disabled craft, such an
unexpected enthusiasm broke loose that it took Holland just ten days in
which to reconquer most of the rebellious provinces.
This, however, was not to the liking of France. In the first place,
France was under the influence of a strong Catholic reaction and felt
compelled to help the suffering brethren in Belgium. In the second
place, France did not like the idea of a sentinel of England and
hastened to recognize and support the Prince of Saxe-Coburg, who was
called upon to mount the newly founded throne of the independent state
of Belgium.
A large French army marched north to oppose a further advance of the
Hollanders. William had to give up all idea of reuniting the two
countries. Since when, divorced from their incompatible companions, the
two nations have gone their different ways in excellent friendship and
have established great mutual respect and understanding.
To King William, however, who had devoted his time and strength quite as
much to Belgium as to Holland, the separation came as a terrible blow.
William was one of those sovereigns who take a cup of coffee and a bun
at five in the morning and then set to work to do everything for
everybody. He could not understand that mere devotion to duty was not
sufficient to make all his subjects love him. Perhaps he had not always
shown great tact in dealing with religious matters. But, then, look at
his material results. The Prince, who seventeen years before had been
hailed as the saviour of his country, now began to suffer under the
undeserved slights of his discontented citizens and was made a subject
for attacks which were wholly unwarranted. That the conditions in the
kingdom were in many ways quite unsatisfactory, is true; but it was not
so entirely the fault of the king as his contemporaries were so eager to
believe. They themselves had at first given him too much power. They had
without examination accepted a constitution which allowed their
parliament no control over monetary matters. The result of this state of
affairs had been a wholesale system of thefts and graft. The king knew
nothing of this, could not have known it. There were private individuals
who thought that they could prove it, but the ministers of state were
not responsible to the parliament, and there was no legitimate way of
bringing these unsound conditions to the attention of the sovereign.
And so the discontented elements started upon a campaign of calumny and
of silent disapproval, until finally William, who strongly felt that he
had done his duty to the best of his ability, became so thoroughly
disgusted with the ingratitude of his subjects that he resigned in
favour of his son, who, as William II, came to the throne in 1840.
William then left the country and never returned.
[Illustration: KING WILLIAM II]
What must we say of William II? We are not trying to write a detailed
history of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This little book merely tries
to fill out the mysterious and unexplored space between the end of the
old Dutch Republic and the modern kingdom. Even these twenty years it
does not try to describe too minutely, because on the whole (except for
the people themselves) the period was so absolutely uninteresting to the
outside world that we would not be warranted in asking the attention of
the intelligent reader for more than a limited number of pages. William
II was a good king in that he was a constitutional king. The year 1848
did not see the erection of barricades in the quiet Dutch cities. If the
people, or, rather, the few liberals who had begun to develop out of the
mass of indifferent material--if these gentlemen wanted another and a
more liberal constitution very badly, they could have it as far as
William II was concerned. And without revolution or undue noise the
absolute kingdom which the men of 1813 had constructed to keep the men
of 1795 in check was quietly changed into an absolutely constitutional
monarchy after the British pattern, with responsible ministers and a
parliament ruled by the different political parties. The budget now
became a public institution, openly discussed every year by the whole
people through their chosen representatives and their newspapers.
The king in this way became the hereditary president of a constitutional
republic. There can be no doubt that the system was personally
disagreeable to William II as well as to his son William III, who
succeeded him in 1849. But neither of them for a moment thought of
deviating from the narrow road which alone guaranteed safety to
themselves and to their subjects. However much they may have liked or
disliked certain individuals who as the result of a change in party had
to be appointed to be ministers of the government, they never allowed
their own personal feelings to interfere with the provisions of the
constitution to which at their ascension to the throne they had sworn
allegiance. This policy they continued with such excellent success that
whatever strength the socialistic party or the other parties of economic
discontent may at present be able to develop, those who would actually
like to see the monarchy changed into a republic are so very rare and
form such an insignificant part of the total population that a
continuation of the present system seems assured for an indefinite
length of time, which is saying a great deal in our day of democratic
unrest.
As we write these final words a hundred years have gone by since the
days of the French domination and of the many revolutionary upheavals;
the nation of the year 1813, broken down under the hopeless feeling of
failure, and the people, despairing of the future and indifferent to
everything of the present which did not touch their bread and butter,
have disappeared. One after the other they travelled the road to those
open air cemeteries which they had so much detested as a revolutionary
innovation, their ancestors all slept under their own church-pews, and
their place was taken by younger blood.
But it was not until the year 1870 that we could notice a more hopeful
attitude in the point of view of the Dutch nation. Then, at last, it
recovered from the blows of the first twelve years of the century. Then
it regained the courage of its own individual convictions and once more
was ready to take up the burden of nationality. Once more the low
countries aspired to that place among the nations to which their
favourable geographical position, the thrift of their population, and
the enterprise of their leading merchants so fully entitled them. The
revival, when it came, was along all lines. Scholarship in many branches
of learning compared very favourably with the best days of the old
republic. The arts revived and brought back glimpses of the seventeenth
century. Social legislation gave the country an honourable place among
those states which earnestly endeavour to mitigate the disadvantages of
our present capitalistic development and by direct interference of the
legislature aim for a higher type of society in which the many shall not
spend their lives in a daily drudgery for the benefit of the few.
The feeling that colonies were merely an agreeable asset to the
merchants of the country and called for no special obligations upon
their part gradually gave way to the modern view that the colonies are
a trust which for many a year to come must stay in the hands of European
men before they shall be able to render them to the natives for a rule
of their own people. Finally that most awful and most despondent of all
sentimental meditations, that "we have been a great country once," that
"we have had our time," has begun to make place for the conviction that
at this very moment no other nation of such a small area and
insignificant number of people is capable of performing such valuable
service in so many fields of human endeavour as is the modern Dutch
nation.
The failure of the men of 1795, who dreamed their honest but ineffectual
dream of a prosperous and united fatherland, the apparent failure of the
first Dutch king who in the true belief of his own direct responsibility
still belonged to a bygone age, have at last made place for a healthy
and modern state capable of normal development.
Out of the ruins of the old divided republic--a selfish commercial
body--there has risen, after a hundred years of experimenting and
suffering, a new and honourable country--a single nation, not merely an
indifferent confederacy of independent little sovereignties--a civic
body managing its own household affairs without interference from abroad
and without disastrous partisanship at home--a people who again dare to
see visions beyond the direct interests of their daily bread, and who
are given the fullest scope for the pursuit of prosperity and
individual happiness under a government of their own choice and under
the gracious leadership of her Majesty Queen Wilhelmina.
_Brussels._
_Christmas, 1914._