BELGIUM AFTER THE WORLD WAR
After the German invasion, in 1914, the Belgians moved their Government
from Brussels to Antwerp and then to Ostend. When the last strip of
southwestern Flanders became a battle-front, they were compelled
to take refuge at Havre. With the exception of Serbia, no country
suffered as much during the World War as Belgium. Up to the day of the
armistice the little kingdom was completely under the heel of an enemy
military occupation. It was natural that the withdrawal of the Germans
should have been followed by a universal outburst of nationalism in an
exaggerated form, and that the Belgian people should have believed that
their reward for heroic endurance was going to be great and immediate.
They forgot for a moment that they were a small state, and that the
disinterested gratitude of the big fellows could not be expected to
go far beyond fine speeches. The Principal Allied and Associated
Powers showed their affection and esteem for Belgium by changing their
legations to embassies. But that is as far as it went.
The Belgians quickly learned that in international relations size has
everything to do with power, and that gratitude for services rendered
in the past plays no part in world politics. Receiving and sending
ambassadors was not going to make Belgium big, while new and continued
services to the interests of the great powers were to be required. The
World War was past history!
The Belgians found this out when the Peace Conference opened. They
were immediately relegated to the position of a “secondary state with
particular interests,” and, like other small states, to get a hearing
and espousal of their national aims, they had to become a satellite of
one of the great powers.
When the Allied armies entered Brussels in November, 1918, they
found the walls placarded with posters displaying a map, signed by
the “Comité de Politique Nationale.” We looked, rubbed our eyes, and
looked again. What did the Belgians hope to get for having saved the
world? A drastic rectification of frontiers with Holland, Germany,
and France, reconstituting the historic Belgian motherland and giving
Belgium defensible boundaries. These comprised the left bank of the
Scheldt to its mouth; Dutch Limburg, with Maestricht; the fourteen
Walloon cantons, given to Prussia by the Treaty of Vienna in 1815;
the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg; and a change in the Ardennes frontier
with France. On first glance the only part of this program that looked
at all feasible was what Belgium wanted to take from Germany. Holland
was a neutral state, not mixed up in the war, and it was incredible to
expect France to do anything territorially for Belgium or to allow her
to incorporate the Grand Duchy. On second thought the map embodying
Belgian desiderata seemed to bring up the thorny question of an
unneutralized Belgium in the European political world.
When Belgium was erected into an independent state by the Treaty of
London in 1839, a question that had been settled after Napoleonic
wars was reopened. Great Britain, Prussia, and France were equally
suspicious each of the others. Through Belgium Prussia could menace
France and France Prussia. Through Belgium either Prussia or France
could menace Great Britain. France had determined to keep control of
the Meuse valley as far north as possible. Prussia had determined to
bar the road to the Rhine. Great Britain had determined to prevent
Antwerp from becoming a port of war on the North Sea. All three
nations agreed to guarantee the neutrality of Belgium. But they took
additional precautions. Great Britain insisted that Holland should
remain in control of both banks of the Scheldt at its mouth. Prussia
had insisted on Holland retaining a portion of Limburg and upon the
separate political existence of a portion of Luxemburg. France insisted
upon a tongue of land in the Ardennes on both sides of the Meuse. The
three powers worked the problem out in terms of their own interests and
not those of the new country. They drew the boundaries of Belgium with
no regard for her strategic interests. But strategic consideration for
Belgium did not have to enter in. Was she not to be neutralized?
When Belgium came to the Peace Conference her statesmen felt justified
in pointing out that the common guarantee of neutrality had not worked
when put to a supreme test; for the early days of the war had proved
how disastrous was the control of the entrance to Antwerp in the
hands of a neutral state. And, if the war had gone on, Maestricht as
neutral territory would have been a tremendous handicap to the advance
of Allied armies. Why, they asked, should consideration be shown to
Holland now? Her neutral rôle in the World War was inglorious, and just
lately her conduct in receiving the fleeing Kaiser and refusing to
deliver him up to justice was an unfriendly act.
In themselves the arguments were powerful. Holland could not have
resisted a united demand of the Entente Powers to consent to the
revision of the old Treaty of London in favor of Belgium. But,
even with Germany eliminated from the problem, the motives that had
actuated the treaty-makers of 1839 were still alive. British and French
statesmen could not build for the future on the dangerous assumption
that their countries were to remain forever friends. Maestricht was
a barrier that worked both ways, while the North Sea policy of Great
Britain dictated more than ever, now that submarines were in vogue,
the advisability of keeping Antwerp bottled up. With the Dutch East
Indies at the mercy of the British fleet, Great Britain had a powerful
argument that could be always used to compel Holland to maintain the
neutrality of the estuary of the Scheldt.
The Entente Powers, therefore, refused to consider any revision of
the Treaty of 1839 detrimental to Holland as within the province of
the treaty to be imposed upon Germany, but left the matter to direct
negotiations between the two countries. This, of course, amounted to a
refusal to consider the Belgian suggestions at all. The Franco-Belgian
frontier was also left to the French and Belgians. The Grand Duchy of
Luxemburg was detached from the German customs union, of which it had
been a member since 1842, and from the German railway control, which
had been exercised since 1870. The political status of the duchy and
its future economic connections were to be decided by a referendum to
the Luxemburg electorate.
The fourteen so-called Walloon cantons of the Rhineland had become
thoroughly Germanized during the nineteenth century. Possibly this fact
in itself would not have deterred the Paris Conference from giving
favorable consideration to Belgian claims. But the British, uncertain
of the future affiliations of Belgium, did not want to undertake the
burden of defending her against German irredentism, should she become
their ally; and they did not want to make Belgium too powerful, should
she become the ally of the French. The French, on the other hand, had
their own program for the Rhineland. Belgium, therefore, was given only
two of the fourteen cantons.
The Treaty of Versailles provided that Malmédy and Eupen should be
occupied by Belgium, and that the Council of the League of Nations
should decide the final disposition of these two border districts. The
inhabitants were given a certain time in which to record on registers
provided for that purpose their desire to remain with Germany. Few
of them dared to risk this step, which would have meant confiscation
of their homes and expulsion, although none of them wanted to become
Belgians. This farcical scheme for preventing a plebiscite was
successful. The council gravely decreed that Malmédy and Eupen, in
view of the fact that no serious protestation was offered in the way
provided for by the Treaty of Versailles, should be allotted to Belgium
“by the will of the inhabitants”!
Aside from Malmédy and Eupen, Belgium gained the right to connect
Antwerp with the Rhine by canal, and her war debts to the Allies
were transferred to Germany’s account. In the reparations payment, a
priority of two and a half billion gold marks was granted Belgium,
representing the reimbursement of the extortions designated as war
taxes that had been exacted by Germany during the four years of
military occupation. The Belgians also received admirable help from the
Entente Powers in getting back the machinery, railway rolling-stock,
cattle, and other booty taken out of the country during the war.
Another great disappointment was the failure of the Peace Conference
to recognize the right of Belgium to retain the territories conquered
by her soldiers in German East Africa. Here President Wilson’s mandate
idea was used to deny the Belgian claim. German East Africa was to be
administered as a sacred trust for civilization by Great Britain. No
African annexations were countenanced by the Treaty of Versailles. By
dint of vigorous protest and the personal intervention of King Albert,
Belgium secured a rectification of frontiers in the Kongo colony. But
this was a matter of private negotiation with Great Britain and did not
enter into the Peace Conference bargains.
The credit due to Belgium for having resisted the Germans in 1914 and
for having carried on throughout the war, maintaining an army at the
front despite all obstacles, was not denied by the Entente Powers, and
they believed that they had done her full justice, within the limits
of possibility during the Peace Conference and in the subsequent
negotiations. Release from war debts, priority of reparations payments,
and generous aid in getting back from Germany the loot of the war
can be cited as tangible evidences of gratitude and good will. The
failure to recognize the equality of Belgium in post-bellum councils
rankled, however, and made it easy for politicians to turn the bitter
experiences of the Peace Conference to their own benefit. Consequently
we have seen in Belgium since the war the evolution of an unhappy
foreign policy opposed to the political and economic interests of the
country. This policy has jeopardized, almost nullified, the excellent
results of the marvelous progress toward rehabilitation accomplished by
the entire people in 1919 and 1920.
After the World War all the belligerents sorely needed peace, the
small states even more than the great powers, and the countries that
had suffered by enemy military occupation most of all. The Belgian
Government had lived entirely on credit during an exile of four years.
The normal revenues of the country had been appropriated by the enemy.
The blockade had disorganized industry. Belgium’s foreign markets
had been lost to the United States, Great Britain, and Japan. The
carrying and transit trade had become wholly disorganized. The country
was flooded with German marks, and was partly looted; 40 per cent of
its inhabitants were out of work. The years of German occupation had
fostered the Flemish language movement, had increased trade-unionism
300 per cent, had introduced the impersonal element in production on a
large scale, and had made the people profoundly unwilling to go back
to an almost feudal régime in politics and in many of the leading
industries.
If ever a country needed to have a period of non-partisan government
at home, freedom from military burdens, and respite from playing the
game of world politics, Belgium was that country. Economic interests
demanded productive activity on a large scale, unhampered access to
world markets, and the revival of the wealth accruing from the transit
trade through the port of Antwerp. Partly dependent on the prosperity
of Germany, and geographically inhibited from playing either Great
Britain or France as a favorite, the sensible policy for Belgium was
speedy reconciliation with Germany and the reaffirmation of her old
neutrality, appealing her case to the League of Nations and the United
States.
Belgium was in no way in the position of France, and she could not
afford to adopt toward Germany the attitude and the policy of France.
France is a large and virtually a self-sustaining country, not
dependent primarily upon her factories and mines, and possessing close
at hand vast colonies rich in food-stuffs and raw materials and capable
of being drawn upon for a standing army. On the other hand, the problem
of security, in her policy toward Germany, is a prime consideration
for France. Belgium is a small and thickly populated country, wholly
dependent upon her industries and world markets for her existence. Much
of her prosperity comes from the prosperity of western Germany because
of her geographical position in relation to the Rhineland. By her
own efforts Belgium can never hope to make herself militarily secure
against Germany. A policy of force, applied to Germany, has the double
disadvantage, then, of hurting Belgium economically and of compelling
her to become politically dependent upon France. This, in turn, makes
Great Britain antagonistic to her. Her economic interests, seeing that
France is a highly developed protectionist country, seem to demand a
Rhineland free of French domination, while her political interests seem
to demand steering clear of dependence upon French military power for
her security.
This having been said, we can grasp the dangers confronting Belgium
in 1923 as a result of having followed France blindly and actively
into the joint military occupation of the Ruhr against the advice and
admonition of the most influential organs of the British press. How
this happened is a tragic and instructive chapter in the history of
Europe since 1918.
Until after the Peace Conference the Government, by common consent,
was not bothered with internal political conflicts. The Socialists
and Radicals showed themselves reasonable, not wanting to weaken the
prestige of the Government in the peace negotiations, and compromised
their demand for universal manhood suffrage, an eight-hour day, and
sweeping social reforms. They agreed to a reform bill in April,
1919, by which, along with universal manhood suffrage, the Clerical
contention for woman suffrage was admitted to a limited extent. They
waived the demand for an eight-hour law until after the General
Election. The parliamentary election, held on November 16, 1919,
deprived the Clerical party of its traditional majority. A government
was formed of ministers of the three great parties, thus preserving
the _union sacrée_ formed during the war. The premiership and ministry
of foreign affairs, however, remained in the hands of the Clericals.
The Clericals, alarmed at the sudden growth in power of the Socialists,
decided to gain popular support by concluding a military alliance with
France and appealing to the people to back this policy through hatred
and fear of Germany. A secret military treaty was negotiated by the
heads of the General Staff and signed by them as a military measure,
and was therefore not presented to Parliament. Contrary to the express
stipulation in Article XVII of the Covenant, the text of this treaty
was not communicated to the secretariat of the League and has not
been published. The old neutrality, which had won Belgium the support
of Great Britain and the sympathy of the world in her hour of need,
was abandoned in a gamble with the future. As none in Belgium dared
or cared to take a stand that would seem to encourage Germany in her
evasion of the disarmament and reparations clauses of the Treaty of
Versailles, the Clericals gained a tactical advantage, which might have
remained with them had not France been obdurate to the Belgian plea for
a less strict tariff wall. The Francophile party, however, did manage
to secure from the French an important concession that helped for a
long time to obscure the real issue.
France and Belgium were rivals for the hand of the Grand Duchy of
Luxemburg. Belgium after the war asserted that Luxemburg was really a
part of Belgium and that its political incorporation in Belgium was the
logical result of Germany’s defeat in the World War. For reasons that
we have given above, the Entente Powers decided on a referendum. The
Luxemburgeois were asked to choose between a republic and retention of
the existing constitution, and between economic union with France or
Belgium. A return to the German Zollverein was forbidden; so this did
not enter into the question. The people on October 10, 1919, voted by
more than three to one to retain their grand-ducal form of government
and to form an economic union with France. This victory France used
to bargain with Belgium for the military alliance. When that was
concluded, France informed Luxemburg that she did not desire a customs
union. Thus the wish of the people of Luxemburg and their interests
were sacrificed to a diplomatic deal in which they had no concern.
Luxemburg was compelled to sign the trade agreement forced upon her and
on July 25, 1921, entered the Belgian customs union for fifty years.
The Clericals were able to point to this great success of their policy
as offsetting the growing uneasiness of the Belgians over the efforts
of France to deflect the trade of Alsace-Lorraine from Antwerp to
Dunkirk by discriminatory railway tariffs and by placing an extra tax
on commodities carried through Antwerp.
But in November, 1921, Nationalists and Clericals suffered a severe
reverse in a new General Election, although they enjoyed the advantage
of proportional representation. Just before the election the withdrawal
of the Socialist party from the Government had broken up the coalition.
Liberals and Clericals combined in the election against the Socialists,
invoking the issues of reparations and security. Despite this powerful
combination and the tremendous influence of an appeal to fear and
hatred in a country that had suffered so horribly and so recently, the
Socialists lost only two seats in the Chamber, but they gained twenty
seats in the Senate, completing the success begun in 1919. The new
Parliament did not contain a Clerical majority either in the Senate or
the Chamber.
In 1922 the Flemish language question came again to the fore, much to
the surprise of observers, who had believed that the German espousal
of this cause during the war and the vigorous repression of the
Activists after the liberation had banished it for many years.[18]
So much misinformation exists concerning the nature and merit of this
question that a brief statement is necessary. Since 1830, when Belgium
broke away from Holland and began her existence as a modern state, the
Walloons, or French-speaking Belgians, have been in the ascendancy,
socially and politically. They comprise the aristocracy, most of
the landowners, the political leaders of three generations, and the
clergy. Higher education was given in the French language, not for
love of France, but in order to prevent the political emancipation of
the lower classes, most of whom were Flemish. But, with the increase
of prosperity and the spread of education, Flemish-speaking Belgians
became more powerful and began to demand a larger share in the
political life of the country. Education in the Flemish language became
a political question, and was looked upon as a means of attaining
universal suffrage and emancipation from the strangle hold of the
bourgeois, abetted by the Church. The Walloons deplored it and fought
it as a subversive movement in the national life, and declared that it
would result in splitting Belgium into two countries.
Then entered the foreign influences! The Dutch, speaking a language
kindred to Flemish and always willing to see their southern neighbors
remain weaker than they, welcomed the Flemish language movement and
have done everything in their power to foster it. Similarly, the
Germans, regarding the Flemish as a part of Deutschtum, hailed with
glee a movement that would loosen the cultural hold of the French upon
Belgium. The French, on the other hand, anti-Clerical at home, showed
in the press and on the platform the deepest sympathy for the Clericals
in Belgium. Gradually, in Germany and France, what was a purely
internal question, provoked naturally by the rising tide of democracy
in Belgium, came to be regarded as a struggle between Teutonic and
French influence in an all-important strategic corner of Europe.
The World War united the Belgians against the common enemy, and
the Flemish were as determined in their opposition to Germany as
the Walloons. But Germany’s invasion of Belgium was, of course, a
tremendous blow to the leaders of the Flemish-speaking movement. For
the time being, advocacy of what was a perfectly natural and reasonable
thing became playing Germany’s game. The demand for higher education
in the Flemish language might well have remained under a cloud for a
decade or more after the war had it not been for the determination of
the Walloon bourgeoisie to use the advantage the war had given them to
stamp out once for all the Flemish-speaking movement.
When it was proposed that the universities be separated from the
Church and brought under the control of the state, an attempt was made
to make them by statute purely French. What was the right of private
institutions became, when these institutions were made public, a
challenge to the language and the culture of a majority of the people.
About 3,000,000 Belgians are Walloons, speaking various dialects of
French; 4,200,000 are Flemish, of whom 3,300,000 speak only Flemish
and understand no French at all. The proposal was preposterous. So the
question arose again. It died down temporarily when Belgium joined
France in invading the Ruhr. But it is bound to be revived in the near
future with growing force. The Flemish are too tenacious in language
and traditions to accept the superiority of the Walloons, now that they
have the powerful instrument of equal and universal suffrage.
A growing number of intelligent Belgians, denied social equality
because they are Flemish, and hit hard in their pocketbooks because
Belgium is seconding French foreign policy, are beginning to contend
that devotion to France must not be considered the test of patriotism.
The Flemish did not hesitate to throw in their lot against the Teutons
during the war. It never occurred to them not to do so. And now they
do not see why any Walloons, just because they speak French, should
subordinate the true interests of Belgium to the foreign policy of any
other nation, however close in cultural ties. When you speak to them
of the Flemish language movement being “pro-German” or of “playing
Germany’s game,” they grow impatient with you and declare that you
refuse to understand. They claim that they are fighting the great
battle of democracy, that their record during the war should free them
for ever from the charge of pro-Germanism, and that the triumph of
their movement will not disrupt Belgium but will bring about the kind
of solidarity we Americans have attained by organizing a state in which
there is equality of opportunity for all men.