So much has been said about Belgian neutrality, so much assumed, and it
has been such a stumbling block in the way of any real and comprehensive
understanding of the causes and purposes of the great European
catastrophe, that it may be well to examine the basis of it and endeavor
to get an exact idea of the scope and obligation.
Of course, we are considering here the question of guaranteed
neutrality, not the ordinary neutrality enjoyed by all States not at
war, when some States are at war; the difference between ordinary
neutrality and guaranteed neutrality being that no State is under any
obligation to defend the ordinary neutrality of any other State against
infringement by a belligerent, and no belligerent is under any special
obligation to observe it. Guaranteed neutrality is, therefore, purely a
question of specific agreement between States.
On the 19th day of April, 1839, Belgium and Holland, which from 1815 to
1830 had formed the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, signed a treaty
of separation from, and independence of, each other. It is in this
treaty that the original pledge of Belgian neutrality is to be found.
The clause of the treaty reads: "Belgium in the limits above described
shall form an independent neutral State and shall be bound to observe
the same neutrality toward all other States." On the same day and at the
same place, (London,) a treaty, known in the history of diplomacy as the
Quintuple Treaty, was signed by Great Britain, France, Prussia, Austria,
and Russia, approving and adopting the treaty between Belgium and
Holland. A little later, May 11, the German Confederation, of which both
Austria and Prussia were members, also ratified this treaty.
In the year 1866 the German Confederation was dissolved by the war
between Austria and Prussia, occasioned by the Schleswig-Holstein
question. In 1867 the North German Union was formed, of which Prussia
was the leading State, while Austria and the German States south of the
River Main were left out of it altogether. Did these changes render the
guarantees of the Treaty of 1839 obsolete and thereby abrogate them, or
at least weaken them and make them an uncertain reliance? The test of
this came in the year 1870, at the beginning of hostilities between
France and the North German Union. Great Britain, the power most
interested in the maintenance of Belgian neutrality, seems to have had
considerable apprehension about it. Mr. Gladstone, then Prime Minister,
said in the House of Commons: "I am not able to subscribe to the
doctrine of those who have held in this House what plainly amounts to an
assertion that the simple fact of the existence of a guarantee is
binding on every party to it, irrespective altogether of the particular
position in which it may find itself when the occasion for acting on the
guarantee arises."
A One-Year Treaty.
Proceeding upon this view, the British Government then sought and
procured from the French Government and from the Government of the North
German Union separate but identical treaties guaranteeing with the
British Government the neutrality of Belgium during the period of the
war between France and the North German Union, the so-called
Franco-Prussian war, which had just broken out, and for one year from
the date of its termination. In these treaties it is also to be remarked
that Great Britain limited the possible operation of her military force
in maintaining the neutrality of Belgium to the territory of the State
of Belgium.
These treaties expired in the year 1872, and the present German Empire
has never signed any treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium.
Moreover, between 1872 and 1914 Belgium became what is now termed a
world power; that is, it reached a population of nearly 9,000,000
people, it had a well-organized, well-equipped army of over 200,000 men
and powerful fortifications for its own defense; it had acquired and was
holding colonies covering 1,000,000 square miles of territory, inhabited
by 15,000,000 men, and it had active commerce, mediated by its own
marine, with many, if not all, parts of the world. Now, these things are
not at all compatible in principle with a specially guaranteed
neutrality of the State which possesses them. The State which possesses
them has grown out of its swaddling clothes, has arrived at the age and
condition of maturity and self-protection, and has passed the age when
specially guaranteed neutrality is natural.
From all these considerations, I think it extremely doubtful whether, on
the first day of August, 1914, Belgium should have been considered as
possessing any other kind of neutrality than the ordinary neutrality
enjoyed by all States not at war, when some States are at war. In fact,
it remains to be seen whether Belgium itself had not forfeited the
privilege of this ordinary neutrality before a single German soldier had
placed foot on Belgian soil. A few days ago I received a letter from one
of the most prominent professors in the University of Berlin, who is
also in close contact with the Prussian Ministry of Education, a man in
whose veracity I place perfect confidence, having known him well for ten
years. He writes: "Our violation of the neutrality of Belgium was
prompted in part by the fact that we had convincing proof that there
were French soldiers already in Belgium and that Belgium had agreed to
allow the French Army to pass over its soil in case of a war between
France and us." Moreover, in the British "White Paper" itself, No. 122,
is to be found a dispatch from the British Ambassador in Berlin, Sir E.
Goschen, to Sir Edward Grey, containing these words: "It appears from
what he [the German Secretary of Foreign Affairs] said that the German
Government consider that certain hostile acts have already been
committed by Belgium. As an instance of this, he alleged that a
consignment of corn for Germany had been placed under an embargo
already." The date of this dispatch is July 31, days before the Germans
entered Belgium.
But placing these two things entirely aside, as well as the new
evidence, said to have just been found in the archives at Brussels, that
Belgium had by her agreements with Great Britain forfeited every claim
to even ordinary neutrality in case of a war between Germany and Great
Britain, I find in the British "White Paper" itself, No. 123, not only
ample justification, but absolute necessity, from a military point of
view, for a German army advancing against France, not only to pass
through Belgium, but to occupy Belgium. This number of the "White Paper"
is a communication dated Aug. 1 from Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen,
British Ambassador in Berlin. In it Sir Edward Grey informed Sir E.
Goschen that the German Ambassador in London asked him "whether, if
Germany gave a promise not to violate Belgian neutrality, we, Great
Britain, would remain neutral," and that he [Grey] replied that he
"could not say that," that he did not think Great Britain "could give a
promise of neutrality on that condition alone"; further, Sir Edward Grey
says: "The Ambassador pressed me as to whether I could not formulate
conditions on which we would remain neutral. He even suggested that the
integrity of France and her colonies might be guaranteed. I said that I
felt obliged to refuse definitely any promise to remain neutral on
similar terms, and I could only say that we must keep our hands free."
The Necessary Invasions.
After this Sir Edward Grey declared in Parliament, according to
newspaper reports, that Great Britain stood, as to Belgian neutrality,
on the same ground as in 1870. With all due respect, I cannot so
understand it. In 1870 Great Britain remained neutral in a war between
the North German Union and France, and, with the North German Union,
guaranteed Belgium against invasion by France, and, with France,
guaranteed Belgium against invasion by the North German Union. On Aug.
1, 1914, the German Empire asked Great Britain to do virtually the same
thing, and Great Britain refused. It is, therefore, Germany who stood in
1914 on the same ground, with regard to Belgium neutrality, as she did
in 1870, and it is Great Britain who shifted her position and virtually
gave notice that she herself would become a belligerent. It was this
notice served by Sir Edward Grey on the German Ambassador in London on
Aug. 1, 1914, which made the occupation of Belgium an absolute military
necessity to the safety of the German armies advancing against France.
Otherwise they would, so far as the wit of man could divine, have left
their right flank exposed to the advance of a British army through
Belgium, and there certainly was no German commander so absolutely
bereft of all military knowledge or instinct as to have committed so
patent an error.
Belgium has Great Britain to thank for every drop of blood shed by her
people, and every franc of damage inflicted within her territory during
this war. With a million of German soldiers on her eastern border
demanding unhindered passage through one end of her territory, under the
pledge of guarding her independence and integrity and reimbursing every
franc of damage, and no British force nearer than Dover, across the
Channel, it was one of the most inconsiderate, reckless, and selfish
acts ever committed by a great power when Sir Edward Grey directed, as
is stated in No. 155 of the British "White Paper," the British Envoy in
Brussels to inform the "Belgian Government that if pressure is applied
to them by Germany to induce them to depart from neutrality, his
Majesty's Government expects that they will resist by any means in their
power."
It is plain enough that Great Britain was not thinking so much of
protecting Belgium as of Belgium protecting her, until she could prepare
to attack Germany in concert with Russia and France. She was willing to
let Belgium, yea almost to command Belgium, to take the fearful risk of
complete destruction in order that she might gain a little time in
perfecting the co-operation of Russia and France with herself for the
crushing of Germany, and in order to hold the public opinion of neutral
powers, especially of the United States of America, in leash under the
chivalrous issue of protecting a weaker country, which she has done
little or nothing to protect, but which she could have effectively
protected by simply remaining neutral herself.
We Americans have been greatly confused in mind in regard to the issues
of this war. We have confounded causes and occasions and purposes and
incidents until it has become almost impossible for any considerable
number of us to form a sound and correct judgment in regard to it. But
we shall emerge from that nebulous condition. We are beginning to see
more clearly now, and it would not surprise me greatly if the means used
for producing our confusion would some day come back, if not to plague
the consciences, at least to foil the purposes of their inventors.