Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised)

has no doubt an artificial character; its boundaries have been determined by the Great Powers and cut across the ancient provinces of the Netherlands. And it mu

orresponding obligations. While those privileges were maintained-and they have been rigidly maintained for more than eighty years-the Belgian people punctually fulfilled their obligations; and, beca

poorer and Europe put to shame. The proofs which Belgium has given of her nationality will never be forgotten while liberty has any value or patriotism any meaning among men. We cannot do less than echo the general sentiment of admiration for a constancy to national ideals which has left Belgium at the mercy of Huns less forgivable than those of Attila. But the case against her oppressor is not to be founded solely or mainly on her peculiar merits. In a special sense it rests upon the legal rights and duties with which she has been invested for the convenience of her neighbours and for the welfare of the European state system. It was in their interest, rather than her own, that the Great Powers made her a sovereign independent state. As such she is entitled,

d Hainault, including some which have lately come into prominence in the great war, such as Lille, Valenciennes, Cambray, and Maubeuge. The bulk, however, of the Spanish Netherlands passed at the Treaty of Utrecht to Austria, then the chief rival of France on the Continent. They passed with the reservation that certain fortresses on their southern border were to be garrisoned jointly by the Dutch and the Austrians as a barrier against French aggression. This arrangement was overthrown at the French Revolution. The French annexed the Austrian Netherlands and Liège in November, 1792; and immediately afterwards threw down a gauntlet to England by opening to all nations the navigation of the Scheldt. This, and the threatened French attack on Holland, her ally, drew England into conflict with the Revolution; for, first, Antwerp in French hands and as an open port would be a dangerous menace; and secondly, the French had announced a new and anarch

ed the independence of the Batavian Republic and the right of the Dutch to adopt whatever form of government seemed good to them. In defiance of these stipulations Napoleon maintained a garrison in Holland, and forced upon her a new Constitution which had been prepared in Paris (November, 1801). Identical stipulations had been made for the Helvetian Republic and had been similarly violated. Early in 1803 England demanded that the French should evacuate Holland a

shopric of Liège in order 'to put Holland in a position to resist attack until the Powers could come to its aid'. This arrangement was ratified at the Treaty of Chaumont (1814). As there was no government or visible unity in the Belgian provinces after the retirement of the French, the union with

ution. Their aspirations aroused much sympathy both in England and in France. These two countries induced the other Great Powers (Austria, Prussia, Russia) to recognize the new kingdom as an independent neutral state. This recognition was embodied in the Treaty of the Twenty-Four Articles signed at London in October, 1831; and it was not too generous to the aspirations of Belgian nationality. Since the Belgians had been defeated in the field by Holland and had only b

e, Benedetti, in 1866, that Prussia should help France to acquire Belgium as a solace for Prussian annexations in Northern Germany. Then, as now, England insisted upon the Treaty of 1839. The result was that, on the instance of Lord Granville, Germany and France entered into an identic treaty with Great Britain (Aug. 1870) to the effect that, if either belligeren

at a neutral state is bound to refuse to grant a right of passage to a belligerent. This is a well-established rule, and was formally affirmed by the Great Powers at the Hague

ow on its territory any of the ac

specified the most

e territory of a neutral power troops or conv

stence of Belgium is contingent

and IV shall form an independent and perpetually neutral state. It sh

maller nationalities are bound to excite peculiar alarm in England. In particular she cannot forget how she would be menaced by the establishment of a militarist state in Belgium. But since in England's case the dangers and uncertainties of a state of things in which Might is treated as Right are particularly apparent, it is only to be expected that she should insist with special emphasis upon the sanctity of treaties, a sanctity which in the long run is as necessary to the strongest nation as to the weakest. If treaties count for