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BELGIUM AT LAST INDEPENDENT

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time, the French Revolution had broken out, and in 1792-1794 Belgium was conquered by the French armies and annexed to the French Republic.

If the Belgians had to choose some country to be annexed to, that country would undoubtedly be France. In almost every respect the Belgians have more in common with the French than with any other people: their political ideas and institutions are similar to those of France; their religion is the same; the great European currents of intellectual and spiritual life that have shaped their art and literature have come to them mainly by way of France. Nevertheless, during the 20 years when the Belgians were under French control, and in spite of the fact that they enjoyed the same institutions and privileges that all Frenchmen enjoyed, they were never reconciled. They still considered themselves Belgians, and not Frenchmen; still persisted in the desire to live their own life and govern themselves in their own way; and in 1815, when the empire of Napoleon was overthrown, their wish was to be allowed to establish an independent Belgian state.

This privilege the great powers assembled at the Congress of Vienna, concerned less with the wishes than with the uses of small nations, refused to grant; and, in order to establish a strong "barrier" state on the lower Rhine against future French aggression, Belgium, against its will, was joined with Holland to form the Kingdom of Holland under the Dutch king. This new kingdom was indeed an "artificial creation of European diplomacy," and as such was destined to disappear. After 15 years of unhappy strife, the Belgians revolted in July, 1830, and with the aid of France and England won their independence. A constitutional convention, elected by the people, adopted the Constitution of 1830, which provided for a popular and liberal form of government. The independence of Belgium was recognized by the great powers in 1830 at the London Conference, and again in 1839 when it was agreed by Austria, Prussia, France, Great Britain and Russia that Belgium should "form an independent and perpetually neutral state."

These are the outstanding facts of Belgian history; and the Germans, having studied Belgian history, doubtless with their

customary patience and exactness, came to the conclusion that the Belgian state is "an artificial creation of European diplomacy." This conclusion is, however, closely connected with the other half of the German theory, namely, that there is no Belgian nation; and this idea they derive mainly from the contemporary social conditions in Belgium.

The basic fact of the Belgian social structure, which the Germans know but do not understand, is that the population is made up in about equal parts of the Walloons who speak one language, and the Flemish who speak another. The Walloons, who number something over three millions and live in the southern part of Belgium, speak essentially Romance dialects and employ French as a literary language; while the Flemish, who number over four millions and live in the northern part of Belgium, employ a language (Flemish) which in its dialect and written forms is essentially the same as Dutch. Practically all educated Belgians (871,228, according to the census of 1910) speak both the Walloon (French) and the Flemish (Dutch) languages; while a considerable number (52,547) speak these two languages and German beside.

USE OF EITHER LANGUAGE OPTIONAL

The legal status of languages in Belgium is defined in the Constitution of 1830, in Art. 23:

"The employment of the languages used in Belgium is optional; it can be regulated only by law, and solely for the acts of public authority and for judicial affairs." 1

After 1830, when Belgium won independence from Holland, there was naturally a strong reaction against everything Dutch; and so it happened that until about 1870 law and practice combined to favor the use of French. The laws were debated, voted and promulgated in French; justice was rendered and administrative correspondence carried on in French; instruction in the four universities and in the secondary schools was exclusively in French. In a word, although nearly half the people spoke nothing but 'Passelecq, op. cit., 40.

GERMAN THEORY AS TO FLEMINGS

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Flemish, and more than half were of Flemish origin, French was the language of public life, of society, of education and of litera

ture.

Opposition to this state of affairs found expression in what is known as the Flemish movement, which has been an increasingly important question in Belgian politics since about 1870-that is to say, about the same period of time during which the Alsace-Lorraine question has been prominent in German politics. There is, however, this difference in respect to what has been achieved in the two countries: after 44 years the Alsace-Lorraine question was as far as ever from solution, while the Flemish question, at the moment when the war broke out, was virtually settled. Concessions to the demands of the Flemings were made as early as 1873, in the law providing for the use of Flemish in the criminal courts; and between 1873 and 1914 at least ten important laws were passed extending the use of the Flemish language in government and administration, in the army, and in the schools. In 1914 the question of a Flemish university was almost the only outstanding issue in the Flemish movement; and even this was practically settled, inasmuch as the legislature had voted in favor of transforming the University of Ghent into a purely Flemish institution.

GERMAN THEORY OF Two “Peoples”

This division of the Belgians into Walloons and Flemings and the long conflict over the Flemish question (which is in fact a conflict chiefly among the Flemings themselves) furnished the Germans with a basis for their theory that the Belgians are not a nation, but in reality two peoples held together against their will by an "artificial" state constructed by England and France to serve their own interests. The Flemings, so the Germans said, belong properly with those groups of Germanic peoples, all of whom would naturally wish, and whose destiny it is, to be gathered under the flag of the empire. Like the Dutch and the German-speaking people of Switzerland, the Flemish are Deutschen im Ausland-Germans in a foreign land. Subjected to the Walloon yoke, they have long struggled in vain to emancipate themselves. It was therefore a duty laid upon Germany, a duty which

she was faithfully performing, to liberate this kindred people. This was the German theory.

The theory was not, indeed, so very old, not much older than the war; but during the last four years it had been solidly based and impregnably buttressed by economists, historians, ethnologists, philologians and bureaucrats of the highest reputation in Germany. It goes without saying that the Pan-Germans, with their well known hospitality to divergent ideas, accepted it without question; and among the arguments which they marshaled in favor of German expansion, this humane theory marched valiantly side by side with the most robust ideas of Realpolitik. "Belgium became a state only two generations ago, never having been one before. . . . A national unity it has never known. There now exists in the land a deep line of cleavage. . . . If a German dominion (Oberleitung), with the determined separation of the Germanic and Romance districts, were introduced, helping the Flemings in the schools, in the courts, in the administration, . . . it can be assured a ready acceptance and will attach to itself this Germanic part of the country more and more rapidly from year to year. .. The task remains to save this Kultur, Germanic in race and in essence, from being covered and hidden by French varnish." And finally, this theory, fathered by scientists and fostered by Pan-Germans, had been officially adopted and proclaimed by the government as the basis of its policy. "Germany cannot," said Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, speaking in the Reichstag on April 5, 1916, "abandon to Latin influence the Flemish people who have been so long enslaved." 2

According to this theory therefore, although contrary to the general impression, Germany entered Belgium as a liberator. In behalf of the principle of the self-determination of nations, she undertook to break up the "artificial" Belgian state in order to "free the Flemings from the Walloon yoke." The means upon which she chiefly relied to attain this end were the transformation of the From the "Manifesto" of the "Independent Committee for a German Peace,” published in Das Grossere Deutschland, January 27 and February 5, 1917; translated and printed by Charles Waldstein, What Germany is Fighting For (London, 1917), 76-77.

1

'Passelecq, op. cit., 1.

FLEMISH UNIVERSITY ADVOCATED

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University of Ghent into a Flemish university, the administrative separation of Belgium, and the establishment of an independent Flemish state.

II. THE FLEMISH UNIVERSITY OF GHENT

Before the war there were in Belgium four universities granting diplomas of equal value: two state universities, Liége and Ghent; and two "free" universities, Louvain (Catholic) and Brussels (Liberal). Until recent times the instruction in all four was exclusively in French.

As the Flemish movement gathered force, one of the chief points in the program of the Flemish party came to be the demand for an exclusively Flemish university; and in the last years before the war this was the all-important question at issue. The great importance (social rather than political or literary) which the Flemings attached to the possession of a Flemish university is admirably expressed in the following statement:

"Wallonia is the chief center of those industries (metallurgy, mines and quarries, glass works) in which high wages and relatively short hours obtain. Flanders is the center of those industries (textiles) in which long hours and low wages obtain. This fundamental inequality can only be remedied by augmenting the productivity of the Flemish population, and thereby raising the general standard of living. To attain this result it is necessary to promote education, provide for superior technical and industrial instruction, and insure the spread of ideas and the diffusion of progress. This task belongs properly to those who have access to the universities and the centers of scientific research. . . . [But in Flanders] these classes do not speak the same language as the uneducated common people; their higher culture and their professional knowledge, finding expression in French, remain inaccessible to the people, because the people do not understand French. [To remedy this situation it is necessary therefore] either to substitute for the language spoken by the people that is to say, Flemish-the language spoken by the

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