JOHN WILLIAM BURGESS
THE EUROPEAN WAR OF 1914
Its
Causes, Purposes, and Probable Results
1915
CHAPTER VI
p. 167—178
167
CHAPTER VI
BELGIAN NEUTRALITY*
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 its 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 infringe-
* This chapter and "The German
Emperor" (chapter 8), appeared originally in the New York Times,
and are reprinted here by the courtesy of that journal.
168 BELGIAN NEUTRALITY
ment by a
belligerent, and no belligerent is under any specific 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. This 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
169 BELGIAN NEUTRALITY
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
170 BELGIAN NEUTRALITY
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." 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 forces 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.
171 BELGIAN NEUTRALITY
Moreover, between 1872 and 1914 Belgium became what is now termed a
world power; that is, it reached a population of nearly 8,000,000
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
172 BELGIAN NEUTRALITY
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
months 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
wrote: "Our invasion 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
173 BELGIAN NEUTRALITY
[the German
Secretary of Foreign Affiairs] said that the German Government consider
that certain hostile acts have already been committed by Belgium." 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 found in the archives at Brussels, that Belgium had
by her agreements with Great Britain forfeited every claim to
neutrality in case of a war between Germany and Great Britain, evidence
the genuineness of which has now been acknowledged by the British
Government, 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 August 1 from Sir Edward Grey to Sir E.
Goschen, British Ambassador in Berlin. In it Sir Edward Grey informed
Sir E. Goschen
174 BELGIAN NEUTRALITY
that the
German Ambassador in London asked him "whether, if Germany gave a
promise not to violate Belgium 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."
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
175 BELGIAN NEUTRALITY
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 August 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 Belgian 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 August 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
176 BELGIAN NEUTRALITY
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
177 BELGIAN NEUTRALITY
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 cooperation of Russia and France with
herself for the crushing of Germany, and in order to hold the public
opinion of neutral powers, specially 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.
178 BELGIAN NEUTRALITY
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.
Last update: August 11th, 2014
