Belgium Part 1

Belgium.

by Emile Cammaerts.

PREFACE

We possess happily, nowadays, a few standard books, of great insight and impartiality, which allow us to form a general idea of the development of the Belgian nation without breaking fresh ground. The four volumes of Henri Pirenne's _Histoire de Belgique_ carry us as far as the Peace of Munster, and, among others, such works as Vanderlinen's _Belgium_, issued recently by the Oxford University Press, and a treatise on Belgian history by F. Van Kalken (1920) supply a great deal of information on the modern period. To these works the author has been chiefly indebted in writing the present volume. He felt the need for placing the conclusions of modern Belgian historians within reach of British readers, and believed that, though he might not claim any very special qualifications to deal with Belgian history, his knowledge of England would allow him to present his material in the way most interesting to the English-speaking public.

_Belgium_ is neither a series of essays nor a systematic text-book.

Chronological sequence is preserved, and practically all important events are recorded in their appointed time, but special stress has been laid on some characteristic features of Belgian civilization and national development which are of general interest and bear on the history of Europe as a whole.

The author wishes to express his sincere thanks to his friend, Professor Van der Essen, who has been good enough to revise his work.

He is also indebted to Messrs. Van Oest & Co. for allowing him to reproduce some pictures belonging to _l'Alb.u.m Historique de la Belgique_, and to the Phototypie Belge (Ph.B.), Ste anonyme, Etterbeek, Bruxelles, and other holders of copyright for providing him with valuable ill.u.s.trations.

INTRODUCTION

The history of the Belgian nation is little known in England. This ignorance, or rather this neglect, may seem strange if we consider the frequent relations which existed between the two countries from the early Middle Ages. It is, however, easy enough to explain, and even to justify. The general idea has been for a long time that the existence of Belgium, as a nation, dated from its independence, and that previous to 1830 such a thing as Belgian history did not even exist. All through feudal times we are aware of the existence of the County of Flanders, of the Duchy of Brabant, and of many other princ.i.p.alities, but, in no official act, does the term "Belgique" occur. Even after the unification of the fifteenth century, when the country came under the rule of the Dukes of Burgundy, the notion of a distinct nationality, such as the French or the British, remains hidden to the superficial student, the Netherlands forming merely a part of the rich possessions of the most powerful va.s.sals of France. Through modern times the Belgian provinces, "les provinces belgiques" as they were called in the eighteenth century, pa.s.s under the rule of the kings of Spain, of the emperors of Austria and of the French Republic, to be finally merged, after the fall of Napoleon, into the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The word "Belgium," as a noun, is only found in a few books; "belgique" is a mere adjective applied to the southern portion of the Netherlands.

It must be admitted that the Belgian official historians of the old school did very little to dispel this wrong impression. In their patriotic zeal they endeavoured to picture Belgium as struggling valiantly all the time against foreign oppression. They laid great stress on Caesar's words: "Of all the Gauls the Belgians are the bravest," and pictured the popular risings of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the same light as the 1830 revolution. If we are to believe them, the Belgian people must have been conscious from their origin of their unity. They considered national princes, such as the Burgundian Dukes, in the same light as Philip II or the Austrian Emperors, and, instead of clearing the air, added to the confusion.

Their interpretation of history according to the principles of national liberty of the Romantic period could not be taken seriously, and the idea prevailed that, if the Belgian nation was not merely a creation of European diplomacy, its existence could only be confirmed by the future, and rested on but frail foundations in the past.

This idea was strengthened by the knowledge that the country possessed neither strong natural frontiers, like Great Britain, France, Italy or Spain, nor the bond created by unity of language like Germany. Other European countries, it is true, like Holland or Poland, did not const.i.tute strong geographical units and lacked definite boundaries but their people talked at least the same idiom and belonged, as far as the word may be used in a broad sense, to the same race. Others, like Switzerland, were divided between various languages, but possessed geographical unity. Belgium could not claim any of these distinctive features. Her boundaries remained widely open in all directions. From the cultivated plains of Flanders to the wild hills of the Ardennes she offered the greatest variety of physical aspects. What is more, her people were nearly equally divided, by a line running from the south of Ypres to the north of Liege, between two different languages, two different races. According to recognized standards, the very existence of the Belgian nation was a paradox, and though the history of mankind presents many similar contrasts between the hasty conclusions of the untrained mind and the tangible reality of facts, these cannot be recognized at first, and require a deeper knowledge of the past than that which can be provided by the study of warlike conflicts and political changes.

It was therefore left to the modern school of Belgian historians, and more especially to Professor Pirenne, of Ghent, to place the study of the origin of the Belgian nation in its right perspective and to show that, in spite of diversity of race and language, lack of natural boundaries and centuries of foreign domination, Belgian unity was based on deep-rooted traditions and possessed strong characteristics in every department of human activity which could be recognized from the early Middle Ages to the modern period. By a close study of the economic and intellectual life of the people and of their inst.i.tutions, Pirenne and his disciples made evident what every artist, every writer had already realized, that, in spite of all appearances, Belgian unity had never been impaired in the past by the language barrier, and that both parts of the country presented common characteristics, common customs, and common inst.i.tutions which no foreign rule was able to eradicate. They showed furthermore that these characteristics, determined by the common interests and aspirations of the whole people, were so strong that they inspired the policy of many foreign princes who, by their birth, would naturally have been led to disregard them. They may still be found in the country's old charters, in ancient chronicles, in the works of the so-called Flemish School of painting, and in every monument of the past which has survived the devastation of war. To these witnesses Belgian historians will not appeal in vain, when they endeavour to show that the origins of Belgian national unity may be sought as far back as those of any other nation in Europe, and that if more exposed than her powerful neighbours to the vicissitudes of war, Belgium always succeeded in preserving, throughout her darkest days, some living token of her former prosperity and of her future independence.

If, as we trust, the reader is convinced after reading this short sketch of Belgium's history that Belgian nationality is more than a vain word, and that the att.i.tude adopted by the Belgian people in August 1914, far from being an impulsive movement, was merely the result of the slow and progressive development of their national feeling throughout the ages, he will also realize that this development has received many checks, and is therefore very different from that which may be traced in the history of England, for instance, or even in that of France. Nowhere would the familiar image of the growing tree be more misleading. Belgian history possesses some remarkable landmarks, under Charlemagne, for instance, at the time of the Communes, under the rule of the Dukes of Burgundy, under Charles V, and during the recent period of independence. But, between these periods of prosperity and even splendour, we notice some periods of stagnation due to internal strife or even complete decadence, when the country became a prey to foreign invasion. Few peoples have experienced such severe trials, few have shown such extraordinary power of recovery. Peace and a wise government coincide invariably with an extraordinary material and intellectual efflorescence, war and oppression with the partial or total loss of the progress realized a few years before, so that the arts and trades of Belgian cities which s.h.i.+ne at one time in the forefront of European civilization seem totally forgotten at another.

In more than one way Belgium has lived under a troubled sky, where heavy showers succeed bright suns.h.i.+ne, while the towers of Ypres, Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, Louvain and Brussels appear and disappear on the horizon.

How can we explain the tragedy of these abrupt changes? How can we justify these sudden alternations in the life of a hard-working and peace-loving people who never indulged in any dreams of imperialism and foreign conquest?

A look at the map will help us to solve the mystery. The plain of northern Europe may be divided into two wide areas, the French plain, whose waters run from East to West into the Atlantic, and the German plain, whose waters run from South to North into the North Sea and the Baltic. These wide expanses are connected by a narrow strip of territory through which all communications skirting the hills and mountains of the South must necessarily be concentrated, and whose waters follow a north-westerly direction towards the Straits of Dover.

This small plain, only 90 miles wide from Ostend to Namur, const.i.tutes a natural link between Germany and France, and plays, from the continental point of view, the same part as the Straits, on its northern coast. Even to-day, in spite of the progress of railway communications, the main line from Paris to Berlin pa.s.ses along the Sambre and Meuse valleys, through Namur, Liege and Aix-la-Chapelle, and the events of August 1914 are only the last example of the frequent use made of this road throughout history, by invaders coming from the East or from the South. For peaceful and warlike intercourse, Belgium is situated on the natural highway connecting the French and German plains. This geographical feature alone would suffice to influence the historical development of the country. But there is another.

It so happens that by an extraordinary arrangement of the map, which one may be tempted to call a coincidence, the sea straits are placed in close proximity to the continental narrows, so that the natural route from Great Britain to central Europe crosses in Belgium the natural route from France to Germany. This appears all the more clearly if we take into consideration the fact that the seventeen provinces extended in the past from the Zuyder Zee to the Somme, and that Bruges, and later on Antwerp, benefited largely from the trade of the Thames.

This then is what is meant when Belgium is spoken of as being placed at "the cross-roads of Europe." Most of the continental communications between Great Britain and Germany or Italy, on the one hand, or between France and Germany on the other, were bound to pa.s.s through her provinces. She was, and is still to a certain extent, the predestined meeting-ground of British, French and German culture, the market-place where merchandise and ideas from the North, the West, the East and the South may be most conveniently exchanged, and she derives her originality from the very variety of the influences which surround her.

The division of languages and races helped her in her task, and, instead of proving an obstacle to national development, contributed to it whenever circ.u.mstances proved favourable. The original contribution of the people to this development may be somewhat difficult to define, but the result is no less evident. Belgian, or as it is sometimes called, Flemish culture, though intimately connected with France and Germany, is neither French nor German, still less English. Its characteristics are derived from the combination of various European influences strongly moulded by long-standing traditions and habits.

"The will to live together" which, according to Renan, is at the root of every nationality, and proves stronger than unity of race and language, finds nowhere a better ill.u.s.tration than in the strange part played by the Belgian nation in the history of Europe. Common interests, common dangers, common aspirations produced and maintained a distinct civilization which, according to all the laws of materialistic logic, ought to have been wrecked and swamped long ago by the overwhelming influences to which it was subjected.

As early as the ninth century, under the rule of Charlemagne, these characteristics began to show themselves. The Emperor chose Aix-la-Chapelle for his capital, not only because he possessed vast domains in the region, but also because, from this central position, he was better able to keep in contact with the governors of a vast Empire which extended from the Elbe to Spain and Italy. Aix-la-Chapelle, "the Northern Rome," became the metropolis of commerce as well as the political capital. The various intellectual centres created in the neighbourhood, at the monasteries of Liege, Tongres, and Maesyck attracted English, Irish, French and Italian poets, musicians, lawyers and theologians.

Later, in the twelfth century, when the free Communes developed all over Western Europe and succeeded in breaking the power of feudalism, it was left to Ghent and Bruges to raise the free city to a standard of independence and prosperity which it did not attain in other countries, placed under a stronger central power. In the shadow of their proud belfries over 80,000 merchants and artisans pursued their active trade, and Bruges, "the Venice of the North," became the princ.i.p.al port of Europe and the centre of banking activity.

The part played by the Burgundian Dukes in European politics during the Hundred Years' War is well known in this country, but the importance of their action in unifying the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands is not sufficiently realized. In fact, in spite of their foreign origin, their policy was so much inspired by the interest of the country that they may be considered as national princes. The "Great Dukes of the West" did for Belgium, in the fifteenth century, what Louis XI did for France, and what Henry VIII did for England, half a century later. They succeeded in centralizing public inst.i.tutions and in suppressing, to a great extent, local jealousies and internal strife which weakened the nation and wasted her resources. Under their rule the Belgian provinces rose to an unequalled intellectual and artistic splendour and gave to the world, by the paintings of the brothers Van Eyck and their school, one of the most brilliant expressions of the early Renaissance.

This prominent situation was maintained, in spite of the fall of the Burgundian dynasty, when, through the marriage of Mary of Burgundy with Maximilian, Belgium pa.s.sed under the sway of the Hapsburg dynasty.

Under Charles V, Antwerp inherited the prosperity of Bruges, and became the princ.i.p.al centre of European commerce. It was visited every year by 2,500 s.h.i.+ps, and the amount of commercial transactions made through its exchange was valued at forty million ducats per year.

Even after the disastrous wars of religion which separated the Northern Netherlands, or United Provinces, from the southern provinces, and ruined for two centuries the port of Antwerp, there was a short respite, under the wise rule of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella (1598-1633), during which the art of Rubens, Van Dyck and Jordaens threw a last glamour on Belgium's falling greatness.

This rapid sketch of the happy periods of Belgian history would not be complete if we did not allude to the wonderful recovery made by the country as soon as the Powers granted her the right to live as an independent State after the unhappy experiment of the joint Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815-1830). Her population increased twofold. The Scheldt was reopened and Antwerp regained most of its previous trade.

At the time of the German invasion modern Belgium occupied the first rank in Europe with regard to the density of her population, the yield of her fields per acre, the development of her railway system and the importance of her special trade per head of inhabitants. In spite of her small area, she occupied the fifth rank among the great trading nations of the world, and the names of Maeterlinck, Verhaeren, Cesar Franck and Meunier show that she had reconquered a great part of her former intellectual prestige.

There is one striking resemblance between all periods of Belgian development. Whether in the ninth, the thirteenth, the fifteenth or the nineteenth century, they express the civilization of the time, and succeed in producing a typical example of essentially European culture, imperial under Charlemagne, communal in the Middle Ages, centralized under national princes during the Renaissance, highly industrialized and colonial in modern times. This trait must be considered when Belgium is represented as the "kernel of Europe," as combining the spirit of the North, East and South. It is not enough to say that the country seems predestined to this task by her geographical position and her duality of race and language bringing together the so-called "Germanic" and "Latin" tendencies; it must be added that, whenever historical circ.u.mstances allowed it, the people made full use of such advantages. Whether under local princes, or under foreign princes who understood Belgian interests, given peace conditions at home and abroad, the country never failed to rise to the occasion.

But these periods of greatness were short-lived compared with the periods of decadence which succeeded them. After the division of the Empire of Charlemagne the Belgian counties and duchies found themselves plunged in the throes of feudal disputes and divided between the Kings of France and the Emperors of Germany. The power of the suzerain was nowhere weaker than in these distant marches, and the Belgian princes were left free to pursue their quarrels with complete disregard of the common interest. The prosperity of the Communes in the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries, was rapidly undermined by internal strife and by the difficulties the Counts of Flanders experienced in trying to conciliate their duty to their French suzerain with the interest of the people which prompted an English alliance. The fall of Charles the Bold provoked a fresh outburst of the spirit of local independence, which greatly endangered the country's peace, and, if the situation was restored, under Philip the Fair and Charles V, during the first part of the sixteenth century, the second part of this century witnessed the gradual exhaustion of the Southern Netherlands divided against themselves and subjected to the attacks of both Spanish and Dutch.

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which are for other countries, like France, a period of exceptional national prestige, mark the deepest stage of Belgian decadence and humiliation. The Scheldt was closed, trade and industry were practically dead, foreign troops, French, Dutch, Spanish or Austrian, ceaselessly pursued their work of devastation. A foreign possession, open to the incursions of her possessors' enemies, sacrificed by her masters at every stage of the peace negotiations in order to save their native country, Belgium lost Dutch Flanders, Northern Brabant and part of Limburg to Holland, French Flanders, Franche Comte and Artois to France. The Treaty of Munster sealed the fate of Antwerp, and the Treaty of the Barriers left the Dutch in possession of all the country's most important fortified positions.

Though it gave back to Belgium her natural frontier in the North and reopened the Scheldt for a short time, the French regime did not greatly improve the economic situation. After the union with Holland (1815), the political struggle which followed prevented the people from enjoying the full benefit of the change, so that we must wait until 1830 before being able to notice any considerable improvement.

This general survey will suffice to show that Belgian history may be divided into periods of progress and decadence. The same may be said, it is true, of the history of all nations. But nowhere else is the difference between the higher and lower levels so p.r.o.nounced and the intervals between the acts so protracted. As we have already said, the country pa.s.ses suddenly from the brightest limelight of fame to the darkest recess of mediocrity and oblivion. Some of these contrasts, such as those existing between Charlemagne's united Empire and feudal divisions, are shared by the rest of Europe. Others, at the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation, and when the country came under Spanish, Austrian and French rule, are peculiar to Belgium. To the slow development of national unity, her history adds the obstacles of foreign domination and foreign invasion. The exceptional situation of the country on the map gives equally great chances of ruin and recovery. The same conditions which bring about Belgium's downfall contribute largely to her restoration, the same roads which bring wealth in time of peace, are followed, in time of war, by foreign armies. She is not only the cross-roads of Europe, she is the battlefield of Europe. From Bouvines (1214) to Waterloo and Ypres, almost all the great battles which decided the fate of Europe and determined her balance of power were fought on Belgian soil. Sometimes the inhabitants took a share in the struggle, oftener they were not even given the chance to interfere, while the Powers settled other quarrels at their expense.

The Belgian people have acquired a remarkable reputation for their st.u.r.diness and their power of recovery. But, while they are entirely irresponsible for their weakness, which can only be attributed to the small size and the defenceless character of their country, they cannot be considered as entirely responsible for their strength. A port like Antwerp, if at all accessible, is bound to prosper under any circ.u.mstances. A town like Brussels cannot fail to benefit by its unique situation, from an international point of view. With her rich coal mines among her fertile fields, Belgium, considering her size, is perhaps more richly endowed by Nature than any other country in Europe.

But such exceptional advantages have been more than compensated in the past by the heavy risks which this richness implied.

Ill.u.s.tration: BELGIUM IN ROMAN TIMES.

CHAPTER I

THE COAL WOOD

It is usually a.s.sumed that, while human conditions alter throughout the ages, natural surroundings remain sensibly the same. This may be true with regard to people whose history is only affected by the streams which cross their land and the hills and mountains which protect them by natural barriers. When dealing with a country like Belgium however, widely open on all sides, we cannot be content with such wide generalizations. We must ask ourselves if some important physical features have not been altered by the work of man and if some natural obstacles, which have since disappeared, did not affect the earlier stage of Belgian history.

The traveller who crosses the country to-day from Ostend to Arlon will at once recognize its main features: first a low-lying plain, between the sea and Brussels, then a district of smooth hills, as far as Namur, and finally, beyond the Meuse, the deeply cut valleys and high plateaux of the Ardennes, reaching an average of 1,500 feet above sea-level. In this last region only will the aspect of the country suggest to him the idea of some natural obstacle to free communications, though it could in no way appear forbidding when compared to the mountains of Scotland and Wales.

But at the time of the Roman conquest (57 _B.C._), Belgium, that is to say the country peopled by various tribes designated by Julius Caesar under the name of "Belgae," was very different from what it is to-day.

The flat coast, unprotected against the incursions of the sea, was bordered by wide marshes, while all the southern part of the country was covered by a thick forest, the "Silva Carbonaria," which merged in the wild plateaux of the Ardennes and formed, at the time, a serious obstacle to any incursion coming from the north or the east.

These physical conditions must have favoured the guerrilla warfare waged for four years by the various Celtic tribes against the Roman invader, and it is no doubt partly to them that the old "Belgae" owed their reputation of courage and fort.i.tude. These tribes, occupying the Scheldt and Meuse valleys, formed the rearguard of the Celtic wave of invasion which, coming from the East, had spread across Western Europe.

At the time of the Roman conquest they were already closely pressed by a vanguard of Germanic tribes which had settled in Zeeland and on the left bank of the Rhine, so that even at this early stage of Belgium's history we find the dualistic character of Belgian civilization marked in the division of the country into two Roman provinces, "Belgica Secunda," in the west, and "Germania Inferior," in the east.

[_ROMAN INFLUENCES_]

The immediate effect of the Roman conquest, which was far more rapid than in Britain, was to stop for a time the influx of German tribes by the establishment of a solid barrier along the Rhine. The colonists of German origin were soon absorbed by the old inhabitants of the country, and were subjected with them to the powerful influence of Roman culture. Celts and Germans alike became Belgo-Romans, and adopted the trade and the inst.i.tutions of their conquerors.