Germany before the war

by baron Beyens

German military writers, on the other hand, showed no such reticence. That irrepressible spokesman of the war party, General von Bernhardi, in his book which the world loves to quote, since it faithfully confesses the rapacious instincts of the officer caste, scornfully treats the lawyer’s conception of permanent neutrality as a political heresy, and the protection that it affords as a bulwark of paper. With regard to Belgium, he hints that she might well be deemed to have already forfeited her neutral rights by her own act. How so, pray? Through clandestine treaties with Germany’s foes? No. Through becoming a colonial Power. “It may well be asked,” says this Jesuitical soldier, “whether the acquisition of the Congo was not ipso facto a breach of Belgian neutrality; for a neutral State which, at any rate in theory, is secure from all risk of war has no right to enter into political competition with other States.” Bernhardi deliberately ignores the fact that these other States, Germany first of all, recognized the Belgian annexation of the Congo, without any attempt to repudiate the treaties guaranteeing Belgian neutrality. Under the sway of these sophistries, however, the idea of a violation was gaining ground in the German intellectual world. When the Imperial Government passed from theory to practice, it met in Germany with a universal chorus of applause.

IV.

The geographical position of Belgium, devoid as she is of natural frontiers, in itself compelled her to adopt measures of defence: to build fortresses and to maintain an efficient army. The chequered history of the past served to the Belgian people as a warning for the future. Her plains had been the favourite cockpit for the struggles between Bourbon and Hapsburg, the theatre of the first victories of the French Republic, and the grave of the Napoleonic Empire. By a miracle, our country was saved from all peril in 1870, through the sacrifice of a French army, which chose to surrender at Sedan rather than seek refuge in neutral territory. The prospect of another war, which loomed large before us even during the most quiet hours of the last few decades, made it an imperative duty for our rulers to take far-reaching military precautions.

A no less cogent reason was the upholding of our neutrality. A neutral State, if attacked, is bound to defend itself. It owes this to its guarantors, in order to preserve that balance of interests which in their eyes is the motive that justifies its existence. In other words, a neutrality that cannot defend itself is nothing but a diplomatic fiction.

Our various ministries, Catholic or Liberal, have had this obligation impressed upon them, each in its turn. The progress of armaments (if the word “progress” can be applied to the monstrous development of these engines of destruction) has loaded the Belgians, in the same way as their neighbours, with an ever-growing mass of military burdens. A defensive system that seemed adequate in 1870 was no longer adequate ten years later, owing to the increase in the number of combatants and the power and range of artillery, both in France and Germany. To Antwerp, a fortress and an entrenched camp—our only real stronghold, called by us “the keep of our castle”—must be added the forts of Liège and Namur, intended to block up the valley of the Meuse. Experts agreed in pointing to this as the natural route for an army seeking to pierce into France from Germany, or vice versa, without coming into collision with the defensive works erected on both sides of the Vosges. The forts with steel cupolas at Liège and Namur, devised by our great military engineer Brialmont, were for a time considered the most finished product of the art of fortification. After exhaustive debates lasting for two years, the Belgian Parliament resolved in 1906 to devote a sum of £2,520,000 to reconstructing the defences of Antwerp, which were of an obsolete type. Fifteen new forts were built on both banks of the Scheldt, besides twelve redoubts, and the expenditure did not stop at the above estimate.

The Belgian army remained until 1909 on a peace footing of 100,000 men. It was recruited both by voluntary methods and by a system of conscription which allowed the providing of substitutes, an antiquated and undemocratic principle. This figure was obviously too low for a serviceable field army and garrison force, two indispensable factors in our defence. Among the bulk of the population, however, feeling was opposed to the introduction of compulsory service. This was not due to a distaste for the profession of arms—the Belgian has always been a first-rate soldier—but from an aversion to barrack life and a dread of the promiscuities that it entails. Moreover, among many of our people, the belief in the inviolability granted to us by the 1839 treaties was still as firmly rooted as though it had been an article of faith. Their attention, as enterprising traders and manufacturers, did not go beyond the restricted area of their business. The political entanglements that succeeded each other from year to year could not shake their robust optimism, which looked upon military sacrifices as useless.

Happily, the perils with which Belgium was beset did not escape the vigilant eye of our Sovereigns. Leopold II. was not only the brilliant creator of the Congo State, the prime mover in Belgium’s economic expansion, an expansion that, relatively speaking, is no less noteworthy than that of the German nation; he was also a great patriot. As such, he never let slip any single opportunity in public life of admonishing the Belgians to do all that was needed for the strengthening, first of their defensive resources, and then of their field army. Fortunately, his appeals did not go unheard, and a considerable advance was made on the day that the Schollaert Cabinet passed the measure enacting that one son in every family must undergo military training, the first step towards a general system of compulsory service. When the Prime Minister brought the act to be signed, the old King was on his deathbed. With a failing hand he wrote his name, then sank back into his last sleep, conscious of having fulfilled his duty to his country.

His successor applied himself with the same patriotic zeal to carrying out the same task. He had already vowed to bring it to completion. There is no topic on which the native eloquence of King Albert was heard to better advantage than that of making the army fit to meet the responsibilities that it would one day incur. The events of 1911 and 1912 showed, even to those who had tried the hardest to shut their eyes, how unerring was the insight of our Sovereign. Many statesmen whose brains had been clouded by the visions of a too lofty idealism now saw the error of their ways, and realized that the abolition of war was as yet an idle dream. The bill introducing universal service was passed in May 1913. M. de Broqueville, who had supported it with consummate skill before the Chamber, had the notable honour of inscribing his name underneath the King’s own on one of the most striking pages of Belgium’s internal history.