Of the territorial adjustments desired by Belgium, the least considerable concerned her Prussian frontier. Belgium (or at that time the Belgian part of Holland) and Prussia became neighbors in 1815, in consequence of the Prussian annexations on the left bank of the Rhine. The boundary then drawn was not based upon considerations of language or history, still less upon any expressed desire of the inhabitants, but was fixed primarily so as to give Prussia a certain number of people as compensation for her failure to receive Saxony. She thus acquired the eastern part of the lands of the abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy; the territory of St. Vith, which had belonged to Luxemburg; and a portion of Limburg in the region of Eupen. This land was largely hill and forest, of no great economic value, and it was used by Prussia chiefly for military purposes. Strategic railroads, of little importance in time of peace, were constructed along the Belgian and Luxemburg frontiers, and the great military camp of Elsenborn was built in this very region to serve for the concentration of troops against the invasion of Belgium. Liège, Belgium’s great industrial center, was only eighteen miles from the German border, and the taking of Liège in 1914 opened up the whole valley of the Meuse.
Belgium asked a minimum of protection for the future. It was plain that such protection could not come from any considerable advance of the frontier on the part of so small a state, but must be found chiefly in the demilitarization of the Left Bank and in measures for general peace. At least, however, Belgium might ask control over some of the military railroads and over the camp of Elsenborn.
If purely strategic arguments had prevailed, they would have carried the Belgian frontier forward to the Rhine or to the mountain range of the Eiffel. Within the narrower limits chosen, the strategic considerations were reënforced by others: the economic orientation of this region toward Belgium rather than toward Germany; the historic connection before 1815; and the opportunity for reparation, for this sparsely peopled territory was rich in forests, which might serve to replace the Belgian forests which had been systematically destroyed by Germany during the war, leaving a frontier line which can be followed for miles by the standing timber on the German side and its absence on the Belgian. The linguistic line was less sharp. German was spoken in certain districts on the Belgian side; while, in spite of a century of Germanization, Walloon still prevailed in Malmedy and the neighboring Prussian villages. Indeed, Malmedy was in many ways like a Belgian town, and German troops in 1914 are said to have begun pillaging here under the impression that they were already in Belgium.
The actual wishes of the population in the ceded districts had not been expressed, so it was provided in the treaty that during the six months after its coming into force the Belgian authorities should open registers in which the inhabitants might record a desire to have any part of the ceded territory remain under German sovereignty, the results to be passed upon by the League of Nations. It would have been more consistent with the rest of the treaty if the League had also been entrusted with securing the original expression of opinion. The territory transferred by the treaty comprised 376 square miles with a population of 61,000, constituting the Kreise of Malmedy and Eupen, whose administrative limits were preserved in order to interfere as little as possible with local conditions.[11]
The treaty also settled an old controversy in this region respecting the district of Moresnet, disputed between Belgium (until 1839 Holland) and Prussia since 1815, when two inconsistent boundary lines of the treaty of Vienna left in doubt the sovereignty over a triangular area of about 900 acres which contained the valuable zinc mine of Vieille Montagne. Neither side would yield, and a convention of 1816 which provided for the neutralization of the area under a condominium or joint administration lasted until the war. With the exhaustion of the mine the district has declined in importance, but the anomaly needed clearing up, as the Germans had frequently declared. The treaty assigns the disputed territory to Belgium, and adds a square mile or so in Prussian Moresnet, comprising the domanial and communal woods.[12]
Far more important for Belgium was the question of her relations with another eastern neighbor, the duchy of Luxemburg. An integral part of the southern Netherlands until the French Revolution, Luxemburg had in 1815 been made into a grand duchy and handed over to the king of Holland. It revolted with Belgium in 1830 and sent members to the Belgian Parliament, but on the final separation of Belgium and Holland in 1839 it was divided, the western or Walloon portion going to Belgium, and the eastern or German-speaking portion continuing as the grand duchy. The dynastic union with Holland came to an end in 1890, when a divergence in the laws of succession established a separate line of grand dukes.
The neutrality of Luxemburg was specially and perpetually guaranteed by the Powers, Prussia included, in 1867; but the state was not in every respect independent. Cut off from its Belgian markets by the separation of 1839, it entered three years later the German Zollverein, of which it continued a member until the close of the World War. Its railroads also passed under German control in 1871, with a proviso that they should not be used for military purposes. They were nevertheless extended and double-tracked in the direction of France and Belgium, for military reasons which became clearly apparent in 1914. August 1 of that year the German occupation of Luxemburg began, and the country remained a base of military operations throughout the war. Unlike Belgium, Luxemburg made no resistance. Indeed, its government was considered very friendly to Germany—une dynastie boche, the French called it—and the final victory of the Allies was followed January 15 by the abdication of the grand duchess, Marie Adelheid, in favor of her sister Charlotte.
It was plain that the Allies, Belgium and France most of all, could not permit a return of Luxemburg to German control; and it was equally plain that, whatever political independence the grand duchy retained, it could not stand economically alone. With but 260,000 people and 1000 square miles of territory, it was not large enough for that; and its principal industry, iron, needed the coal and the markets of adjacent lands. Belgium felt that Luxemburg would naturally turn to her. The people were Catholic; the language of government and of the educated classes was French; there were strong ties of tradition and sentiment between the two countries. Belgium counted, counted too confidently, on the result. She forgot the strong feeling for local independence among the Luxemburgers, who, as their national song runs, ‘want to remain what they are’; she forgot the strength of dynastic tradition and clerical influence. For any union with Belgium spelled the end of the local dynasty and of national identity, and might, it was feared, mean the swallowing up of a conservative Catholic people by a larger and more Socialistic neighbor.
France also wanted Luxemburg. She wanted it for purposes of defence, so as to prevent a repetition of 1914; she wanted its iron mines and blast furnaces. And, unlike the Belgians, she knew how to wait. The treaty of peace merely insisted upon the permanent detachment of Luxemburg from the Zollverein, and the abandonment of all German control over its railways.[13] It did not touch the dynasty; it compelled no new attachments. Meanwhile France, in the full glamor of victory, with a brilliant staff quartered in the duchy itself, dazzled the imagination of the Luxemburgers. They were brought to think that, while any arrangement with Belgium threatened their independence, this could be amply safeguarded in a merely economic union with France. In the winter French troops even suppressed a little revolution against the dynasty. And when the plebiscite came, September 28, 1919, a decided majority pronounced for the reigning duchess and for a customs union with France. Women voted for the first time in this election, and while no separate returns were made of their votes, it is not likely that they diminished the proportion of votes for the duchess.
Of all the German ruling families which were in power in 1918, the sole survivor today is that of the grand duchess of Luxemburg. And the only surviving Austrian prince is her consort, Prince Felix of Bourbon-Parma, naturalized as a Luxemburger November 5, 1919, by a close vote in the Chamber and married the following day. And if some time these two should disappear in another revolution, the republic which would follow seems likely to seek support from France rather than from Belgium.