Europe Since 1918

by Herbert Adams Gibbons

This having been said, we can grasp the dangers confronting Belgium in 1923 as a result of having followed France blindly and actively into the joint military occupation of the Ruhr against the advice and admonition of the most influential organs of the British press. How this happened is a tragic and instructive chapter in the history of Europe since 1918.

Until after the Peace Conference the Government, by common consent, was not bothered with internal political conflicts. The Socialists and Radicals showed themselves reasonable, not wanting to weaken the prestige of the Government in the peace negotiations, and compromised their demand for universal manhood suffrage, an eight-hour day, and sweeping social reforms. They agreed to a reform bill in April, 1919, by which, along with universal manhood suffrage, the Clerical contention for woman suffrage was admitted to a limited extent. They waived the demand for an eight-hour law until after the General Election. The parliamentary election, held on November 16, 1919, deprived the Clerical party of its traditional majority. A government was formed of ministers of the three great parties, thus preserving the union sacrée formed during the war. The premiership and ministry of foreign affairs, however, remained in the hands of the Clericals.

The Clericals, alarmed at the sudden growth in power of the Socialists, decided to gain popular support by concluding a military alliance with France and appealing to the people to back this policy through hatred and fear of Germany. A secret military treaty was negotiated by the heads of the General Staff and signed by them as a military measure, and was therefore not presented to Parliament. Contrary to the express stipulation in Article XVII of the Covenant, the text of this treaty was not communicated to the secretariat of the League and has not been published. The old neutrality, which had won Belgium the support of Great Britain and the sympathy of the world in her hour of need, was abandoned in a gamble with the future. As none in Belgium dared or cared to take a stand that would seem to encourage Germany in her evasion of the disarmament and reparations clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, the Clericals gained a tactical advantage, which might have remained with them had not France been obdurate to the Belgian plea for a less strict tariff wall. The Francophile party, however, did manage to secure from the French an important concession that helped for a long time to obscure the real issue.

France and Belgium were rivals for the hand of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. Belgium after the war asserted that Luxemburg was really a part of Belgium and that its political incorporation in Belgium was the logical result of Germany’s defeat in the World War. For reasons that we have given above, the Entente Powers decided on a referendum. The Luxemburgeois were asked to choose between a republic and retention of the existing constitution, and between economic union with France or Belgium. A return to the German Zollverein was forbidden; so this did not enter into the question. The people on October 10, 1919, voted by more than three to one to retain their grand-ducal form of government and to form an economic union with France. This victory France used to bargain with Belgium for the military alliance. When that was concluded, France informed Luxemburg that she did not desire a customs union. Thus the wish of the people of Luxemburg and their interests were sacrificed to a diplomatic deal in which they had no concern. Luxemburg was compelled to sign the trade agreement forced upon her and on July 25, 1921, entered the Belgian customs union for fifty years.

The Clericals were able to point to this great success of their policy as offsetting the growing uneasiness of the Belgians over the efforts of France to deflect the trade of Alsace-Lorraine from Antwerp to Dunkirk by discriminatory railway tariffs and by placing an extra tax on commodities carried through Antwerp.

But in November, 1921, Nationalists and Clericals suffered a severe reverse in a new General Election, although they enjoyed the advantage of proportional representation. Just before the election the withdrawal of the Socialist party from the Government had broken up the coalition. Liberals and Clericals combined in the election against the Socialists, invoking the issues of reparations and security. Despite this powerful combination and the tremendous influence of an appeal to fear and hatred in a country that had suffered so horribly and so recently, the Socialists lost only two seats in the Chamber, but they gained twenty seats in the Senate, completing the success begun in 1919. The new Parliament did not contain a Clerical majority either in the Senate or the Chamber.

In 1922 the Flemish language question came again to the fore, much to the surprise of observers, who had believed that the German espousal of this cause during the war and the vigorous repression of the Activists after the liberation had banished it for many years.[18] So much misinformation exists concerning the nature and merit of this question that a brief statement is necessary. Since 1830, when Belgium broke away from Holland and began her existence as a modern state, the Walloons, or French-speaking Belgians, have been in the ascendancy, socially and politically. They comprise the aristocracy, most of the landowners, the political leaders of three generations, and the clergy. Higher education was given in the French language, not for love of France, but in order to prevent the political emancipation of the lower classes, most of whom were Flemish. But, with the increase of prosperity and the spread of education, Flemish-speaking Belgians became more powerful and began to demand a larger share in the political life of the country. Education in the Flemish language became a political question, and was looked upon as a means of attaining universal suffrage and emancipation from the strangle hold of the bourgeois, abetted by the Church. The Walloons deplored it and fought it as a subversive movement in the national life, and declared that it would result in splitting Belgium into two countries.

Then entered the foreign influences! The Dutch, speaking a language kindred to Flemish and always willing to see their southern neighbors remain weaker than they, welcomed the Flemish language movement and have done everything in their power to foster it. Similarly, the Germans, regarding the Flemish as a part of Deutschtum, hailed with glee a movement that would loosen the cultural hold of the French upon Belgium. The French, on the other hand, anti-Clerical at home, showed in the press and on the platform the deepest sympathy for the Clericals in Belgium. Gradually, in Germany and France, what was a purely internal question, provoked naturally by the rising tide of democracy in Belgium, came to be regarded as a struggle between Teutonic and French influence in an all-important strategic corner of Europe.

The World War united the Belgians against the common enemy, and the Flemish were as determined in their opposition to Germany as the Walloons. But Germany’s invasion of Belgium was, of course, a tremendous blow to the leaders of the Flemish-speaking movement. For the time being, advocacy of what was a perfectly natural and reasonable thing became playing Germany’s game. The demand for higher education in the Flemish language might well have remained under a cloud for a decade or more after the war had it not been for the determination of the Walloon bourgeoisie to use the advantage the war had given them to stamp out once for all the Flemish-speaking movement.

When it was proposed that the universities be separated from the Church and brought under the control of the state, an attempt was made to make them by statute purely French. What was the right of private institutions became, when these institutions were made public, a challenge to the language and the culture of a majority of the people. About 3,000,000 Belgians are Walloons, speaking various dialects of French; 4,200,000 are Flemish, of whom 3,300,000 speak only Flemish and understand no French at all. The proposal was preposterous. So the question arose again. It died down temporarily when Belgium joined France in invading the Ruhr. But it is bound to be revived in the near future with growing force. The Flemish are too tenacious in language and traditions to accept the superiority of the Walloons, now that they have the powerful instrument of equal and universal suffrage.