King of the Belgians

“ William I. King of the Netherlands had united Belgium and Holland under his sceptre since 1815. But, after the Insurrection of Brussels on the 25th August 1830, the Belgian Congress had voted the deposal of the House of Orange-Nassau. On the 21st of July 1831, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg was elected and proclaimed King of the Belgians. William I. continued to hold the Citadel of Antwerp, refused to recognise the new kingdom and persisted in his resistance even after the Siege of Antwerp and the capitulation of the citadel (23 December 1832) . ”

“ The daily picture of their “little Queen” driving to and fro among the charitable institutions of Brussels is a sight familiar to the people. The Belgians are frank to say that, should the monarchy ever become a republic, Albert and Elizabeth would be elected the President and First Lady of the land. Each inhabitant contributes one franc a year toward the support of the King, the Queen, Prince Leopold, Prince Charles, and Princess Marie José. ”

“ The Dutch King refused to recognize the eighteen articles and, on August 2, twelve days after the accession to the [157] throne of Leopold, invaded Belgium. King Leopold displayed military skill and courage, but the Belgians had no strong army and their ill-trained troops were badly defeated at Louvain and at Hasselt. Impending disaster was prevented by the sudden arrival of a French army, sent by Louis-Philippe, to whom the Belgian King had appealed for help. The French repulsed the Dutch. This intervention of France seriously alarmed the other powers, and especially England. ”

“ It is rather singular, however, that, resolved as they are to be served only by themselves, they should have sent for 50,000 Frenchmen to clear their country of a handful of Hollanders, who have generally been considered the most unwarlike people in Europe, but who, if they had had fair play given them, would long ere this time have replanted the Orange flag on the towers of Brussels, and made the Belgians what they deserve to be—hewers of wood and drawers of water. ”

“ Holland was Protestant and German, while the southern provinces, to whom the union had always been distasteful, were Catholic and akin to the French in their sympathies. Encouraged by the revolution at Paris in 1830, the people of Brussels rose in revolt against their Dutch king, and forced his troops to leave the city. Through the influence of England and France the European powers agreed to recognize the independence of the Belgians, who established a kingdom and introduced an excellent constitution providing for a limited monarchy modeled upon that of England. ”

“ Lemaire des Belges, Jean, 341. Leopold I, King of the Belgians, first welcomed to Belgium at Furnes, 87; elected King, 461; frees the Scheldt in 1863, 461. Leopold II, King of the Belgians, an efficient chief executive, 461-462; Palace at Ostende, 470. Leys, Baron Henri, 456; paintings in Hotel de Ville at Antwerp, 457. Liederick de Buck, portrait of, 373. Liedts, Baroness, lace collection at Bruges, 304. Liége, 106; 286; insurrections at, 287-288; city sacked, 288; 312 ”

“ The only legitimate power in Belgium is that which belongs to our King, to his government, to the representatives of the nation; that alone is authority for us; that alone has a right to our heart’s affection and to our submission. ”

“ One half of its divided tail is Walloon and the other half Flemish; yet now, with pure patriotism, and loyal to a hero king and a noble queen, and with all the people united in devotion to their homeland, only the Belgian lion’s tail recalls the history of the past; while its body and limbs represent the majesty, the courage, and the devotion of the brave Belgian people. ”

“ Will nothing content you? Must you compel us to continue in our enmity when by a word peace might be established between us, and Belgium might take her place at the side of Germany as a sister-nation striving with us to promote the cause of true civilisation?
The Belgian. It is useless, Sir, to say such things to any Belgian.
The Kaiser. Why useless? Do you not wish that death and ruin and misery should cease?
The Belgian. Certainly we do. No one more ardently than the Belgians, for it was not we who desired war or began the contest. ”

“ Still happier was he to have with him in harness, drawing the revolving, quick-firing cannon, of which he was sergeant pointer, his pet dog, Goldspur. Like man, like dog was the Belgian War Department’s acceptance of both—“in the first class of efficiency.”
This was Belgium at peace, under her beloved King Albert and Queen Margaret. Rich in wonders of art and architecture, in fairy, folk wonder and hero lore, in traditions of valor and industry. When, again and again, the story teller visited the country, he brought back, each time, the seed, for flowers, in the bed-time story-garden. ”

“ And the Belgian people were as firm as they. With Englishmen the love of liberty is commonly passive. They feel their freedom to be secure. Only when challenged does their love of freedom flame into passion. But the Belgians know that their freedom lives under challenge. The shadow of Prussian conscription lay athwart their door. That iron and materialistic system which takes its steady toll of a country’s manhood, and crushes national spirit like a Chinese boot, has been the dread of Belgium, as it has been the dread of Holland for a generation. ”

“ How strongly the throne of Leopold I was established among his own people was shown by the fact that during the Revolution of 1848, which nearly resulted in the overthrow of all the thrones of Europe, Belgium alone kept herself aloof from the European turmoil, and some French adventurers who had tried to cross the frontier and, with the help of some unpatriotic Belgians, to proclaim a republic on Belgian soil, were quickly disarmed in the skirmish at Risquons-Tout, near Mouscron, in West Flanders. ”

“ On one side the sea; on the other the dunes, with little shade and no beauty—such is the location of the new capital of Belgium. And here, in one of the six small villas that house the court, the King and Queen of Belgium, with the Crown Prince, are living. They live very quietly, walking together along the sands at those times when King Albert is not with his troops, faring simply, waiting always—as all Belgium is waiting to-day. ”

“ Guy had become one of the most powerful princes of Belgium. Supported by the French King, he had successfully brought to an end a struggle with the hostile dynasty of the D’Avesnes in Hainaut, had annexed the county of Namur, and had won real influence in Liège, Luxemburg, and Gueldre. Philip the Fair soon began to fear the growing might of his vassal and decided to crush it. ”

“ It has all the imposing grandeur of the vital forces of nature; it is the heroic movement of a country which defies death, which is not meant to die. Nor will she allow Belgium to die—the Belgium to whom the sergeant paid his tribute, and whose "we must" rang out with such poignant firmness under the German menace. It was not for life alone that Belgium fought, but for honour and for justice. No Frenchman lives who does not feel this, and who does not merge his own cause in that of the indomitable subjects of Belgium's indomitable King. ”

“ The natural political map of the world insists upon itself. It heaves and frets beneath the artificial political map like some misfitted giant. In 1830 French-speaking Belgium, stirred up by the current revolution in France, revolted against its Dutch association in the kingdom of the Netherlands. The Powers, terrified at the possibility of a republic and of annexation to France, hurried in to pacify this situation, and gave the Belgians a monarch from that rich breeding-ground of monarchs, Germany, Leopold I of Saxe-Coburg Gotha. ”

“ The sovereigns ruled with wise protection of commerce and manufactures, and strove to build up the country. They were patrons of art, and by their influence Rubens was induced to make his home in Flanders.
Until the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, Spain continued to hold Belgium, on whose devoted soil [100] many a battle was fought. Sometimes Dutch and Spaniards were the combatants, again Belgians fought off the French. Through the whole second half of the seventeenth century Belgium was the battlefield on which Europe strove against the ambition of Louis XIV, and again it was laid waste. ”

“ It liberated Flanders from French influence and gave the first blow to the hegemony of France in Europe. In Rome, Pope Boniface VIII, a fierce enemy of King Philip, arose in the middle of the night in order to receive and rejoice over the news.
Because the victory saved the national independence of Flanders and practically prevented the political absorption of the other Belgian principalities by Philip the Fair, the Flemings, on July 11 of each year, celebrate the anniversary of the battle of the Golden Spurs as a great event in Belgian history. ”

“ Incomplete though at this juncture the record must be, the British people may be helped by it the more fully to appreciate the sacrifices made by the Belgians for those ideals of ordered independence and freedom on which the greatness of our own Empire has been reared; ideals whose reality has been tested and not found wanting in the fiery trial of war. ”

“ Their country had been the cockpit of Europe from the time of Cæsar until Waterloo. The names of their cities, for the most part, represented great historic battle fields. Again and again had the ruin of conflict swept over their unfortunately situated land. At all periods the Belgians were brave fighters on one side or the other, for Belgium had been denied a national unity. Doubtless, therefore, they welcomed the establishment of their independent sovereignty and the era of peace which followed. Historically, they had suffered enough, with an abundance to spare, from perpetual warfare. ”

“ Belgian independence would be a shadow.
In their extremity King Albert and his Ministers turned to Great Britain. They had good reason. The independence of modern Belgium is the work of British statesmanship. Great Britain had, in 1831, initiated the Guarantee although France was the first Power to sign it, and Great Britain had always looked upon the Guarantee as a solemn obligation. “We are bound to defend Belgium,” Lord John (then Earl) Russell said in the House of Lords in explaining the policy of the Government in 1870. “I am told that may lead us into danger. ”

“ Perhaps the fact that they have proved themselves heroes of an immortality that every race will love and bow down to in ages to come, makes these blue-coated men thus lightly refer to themselves, with that inimitable flash of the Belgian smile, as "little Belgians." ”

“ Though Belgium is a neutral state, living under the protection of the Great Powers of Europe, the Belgians are afraid that some day, if these Powers quarrel with each other and begin to fight, armies may march into their country and turn it once more into a battle-field; or perhaps one of the Powers may wish to take a part of Belgium, or some Belgian town, such as Antwerp, and rule over it. So this little kingdom must have an army to defend itself till some powerful nation comes to help it. ”

“ Their diplomacy was the necessary result of the central situation occupied by their possessions. Unless they endeavoured to maintain a certain balance of power between their neighbours, they were in direct danger of losing their independence. Periods of hesitation coincided with a divided menace. As soon as the danger became evident on one side, the Belgian princes invariably turned towards the other. The same reasons which bound the descendants of Régner Long Neck to France soon brought about a closer entente between the counts and communes of Flanders and the English king. ”

“ Belgian commerce embraces the whole circle of the earth, and it is in the peaceful work of culture that Germans and Belgians everywhere meet. Their cultivation of the more spiritual arts fills us with similar wonder when we behold to what a conspicuous place the poets and artists of Belgium have attained. May the trustful and friendly feelings, to which in recent times the relations of our governments bore such pleasing evidence, be ever more closely preserved! From your Majesty’s reign may happiness and blessing stream forth upon your house and upon your people! ”

“ The inhabitants of Belgium are in general, from all that I can hear or see, not at all pleased with the present order of things, and they much lament the being severed from France. The two people, the Belgians and Hollanders, do not seem to amalgamate; and the former, though they render ample justice to the moderation, good sense, and beneficent intentions of the present monarch, who is personally respected by every one, yet do not disguise their wish to be reunited to France and do not hesitate to avow their attachment to the Emperor Napoleon. ”

“ Has Belgium no conscience? She ranks so high to-day in the opinion of the world, that it seems impossible for her to expose herself to the diminution of her moral glory which will inevitably follow when History goes into the vexed question of the King's Inheritance, and its results in my own case. ”

“ For the Belgian soldiers no longer sang, or made merry in the evening. A young Brussels corporal in our party suddenly broke into sobbing when he heard the chorus of "Tipperary" float over the channel from a transport of untried British lads. The Belgians are a race of children whose feelings have been hurt. The pathos of the Belgian army is like the pathos of an orphan-asylum: it is unconscious.
They are very lonely, the loneliest men I have known. Back of the fighting Frenchman, you sense the gardens and fields of France, the strong, victorious national will. ”