HIDDEN CORNERS
embattled belgium
from THE revolT of the netherlandS to the first world war Hugh Dunthorne samples a small selection of the Library’s extensive collection of books on the history of the Netherlands The invasion of neutral Belgium by German forces on 4 August 1914, and the subsequent military occupation of the country, was the immediate cause of Britain’s entry into the First World War. It had the effect of making Belgium’s fate a matter of immediate concern to British people in a way that is now difficult to appreciate. The reasons for this public concern were partly strategic and diplomatic, to do with the conduct of the war and the international treaty-making that preceded it. Under the Treaty of London of 1839, Britain (with other European powers) was a guarantor of the independence and neutrality of the young Belgian state, and thus had an obligation to come to its aid if that independence was violated. But there were other reasons for Britain’s concern over the plight of its southern neighbour. One of these was social, as more than a quarter of a million Belgians fleeing the German advance found refuge in Britain – the largest influx of its kind in our history. There were literary reasons for Britain’s sympathy with Belgium, too, as from 1915 onwards scores of books and pamphlets – many of them now to be found on the History and French Literature shelves of The London Library, as well as in its Pamphlet Collection – told the story of Belgium’s suffering ‘under the German yoke’ , and appealed to allies and neutral powers for help. The authors of these wartime
18 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE
publications – drawn almost exclusively from Belgium’s French-speaking minority – became familiar names in Britain. They included national figures such as CardinalArchbishop Désiré Mercier of Mechlin, a distinguished philosopher and teacher. After the Belgian government’s retreat into exile at Le Havre, he remained in Belgium where he assumed an entirely new role as the effective leader of his country’s civilian population and its international
spokesman. His pastoral letter of December 1914, Patriotism and Endurance – published first as a pamphlet in 1915 and later in a collection of the Archbishop’s wartime writings, The Voice of Belgium (1917) – was outspoken in denying the legitimacy of the occupying regime and in condemning the brutality that had accompanied the movement of German forces westwards. Between August and October 1914 some 5,500 unarmed men, women and children
