Germany's Attempt to Divide Belgium Official Summary of Recent Political Events in Flanders, Issued by the Belgian Foreign Office

Germany's plan to divide Belgium by organizing a small group of "activists" to establish a so-called Council of Flanders for the purpose of separating the Flemish from the Walloon Provinces, was described in the April issue of Current History Magazine, pp. 91-96, along with the fearless opposition which the attempt created. The following summary of the case, with a fuller array of dates and details, has since been prepared by the Belgian Foreign Office at St. Adresse, France, the seat of King Albert's Government in exile:

The semi-official Wolff Agency in Berlin announced on Jan. 20, 1918, that the so-called Council of Flanders had proclaimed the autonomy of Flanders Dec. 22, 1917. Soon after that action, which had passed unnoticed and had left Belgian opinion indifferent and scornful, Herr von Walraff, German Secretary of the Interior, had judged the time opportune for a trip to Belgium, (Jan. 1, 1918.) The "council," after getting into close relations with him, had taken up the decree which the Landtag had intrusted to him on the 4th of February preceding, and had declared that it would submit itself to a popular referendum.

At length a commission of executive officials was created; it included heads for the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, Public Works, Arts and Sciences, Justice, Finance, Labor, National Defense, Posts and Telegraph, and the Navy. The German telegraphic agencies sent out this news in all directions to spread the idea that Flanders was showing an intention of detaching itself from Belgium, and to give the impression of a spontaneous popular movement for political separation.

The thought that inspired this intrigue dates back to a period almost two years earlier. On April 5, 1916, the German Chancellor, in defining the war aims of Germany before the Reichstag, had outlined the imperial policy of establishing a protectorate over the Flemings. Later there were found in Belgium some obscure and discredited citizens who, betraying their sacred duty, placed themselves in the pay of the enemy and consented to make themselves the agents and accomplices of the invaders.

GERMAN ACT OF SEPARATION

On Feb. 4, 1917, an assembly composed of 200 Belgians speaking the Flemish language met and voted for the creation of a "Council of Flanders." On March 3 this body sent a deputation to Berlin, and the Chancellor announced to it that "the policy tending toward the administrative separation would be pursued with all the vigor possible during the occupation," and that "during the negotiations and after the conclusion of peace the empire would not cease to watch over the development of the Flemish race." The German decrees dividing Belgium into two administrative regions followed close upon these declarations, (March 21, 1917.)

At the end of 1917 the German authorities believed that the moment had come to consummate the enterprise by completing the administrative separation with a political separation. Thus the end would be attained: Belgium would be dismembered; one part of the country would fall under vassalage to Germany, and, in case there were no annexation, would become in a way a sphere of influence for the empire.

The intrigues of the "Council of Flanders" are merely a comedy intended to mask this policy. The policy rests upon a clever juggling with the question of languages. Under cover of the principle of free self-determination of peoples, it seeks to internationalize an internal problem in the hope of dislocating the Belgian nationality. Perhaps it also aims at the creation of a fictitious Government which shall furnish the German Government with the means for opening fallacious peace negotiations to deceive the world and weaken the cohesion of the Allies. Many German newspapers have allowed these aims to appear, and some have boldly unveiled them.

ALL BELGIUM PROTESTS

But the strong protests of Flemish communities and of the entire Belgian Nation have foiled these plans, and the news coming from the occupied region enables us to determine with precision the character of the rÔle played by the "Council of Flanders." At the same time it attests the determination of the Belgian people to repel all foreign interference and to maintain its unity unshaken.

What is this "Council of Flanders"? It has no representative character. It was created by a private assembly which had no mandate from the people. It now pretends to seek popular sanction through an election. This is only a subterfuge. There has been no election. There has been no consultation of the people. The promoters have limited themselves to assembling groups of adherents in theatres or restaurants, and causing gatherings composed of their proselytes, with an admixture of the curious and the idle, to vote on lists of candidates previously arranged in the private offices of those who are directing the work.

The Deputies and Senators, in a protest to the Chancellor, thus denounced the pretense of an election that was organized in Brussels:

A meeting was called at a day's notice in an exhibition hall. Everybody entered who wished to, Belgians or strangers, men, women, and children. There were in all 600 or 700 persons. It was these unknown persons, come together by chance, without control or guarantee, that in a few moments, as an interlude in a speech, proclaimed the election of twenty-two Deputies to the "Council of Flanders" and fifty-two Provincial Councilors, Such was the expression—without the knowledge of the people—of the will of the Municipality of Brussels, which has 200,000 electors and almost 1,000,000 inhabitants.

PROTESTS OF CITY COUNCILS

Foreign occupation has not wholly destroyed legitimate and regular representation in Belgium. The Provincial Councils and the City Councils are still functioning. The administrative framework of the country survives. The municipal organization, so solidly rooted, has not ceased to exercise power. The Provincial and Municipal Councilors, like the Deputies and Senators, most of whom remain in the country, have been elected by universal, direct, and secret suffrage. They alone in the occupied territory are competent to express the true national opinion, and that opinion is strikingly voiced in the protest of the Flemish and Walloon members of Parliament, in that of the Common Councils of the capital and the large cities of Antwerp and Ghent, whose example has been followed by an increasing number of prominent citizens and local Governments of smaller towns in Flanders.

It has been demonstrated that the "Council of Flanders" is pursuing an enterprise of usurpation, that it is a tool of the invader, and that its members are in reality only agents of the German authorities. They went to Berlin a year ago to ask for administrative separation. Herr von Walraff met them at Brussels at the beginning of 1918 to arrange for political separation. When Tack and Borms were arrested by the Belgian police on the order of Belgian Magistrates it was the German functionaries who, by force, compelled their release, and they came out of prison by the side of the German officer who had liberated them. It was the Kommandantur of Antwerp that ordered the communal administration, disregarding its resistance, to authorize the "activist" demonstration of Feb. 3, and to have this protected by the police, in violation of orders of the Burgomaster that had been in force nearly four years. It was the German military headquarters, too, that forbade all demonstrations of other groups and commandeered the hall of the Chamber of Commerce, placing it at the disposition of the organizers of a demonstration judged by the Burgomaster to be one to wound public sentiment and endanger the public peace.^[1]

At length Governor General von Falkenhausen stamped the "Council of Flanders" with the seal of German investiture, deciding by a decree of Jan. 18, 1918, (published Feb. 10,) that the appointment of the "council's" delegates was subject to his ratification, and that these delegates were called to collaborate with him in his legislative labors.

Thus one has the right to conclude that the whole organism of the "Council of Flanders" is only a foreign tool to serve the enemy in his designs of division and oppression. The delegates of the council cannot pretend to any independence, since the decree of Jan. 18 reduces them to the rÔle of functionaries of German authority, named by that authority and expected to contribute, by their advice, to its political work.

THE DELEGATES OSTRACIZED

The Belgian people, without distinction of language, party, or condition, have, by impressive demonstrations, repudiated the faithless citizens who, joining hands with the enemy, have arrogated to themselves the right to speak in the name of the Flemings. The Flemings were the first to condemn the crime. To the protests of the Deputies and Senators and of the City Councils have been added those of the leading intellectual and political societies of Flanders. The Flemish Academy raised its voice to "affirm its fidelity to the Belgian Fatherland and its King." The Belgian Labor Party proclaimed that "not one of the 800 labor groups composing it, and not one of its authorized leaders, had been led astray or corrupted by the activist-separatist movement, either in Flanders or in Wallonia."

In the streets of Antwerp, of Malines, of Brussels, spontaneous uprisings which the German troops could not suppress voiced the scorn and anger of the crowds.

Crowning this expression of the popular will and giving it the sanction of law, the Brussels Court of Appeals, acting upon the protest of the Deputies and Senators, at a plenary sitting of all its united chambers, [Feb. 7, 1918,] ordered a hearing which ended in the arrest of delegates of the "Council of Flanders" on a charge of conspiracy against the form of the State, interference with public functions, and wicked attacks against the constitutional authority of the King, the rights of the chambers, and the laws of the nation. When the German authorities, protecting the guilty ones and acting in the guise of vengeance, caused the arrest of the Presidents of the Court, who had come in the august garb of justice to do their duty, the Court of Cassation, by a decree of Feb. 11, decided unanimously to suspend its sittings; the Courts of Appeals in Ghent and LiÉge, with all the courts of first instance and the courts of commerce, followed its example. The civic heroism of a whole people is summed up in that impressive gesture. There is no more eloquent page in history.

This nation can remain free. It stoically endures the presence and domination of the enemy in its territory. The foreign occupation that has lasted three and a half years has not broken its spirit or its will to resistance. The Flemish, like the Walloon communities, victims of the most frightful brutalities, subjected to a system of forced labor, decimated by deportations, have remained immovably faithful to King and country. The moral unity of the nation has continued intact.

FLEMISH QUESTION NOT NEW

The Flemish question does not imperil this unity. It dates much further back than the war and has often been a subject of lively debate. It is a question of interior policy which the nation alone must solve, after the war, independently, under its own free constitutional powers. Belgium has had the same Constitution since 1831, and has not dreamed of altering its principles, unless we except the proclamation of universal manhood suffrage in 1893. In eighty-three years of peace and prosperity there was not a single political party that cast doubt upon the validity of the fundamental charter—an eloquent proof of its plastic vitality and perfect harmony with the deepest needs of the nation's collective existence.

Equality before the law, (Article 6,) individual liberty, (Articles 7, 8, 9, 10,) liberty of religious faith, (Articles 14 and 15,) freedom in education, (Article 17,) freedom of the press, (Article 18,) the right of assembly, (Article 19,) liberty of association, (Article 20,) freedom as to language, (Article 21)—these are the essential axioms on which the nation's public life is based.^[2]

The Belgian Constitution, after guaranteeing respect for these fundamental principles, regulates the exercise of political powers, all of which, it declares, "emanate from the nation." (Article 25.) "The legislative power is exercised jointly by the King, the House of Representatives, and the Senate." (Article 26.) The Deputies are elected directly by all the Belgian citizens who are 25 years old and who have lived at least one year in the commune, those who fulfill certain requirements of knowledge or capacity being allowed one or two supplementary votes. (Article 47.) Senators are elected on the same principles, with the difference that the voters must be at least 30 years old. The Senate also includes a certain number of members elected by the Provincial Councils. (Article 53.) For both chambers the voting is obligatory and secret, and the division of seats is arranged on a system of proportional representation that safeguards the rights of minorities. Subject to the responsibility of his Ministers the King exercises the executive power. (Articles 63 and 64.)

Judicial power is exercised through courts whose members are not subject to removal. (Articles 99 and 100.) A jury alone can deal with criminal cases, political charges, and indictments brought against the press. (Article 98.)

Finally, side by side with the three great political branches, the provincial and communal Governments deal with all matters of local interest. Chief among them are—for the commune: the City Council, elected by direct vote, and the "College of Burgomasters and Aldermen," whose members are chosen by the Common Council, with the exception of the Burgomaster, who is appointed by the King; and for the province: the Provincial Council, directly elected, the "Permanent Deputation," elected by the Provincial Council, and the Governor, who represents the National Government.

SETTLING THE LANGUAGE ISSUE

This rapid sketch suffices to show the democratic and liberal nature of the Belgian Governmental system. Such institutions permit of free discussion and facilitate the peaceful solution of the most irritating internal problems. As the protest of the Flemish societies puts it, "The Flemings are not a conquered nation; they have the same electoral right as the Walloons; they have all the means for safeguarding their just rights."

Belgium has always lived an intense life, yet this has never compromised its unity. Three great parties, the Catholic, the Liberal, the Socialist, struggle for preponderance, and their action extends to all parts of the country without distinction of language. Each of them supports an identical program, in Flanders as in Wallonia, regardless of whether the citizens speak Flemish or French. The party lines have never corresponded with the linguistic lines. In each are found leaders of the Flemish movement, whose aspirations have given rise to many speeches, but have never been repudiated as anti-patriotic. This movement is thus described by the Flemish societies in their protest against the "Council of Flanders:" It is the expression of the fundamental principle that every population possesses the inalienable right to develop itself according to its own character and its own language, life, and historic personality." But it remains essentially national and declares itself, in the document just cited, unalterably hostile to the separation of the country into two Governments with two capitals, two Ministries, two Parliaments. The Flemish societies see in separation only "a weakening that will lead to a catastrophe for the Flemings, as well as for the Walloons." They add:

Our most sacred political and economic interests are menaced by these absurd plans. The organic whole which has made of Belgium, through its commerce and industry, its rivers, ports and railways, its agriculture and workingmen, all working together under a single Government through scores of years, an economic power of the first order, would be dissolved, artificially weakened by contradictory influences, enervated by divergent official policies. The narrow particularism which in the past and present has done so much harm would dominate. The balance between the different political, religious, and social tendencies in our country would be destroyed, and Belgium would be left in a state of crisis which, through long years, would render almost impossible the relief of the country and the curing of the wounds caused by the war.

RIGHTS OF FLEMISH TONGUE

In the years before the war the Belgian Parliament passed several laws intended to assure to the Flemish language the place that belongs to it in the national life, especially in the administrative, judicial, and educational departments. It will suffice to recall the law of May 12, 1910, on secondary schools, and the law of July 2, 1913, on languages in the army, making a knowledge of Flemish and French obligatory for admission to the National Military School. At the moment when the war broke out the Parliament was considering a proposition tending to organize Flemish high schools, and in a report to the King, Oct. 8, 1916, the Government declared itself "convinced that immediately upon the re-establishment of peace a general agreement of favorable sentiments, which it will try to promote, will assure to the Flemings, both in the higher schools and in all the others, that complete equality, in right and in fact, which ought to exist under the guarantees of our Constitution." (Moniteur, Oct. 8-14, 1916.)

Only after the war can the Government solve the problems arising out of the Flemish movement. The promoters of that movement themselves deplore the intervention of an alien power and scorn the traitors who have conspired with the enemy, accepting money and positions at his hand. It is as loyal Belgian citizens, they declare, that they are striving for reforms from which they expect a fuller intellectual development of Flemish communities, and they see in such culture a new force of unity for the nation, from which they by no means wish to be separated.

BELGIAN PREMIER'S VIEW

Baron de Broqueville, the Belgian Prime Minister, said to a correspondent of The London Times:

The Belgian people, after three and a half years of the most grinding oppression, have shown by the courageous defiance of enemy bayonets which brought about the collapse of the "activist" plot, that they have lost none of their sturdy resolve to be free; that the spirit which moved them to reject the German ultimatum of Aug. 2, 1914, is as strong as ever. * * *

Only one thing is worrying and humiliating in a quite special degree all Belgians in occupied territory. It is the fear lest abroad it may be imagined that there really is an "activist" movement in Belgium. All the reports we have received on this point amount to this: "No one in Belgium talks of this alleged movement, for it is nonexistent. There are a few miserable individuals in German pay—always the same—who intrigue and plot. All they have achieved is to arouse against them such feelings of repulsion and hate that they have been thrust forever forth from the nation, and nothing can cleanse them of their crime. For mercy's sake, beg people not to insult us by treating the agitation of these individuals seriously, and to stop seeing any agitation where there is nothing but the work of a few paid traitors.

It is in this sense that our compatriots write to us from behind the German barrier. There, as elsewhere, the most ardent advocates of Flemish claims reject foreign interference in internal policy, and they treat as traitors to the cause all those who accept bribes from the torturers of their country.

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