"A CONDITION OF EXISTENCE"

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 76, 22 December 1917, Page 6

"A CONDITION OF EXISTENCE"

GERMAN SCHEMES FOR BELGIUM

TO CAPTURE ENGLAND'S "BRIDGEHEAD"

; (By Lieut. K. N. Colvilo.) ' [Published by authority of the 1 -;War Office, porfavounof the Koyal 'Colonial Institute.] -The question of the surrender of Bolgium .as a preliminary .to peaco negotiations has rovealed in all its nakedness tho cynical. egotism of tho German junkers. Papers like the "Kreuz Zeitung" argue, unblushingly persistently, that Belgium cannot in tho nature of things bo neutral. A small State situated beween two powerful States must, in German eyes, be dominated 'by ono or, the other. The solo duty of tho statesmen of the powerful States is to seo to it that it IB .they, ,and not their rival (all powerfill States aro, 'in 'Gorman eyes, rivals of one another), who 'have the dominant influence. A truo "buffer" State is an impossibility. "This seems so clear to the typical German that he .apparently never regarded tho guarantee of Belgian neutrality as anything but solemn humbug. That anyone should go to war for the'sake of a pledgo thus given seemed to Bethmann-Hollweg sheer moonshine; and so >when England ipointed out that Gorman infringement of Belgian neu- ; trality left England no choice but to take up tho sword in defence of it and her own honour, he'made his famous' "scrap of paper" exclamation. 'The Machiavellian principlo of the, invariable priority of State needs to all human and divino law has been so tho-' roughly drilled into tho modern Prussian by generations <of .conscienceless Hohenzollern'g anil 'their servile viziers : that he believes this mental habit to bo a natural law and common to all tho races of tho earth,. What, he.argues,.. Germany would have dotie nad she been strong enough, and what .she is .now -trying .to -do, is what: England must 'havo dono 'in i;ho past and be seeking to go ,on-doing ;iow. ' '

England's '"Bridgehead." has nover been a really neutral Belgium," says von'Tirpitz. "Belgium was always England's bridgehead. And what:is tho sremedy? The establishment of Belgium's .independence? Not at all. Simply the substitution of 1 alblood and iron, real German domination for'this supposed English one., We must itherefore will ithat, not England, but '•Germany, shiill be its protecting Power.; This, for us, is a military and icconomic condition of exist- 5 erics." ~ y i was, (if. course, equally with Great ißritain rand:)Erancc, .a guarantor of ' Belgian independence. But that did not-conatituto •"protection." ;It.is :only now, when he regards a German !Belgian -as '"for 'us .v-military and -eco- ; nomic condition of existence," that he makes tho discovery vthnt "'it ?has alsobecome -our .moral duty to .protect !theFlemings againft 'fresh subjugation 'by the Walloons." ■;: .Arid supposing l for one "instant <von Tirpitz were .right, m# ithat -Beigium, before the war .was "protected" by Great Britain'in 'tlio' 1 German sense,' who would hesitate between. Belgian then and Belgian aiow. nvlien Germany 18 tin control of her affairs? . Then Belgium and flourish-: nig; the Tichest'country in proportion. to!her*size.in;tbe world; doing'an immense trade with Germany, as well as Britain an( j |]jp owner of la hufo ancl wealth-giving colony ir. Africa.' Behold,; her now, edlby tho invading'Hun,-against-'n'h'cfeo' ontry, made necessary, .so ho alleged, ■ by|his strategic-designs on Erance, she appealed with passionate icloquence to England, -v-'liom the Gorman -Government had not' supposed -to 'be vitally in her fate. Deportations, fines, .judicial murders have'succeeded the murder, rape, arson, and .pillage of her "protectors" first-coming.

-With Tongue in iOheelt. ■But by way rof a smokq-cloud to-.j cover ;the 'piratical exploits of -Tirpitz i anilhis crew, other and more fair-seem-' ing iparties in 'Germany are ;allowed ; to. talk'tof the restoration' of Belgium "on conditions." 'Of'.these the most iimportarit is 'the-division of -the country; mto.':two .provinces, glanders and TO-. lonia, without -consulting tho .representatives of ..either-of these two-elements in-the 'Belgian people. It is perfectly, true rthat these -two stooks «exist, 'but' both of them are emphatically Belgian, and .neither iof them .is either German, French, or (Dutch, or anything (else than JBelgian. Before -tho war, ithe .two races had sundry amicable squabbles, notably over the question of a .separate Flemish university. But tho Flem-ing-showed recently in no uncertain 1 fashion that it -is one thing to argus ( with your fellow-countrymen in pursuit of lan object and quito another to have' that 'object 'thrust upon you by a foreign .invader. _ Von Bissing's celebrated jFlamandising of 'Ghent University caused all the Flemish "professors to : protest :and resign, and when it was 1 eventually opened with an imported' staff, the German and Dutch lecturers' found themselves 'addressing -.empty. benches. For the .exiled 'Government is not in on^i.sense ,a Walloon Governmont. It: is just as much Flemish, but it dg not. that either. It is tho Belgian Government, and the Army, ivlreh is flighting now-for tho liberation of Belgium, is, the Belgian Army, composed of Flem- : mgs -and Walloons alike. And -the' great writers, Maeterlinck, Cammaexts, Terhaeron, all of Flemish: stock, >aro not patriots of an irredentist German province, but of a brlliant and t unified Belgian nation, so determined to live its own -life that it has already once, in 1830, taken up the sword to separate .itself from -another and moro nearly, kindred - ; Teutonic people, the Dutch.

If Germany claims that tlio possession of Belgium is 'fa military and economic condition -of-existcncd," we must infer that beforo tlio war she did not exist, or was, at any rate, doomed to extinction. In that case we can understand lier desire for war, but must ruthlessly show her that it is "a military and economic condition of existence" for the rest of the world that Germany be allowed spurlos vorsenken (i.e., "to bo sunk without trace"—a catch phrase of the submarine pirates).