july 1933 Belgian Foreign Policy and the Nationalities Question Emile Vandervelde Volume 11 • Number 4 The contents of Foreign Affairs are copyrighted.©1933 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this material is permitted only with the express written consent of Foreign Affairs. Visit www.foreignaffairs.com/permissions for more information. BELGIAN FOREIGN POLICY AND THE NATIONALITIES QUESTION By Emile Vandehelde AT AN early session of the Locarno Conference, which I as xL3k attended Minister of Foreign Affairs for Belgium, I to was JL JL had occasion remark that Belgian foreign policy absolutely independent in every respect. The statement was received the of Chan skeptically by representatives Germany, ? cellor Luther and Dr. Stresemann. Those gentlemen Dr. ? on Stresemann in particular may later have changed their to some extent. at minds For Geneva in 1926 Belgium joined with to Sweden in objecting the Anglo-French proposal that the award a of permanent seat on the Council of the League of Nations to a measure Germany should be in offset by the admission of Spain and Brazil. All the same, the view is still widely accepted in Ger many, and in other quarters too, that Belgium is bound hand and to same foot France, that she bears the relationship toward her that or Poland Jugoslavia does, and that the Franco-Belgian defensive never agreement of September 7, 1920, which has been formally constitutes a alliance of abrogated, military the pre-war type. In a Belgium itself, however, good half of the population is made up of Flemings who are in general unsubmissive, if not openly hostile, to French influence. Since the war, not to say even during the war, Flemish minorities, though inconsiderable have come out for or even for ones, autonomy downright separa a tion. Their platforms have sometimes demanded federal system which would all but disrupt the national unity, or have called for a Free State of Flanders along the lines of the Free State of Ire land. At home, the "Flemish movement" has never been taken so as some seriously it has been taken in places abroad. But as a certainly it has tended, coinciding it has with great uprising masses among the Flemish in favor of "parity of languages," to create an impression abroad that the Kingdom of Belgium, embracing populations differing widely in language and tradi never an tions, has been more than artificial thing destined sooner or later to be discarded. There is a feeling, at the very least, that a one the problem of national minorities is critical in Belgium, so as to a not critical justify very favorable prognosis for the future of the country. Council on Foreign Relations is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Foreign Affairs ® www.jstor.org 658 FOREIGN AFFAIRS What are we to say to all this? Is there a real nationalities a issue in Belgium? And, in view of the fluctuations of fairly can we that is a con complicated domestic situation, say there sistent Belgian outlook on foreign affairs? I. THE FLEMISH QUESTION "Sire, there are no Belgians: there are Flemings and Walloons." a Such the words, studiedly trenchant, with which Socialist deputy from Charleroi (in theWalloon section), M. Jules Des tree, an to began "Open Letter the King of the Belgians" just before war. on the And the letter went to protest against the centralizing policy that had been followed in Belgium since 1830, in imitation was of Napoleon's policy of centralization in France. Destr?e in was favor of what then styled "administrative separation." It would have involved a dual system of administration which left a good measure of self-government to districts and localities but was a state. quite compatible with unified Belgian As regards the two assertions in Destr?e's opening sentence, the first, that there were no Belgians, was questionable to say the least; and Destr?e himself eventually withdrew it. The second a had basis in fact. It is altogether true that when groups of come people speak different languages they inevitably to differ in other as well. And it is also true that in as in respects Belgium,? there are and have been two or more Switzerland, ? always strictly speaking three national languages. Scattered along the Prussian frontier (and not only in the cantons were of Eupen and Malmedy, which annexed to Belgium are under the Treaty of Versailles) there villages where consider able portions of the inhabitants (41,514 in 1920, as against 77,195 or as a in 1910) exclusively rule speak German. I remember that on a a visit to the trenches during the war I met Belgian soldier who did not understand a word of French or Flemish and knew no other language than that of the enemy he was facing. But a from any national standpoint that would be just curiosity. a excess The country at large, with population in of eight millions in 1932, falls into two linguistic groups of about equal weight: three millions of Walloons speaking nothing but French, three ? or millions of Flemings speaking nothing but Flemish rather a "Netherlandish," derivation of the platdeutsch dialects which are spoken also in Holland. Then, not counting little children of come a a course, would group of about million people who speak BELGIANFOREIGN POLICY 659 are both languages and who, it is worth while noting, nearly all serv Flemings; for, with the exception of candidates for the civil as ice, Walloons will a rule have nothing to do with the other national language of Belgium. A few basic facts have to be borne in mind if one would under stand the conditions under which the so-called "nationalities question" arises in Belgium. Neither in the direction of Holland, nor nor in the direction of Germany, in the direction of France, at is there any coincidence all between linguistic and political one common frontiers. Antwerp and Rotterdam have language; \ -4 so so have Herbesthal and Aix-la-Chapelle; have Tournai and Lille or Amiens. to ? Ignoring?just make.things simpler the on a German fringe the east, there is sharply defined internal frontier between the French and Flemish languages, and it has not varied greatly in all the years since the thirteenth century. to Running roughly from Ypres Tongres across the battlefield of Waterloo (some twelve miles south of Brussels), it cuts the into a a country virtually halves. Brussels is bilingual city with preponderance of French, though topographically it lies within Flemish territory. 66o FOREIGN AFFAIRS But from the linguistic standpoint there is one essential differ ence two so between the regions defined; and it explains most of the difficulties that have arisen recent during years and especially war. since the Wallonia is positively unilingual. In the Charleroi section one find some few might settlements of Flemish factory hands, but they have rapidly become acclimated and their are more even children aggressively Walloon than the Walloons themselves. The for their a natives, part, have dialect closely related to French. not as They only speak French their ordinary to language: they refuse speak any other. Most of them regard it as a sheer waste of time to learn Flemish. They have always are now objected, and increasingly hostile, to any effort on the of the to make what is called part "government "compulsory at as bilingualism the rule, least regards holders of public office, for the two sections of the country. across The situation is quite different the linguistic frontier, in Flanders. There too, as is the case with Wallonia, the bulk of the one or population is unilingual, speaking Flemish dialect another and using Dutch, which they choose to call "Netherlandish," as their written language. But all the way down from the Middle or Ages, when the leliaerts, "men of the fleur-de-lis," quarreled with the klauwaerts, who had a "claw" out for France, always ? there have been "Frenchies," or frasquillons, in Flanders Flemings who have been "gallicized." Down to recent times such an ? were people constituted influential element they the dominant portion of the ruling class. The old noble families, the more important business men, the members of the professions, a to made it point exemplify the best French culture, they thought as an one of Flemish only illiterate form of speech of which had to know just enough to get along with one's servants or farm hands. In very general terms, one might almost say that forty years ago the gulf between the French-speaking middle classes and the masses on Flemish was as as was territory great the gulf in the eighteenth century between the nobles in Russia, as a who could write rule only in French, and their muzhiks. a Professor Henri de Man, Fleming by birth and enthusiasm, explains that in the nineteenth century the dominion of the rich on was business classes Flemish soil re?nforced by the linguistic domination of French. He writes: The origins of the Flemish movement are not to be sought in the fact that are there Walloons and Flemings in Belgium, but in the fact that the Flemish BELGIANFOREIGN POLICY 661 are a masses under the control of French-speaking class of property owners. From 1830 on, the Flemish factory hand received his directions in French. The Flemish soldier was drilled in French, the Flemish defendant was tried in French, the Flemish citizen was governed in French, the Flemish tax payer on was taxed in French. If the Flemish schoolboy chose to go from the primary school, he was taught in French.