APPENDIX

I. FORMATION OF THE BELGIAN FRONTIER

(a) The Southern (Franco-Belgian) Frontier

1000-1635.-In the eleventh century the territory of the Counts of Flanders reached as far south as the Canche and Bapaume. Farther east, the frontier of the empire ran along or near the present southern limit of the Department of the Nord and touched the Meuse near Fumay. In the valley of the Meuse from Fumay to Stenay there was a debatable borderland which later gradually defined itself in favour of France.

When, in the thirteenth century, the French monarchy extended its power in the Netherlands, its main effort was directed against its own fief, Flanders. By 1305 the limits of the county had been pushed back to the Lys; Arras and Artois and the French-speaking districts of Lille, Douai, and Archies had been taken from it; and it had lost the homage of the county of Boulogne. But this French progress was followed by a disastrous retreat. At the end of the fourteenth century the House of Burgundy held Artois and Frenchspeaking Flanders, and in 1435 acquired the counties of Boulogne and Ponthieu and the greater part of Picardy, including the towns of the Somme (Abbeville, Amiens, Péronne, and St. Quentin) and the lordships of Montdidier and Roye farther south. The Burgundian power now reached to the southern limit of the present department of the Somme.

This situation was intolerable for the French monarchy. After the death of Charles the Bold that monarchy won back the lands in Picardy as well as Ponthieu and the Boulonnais, but did not establish its hold on Artois and French-speaking Flanders. The Habsburgs now inherited the Netherlands, and France attacked them, but in the sixteenth century she made no headway in this direction. In 1526 and 1529 (by the Treaties of Madrid and Cambrai) she gave up her claims to feudal superiority over Flanders, Artois, and the former French enclave of the Tournaisis. On the other hand Philip II of

N

Spain, in spite of his invasions and victories in northern France, would not or could not extend his territory here; and no serious change was made in this quarter till the great French advance in the seventeenth century under Richelieu, Mazarin, and Louis XIV.

1635-1714. When the French advance began the southern boundary of the Netherlands was as follows from Gravelines on the coast (Spanish) it ran southwards, leaving St. Omer and Hesdin to the east. Near Hesdin it turned eastwards, and, leaving Bapaume, Le Cateau-Cambrésis, and Landrecies to the north, and Le Catelet and Rocroi to the south, crossed the Meuse at Fumay. Thence it bore south-east, and ran, much as it does at present, a few miles east of the Meuse, till near Mouzon it met the northern extremity of Lorraine. In this part of the Meuse valley the principality of Sedan had lost the independence it formerly claimed, and in 1642 escheated to the French crown. Moreover, on the other side of the frontier, the duchy of Bouillon was held by the French owners of Sedan from 1591 to 1642, and was later in dispute.

In the various treaties which altered this frontier between 1635 and 1713, the main object of the French was to obtain good positions for the defence of France or for future offensives in the Netherlands. Part of the territory which they acquired consisted of mere enclaves in the Netherlands, each containing a fortress with a radius (rayon) calculated to the artillery of the period. At the end of the long series of wars 1 which closed

1

1 The details of the French gains and losses in this period are as follows:

By the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 Spain ceded to France Gravelines, Bourbourg, and St. Venant in Flanders; the greater part of Artois (including Arras, Bapaume, St. Pol, Hesdin, Térouanne, and Béthune, but not including St. Omer and Aire) ; Le Quesnoy, Landrecies, and Avesnes in Hainaut; the Spanish fortresses of Marienbourg and Philippeville within the Bishopric of Liège and Montmédy in Luxemburg (see also p. 179). In the neighbourhood of Montmédy France acquired Stenay and Jametz in Lorraine.

To England a little earlier Spain had ceded Dunkirk; it was purchased by France in 1661.

By the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1668 France won a large number of towns in Flanders and Hainaut; in Flanders, Bergues,

in 1713 and 1714 with the treaties of Utrecht, Rastatt, and Baden, France stood on practically the same frontier as now divides her territory from Belgium (see p. 1). She had won Artois and much of southern Flanders and Hainaut; she had advanced down the Meuse valley from Fumay to Givet. Higher up that river she had acquired Stenay in Lorraine and pushed eastwards to Montmédy and Philippeville. Further, in what is now Belgian territory she held the fortresses of Marienbourg and Philippeville as enclaves, and east of the Meuse she was in possession of the duchy of Bouillon. It was much, but it left her a frontier in the middle of the Belgian plain, and it was not all that Vauban had thought essential. He had insisted that, for the minimum of security, Ypres, Courtrai, and Mons must be in French hands. But, such as the frontier was, its defence was elaborately organized by Vauban and his successors. A great barrier of French fortresses stretched from the sea to the Ardennes. On the other hand, the late opponents of France were anxious to take precautions against her breaking out again. The Dutch Barrier fortresses in the now Austrian Netherlands (see p. 31) were Furnes, Fort de Knocke, Ypres, Warneton, Menin, Tournai, and Namur, while there was to be a Dutch contingent in the garrison of Termonde.

St. Winoe, Furnes, Armentières, Lille, Courtrai, Douai, Tournai, and Oudenarde; in Hainaut, Condé, Ath, Binche, and Charleroi. In Lorraine she took Longwy.

By the Treaty of Nymegen in 1678 France surrendered her advanced positions of Courtrai, Oudenarde, Ath, Binche, and Charleroi. But she received St. Omer and Aire, thus completing the conquest of Artois, and also gained Cassel, Poperinghe, Ypres, Bailleul, and Warneton in Flanders; Cambrai, Valenciennes, Bavai, Maubeuge in Hainaut; and Charlemont (Givet), on the Meuse in the county of Namur. Further, the duchy of Bouillon had in 1676 again passed into French hands, and was thenceforward reckoned as a French possession.

By the Treaty of Ryswyck in 1697, France had to agree once more to the cession of Courtrai, which she had recovered in defiance of the Treaty of Nymegen, and to surrender Luxemburg and Chiny which she had occupied.

By the Treaties of Utrecht, Rastatt, and Baden in 1713 and 1714, France gave up Furnes, Ypres, Poperinghe, Warneton, and Tournai, places won in 1668 and 1678.

Other places, such as Mons, were left to be defended by the Austrians. Great Britain insisted that at Dunkirk (which had been a nest of commerce-raiders during the recent wars) the French should demolish their fortifications and fill up their harbour. This clause of the Treaty of Utrecht remained in force till 1783.

1714-1815.-The successful French campaigns in the Belgian provinces during the War of the Austrian Succession (1744-8) did not lead to any changes in this frontier. But the French Revolution swept it away altogether, and it did not reappear till 1814.

In the discussions on the Treaty of Paris of 1814, between the Allies and the restored French monarchy, the French commissioner was instructed by his Government to procure for France the points necessary to complete her system of defence'. This meant a line from the North Sea at Nieuport, passing through Dixmude, Ypres, Courtrai, Tournai, Ath, Mons, Namur, Dinant, Givet, Neufchâteau, and Arlon, and continued to the Rhine through Luxemburg, Sarrelouis, and Kaiserslautern. But the Allies were anxious to make their new kingdom of the Netherlands a reliable barrier against another French advance towards Antwerp and the Rhine; and the result was that the old eighteenth-century frontier was restored from the sea to Qievrain (near Valenciennes), while between Qievrain and Bouillon a line was to be drawn which should pass south of Mons and Charleroi, but should leave Philippeville and Marienbourg to France, and east of the Meuse should include the northern part of the Bouillon duchy. On the rest of the duchy, the succession to which was in dispute, the Allies would adjudicate later.

The return of Napoleon and the campaign of Waterloo brought the Allies back to Paris in 1815. The Prussians now rancorously demanded considerable cessions of French territory as penalties and as guarantees. In this they were followed by the smaller German States. Austria took the same line, but half-heartedly. The British plenipotentiaries, Castlereagh and Wellington, were very anxious that France should neither be

1 This line was to leave to France the cantons of Dour, Merbes, Beaumont, Chimay, Walcourt, and Florennes west of the Meuse, and those of Beauraing and Gedinnes east of the Meuse.

181 uselessly exasperated, nor so weakened as to cease to be a Great Power. The Tsar, Alexander I, agreed with this view; and Great Britain and Russia prevailed. As regards the southern frontier, the Prussians proposed that France should cede her fortresses in French Flanders and at other points. In the end, however, by the Treaty of Paris (November 20, 1815), the old frontier was restored, without the modifications which had been made in favour of France in 1814, and with the surrender by France of her former enclaves of Philippeville and Marienbourg, which were incorporated in the kingdom of the Netherlands and are now Belgian. The duchy of Bouillon was joined to Luxemburg and is now Belgian territory:

The line of the frontier, as fixed by the Treaty of Paris of 1815, was not affected by the creation of the kingdom of Belgium in 1831, and has remained unaltered since.

(b) The Northern (Belgo-Dutch) Frontier

1609-48.—When the first period of the revolt of the Netherlands ended in 1609 with the Twelve Years' Truce, the Spaniards had lost Sluis, but were holding all the rest of Flanders up to the southern side of the Scheldt estuary, nearly all northern Brabant between the mouth of the Scheldt and the lower Meuse, and southern (or Upper) Gelders on the line of the lower Meuse above Grave. Higher up that river they were in possession of all the duchy of Limburg, with the important fortress of Maastricht. In face of this Spanish frontier the Dutch felt themselves insecure. In their campaigns between 1621 and 1648 they pushed it back all along the line, and in the Treaty of Münster (1648) they consolidated their gain.

1648-1714.—By the Treaty of Münster the Dutch gained ground on the Scheldt, in North Brabant, and on the lower Meuse. South of the Scheldt they retained their conquests on the North Flemish coast, including Sluis, Sas van Gent, Philippine, Axal, and Hulst—since known as Dutch Flanders. They held the fort of Lillo on the right bank of the Scheldt, only a few miles below Antwerp; and the fort of Liefkenshoek opposite Lillo was ceded to them in 1664. The Treaty of Münster declared the closing of the Scheldt to all but Dutch shipping.

On the line of the Meuse most of southern Gelders was left to Spain, but her power of offence on this side was much