of the Scheldt QUESTION OF THE SCHELDT (A) HISTORY CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 1572 Flushing taken by the Sea Beggars. 1585 Antwerp surrenders to Parma. 1605 Maurice of Nassau takes Sluis. 1644-5 Frederick Henry captures Sas-van-Ghent and Hulst. 1648 Treaty of Münster. General. Dutch Flanders ceded to the States Closure of the Scheldt. 1676 Peace of Nymegen. 1697 Peace of Ryswyck. Closure of the Scheldt maintained. Closure of the Scheldt maintained. 1713 Peace of Utrecht. Closure of the Scheldt maintained. 1748 Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. tained. Closure of the Scheldt main 1784 Joseph II attempts to reopen the question. 1785 He fails. Treaty of Fontainebleau. 1792 Austrian Netherlands conquered by the French. 1795 Holland conquered by the French. Austrian Netherlands annexed by France. Scheldt declared free for commerce. 1814 Union of Holland and Belgium. 1830 Belgian revolt. King William I (of the Netherlands) closes the Scheldt. 1839 Treaty of Peace between Holland and Belgium. The Scheldt made free for commerce, subject to small dues. 1842-3 Further regulations agreed on by Holland and Belgium. 1863 Capitalisation of the Scheldt dues. 1891 Convention between Holland and Belgium. 1914 The Germans invade Belgium. The Scheldt closed by the Dutch. (i) 1550-1815 THE River Scheldt enters the sea by two mouths— the Eastern Scheldt and the Western Scheldt or Hondt. The Western Scheldt is the waterway which gives the port of Antwerp access to the ocean. The " question of the Scheldt " arises from the fact that for the last forty miles of its course the Western Scheldt flows through Dutch territory. On the northern shore lie the Zeeland islands of South Beveland and Walcheren; on the southern, the strip of territory known as Dutch or Zeeland Flanders (Zeeuwsch Vlaanderen). In the middle of the sixteenth century Antwerp had become the first seaport in the world. The revolt of the Netherlands and the capture of Antwerp by the Spaniards in 1585 brought ruin upon the town. Its most enterprising citizens fled to Holland and to England; and its access to the sea was cut off by the fleets of the Sea Beggars (Gueux de Mer), who had made Flushing (captured in 1572) their naval base. The trade of Antwerp was transferred to Amsterdam; and from the beginning of the seventeenth century the closing of the Scheldt, in the interest of Amsterdam and of Dutch trade generally, became a fixed aim of Dutch policy. The conquest of a strip of Flanders on the southern bank of the Western Scheldt was a means to this end. It was begun by the capture of Sluis' by Maurice of Nassau in 1605, and completed by his brother Frederick Henry, who in 1644 captured Sas van Ghent, closing the canalised River Lys connecting Ghent with the port of Terneuzen on the Scheldt, and in 1645 besieged and took Hulst, the capital of the Pays de Waes. By the Treaty of Münster (January 30, 1648) these conquests, forming a continuous band of territory along the left bank of the Western Scheldt, were ceded by the King of Spain to the States-General. Article XIV of the treaty declares : "Les rivières de l'Escaut, comme aussi les canaux de Sas, Zwyn et autres bouches de mer y aboutissant, seront tenus clos du côté des Provinces Unies.' This closure of the Western Scheldt meant the ruin of Antwerp and the gradual decay of Belgian trade and industry. The action of the States-General in 1648 became henceforth the settled policy of the 1 Then a seaport, now lying some miles inland. Dutch, and was bitterly resented by the people of the Southern Netherlands as essentially selfish and unjustifiable; nor did the enforced acquiescence of their sovereigns in the renewal of this treaty-right in the subsequent treaties of Nymegen, Ryswyck, Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle make it appear less hateful or oppressive. But there are two sides to every question; and, whatever may be the rights and wrongs which lie behind the grievance, it is necessary to point out that the Dutch seventeenth-century policy was not, as is so often asserted by Belgian writers, altogether selfish and unjustifiable. The importance of the Scheldt has been, historically, national as well as international. Its estuary forms the home-waters of the Province of Zeeland; and that province has been connected with the adjoining. Province of Holland from very early times by the closest bonds. It is, perhaps, scarcely realised how very largely the Dutch Republic owed its first existence andy its later security and strength, as a great maritime Power, to these two sea-girt provinces. The position of Holland and Zeeland behind their water defences was that of an almost impregnable fortress and naval arsenal; and from their harbours came the ships and the seamen who, by their supremacy at sea, freed the United Provinces from the yoke of Spain, and carried Dutch commerce into every ocean. It was, therefore, not the mere selfish desire of cutting off the SpanishBelgian port of Antwerp from access to the sea that led the States-General in 1648 to insist on the cession to them by Spain of the strip of territory, since known as Dutch Flanders, which had been conquered by their forces, so as to enable them effectually to hold as territorial waters the estuary of the Western Scheldt. Its closure meant the safeguarding of the Zeeland Islands, and more especially of Walcheren with its naval bases, against the danger of a sudden attack from the Spanish Netherlands. So matters stood when, in August 1784, the Emperor Joseph II, who had visited in person his Belgian |