her neighbours and for the welfare of the European state
system. It was in their interest, rather than her own, that the Great
Powers made her a sovereign independent state. As such she is entitled,
equally with England or with Germany, to immunity from unprovoked
attack. But the Powers which made her a sovereign state, also, and for
the same reasons of convenience, made her a neutral state. She was
therefore debarred from consulting her own safety by making alliances
upon what terms she would. She could not lawfully join either of the two
armed camps into which Europe has fallen since the year 1907. And, if
she had been as contemptible as she is actually the reverse, she would
still be entitled to expect from England and from every other of her
guarantors the utmost assistance it is in their power to give. In
fighting for Belgium we fight for the law of nations; that is,
ultimately, for the peace of all nations and for the right of the weaker
to exist.

* * * * *

The provinces which now constitute the kingdom of Belgium--with the
exception of the bishopric of Liege, which was until 1795 an
ecclesiastical principality--were known in the seventeenth century as
the Spanish, in the eighteenth as the Austrian, Netherlands. They
received the first of these names when they returned to the allegiance
of Philip II, after a short participation in the revolt to which Holland
owes her national existence. When the independence of Holland was
finally recognized by Spain (1648), the Spanish Netherlands were
subjected to the first of the artificial restrictions which Europe has
seen fit to impose upon them. The Dutch monopoly of navigation in the
Scheldt was admitted by the Treaty of Muenster (1648), and Antwerp was
thus precluded from developing into a rival of Amsterdam. In the age of
Louis XIV the Spanish Netherlands were constantly attacked by France,
who acquired at one time or another the chief towns of Artois and
Hainault, including some which have lately come into prominence in the
great war, such as Lille, Valenciennes, Cambray, and Maubeuge. The bulk,
however, of the Spanish Netherlands passed at the Treaty of Utrecht to
Austria, then the chief rival of France on the Continent. They passed
with the reservation that certain fortresses on their southern border
were to be garrisoned jointly by the Dutch and the Austrians as a
barrier against French aggression. This arrangement was overthrown at