outbreak of a Polish
insurrection at Warsaw made it clear that Prussia and Russia would be
too busily occupied in the east to be able to interfere effectively in
the Belgian question. On December 20 a protocol was signed at London by
the representatives of the five powers, providing for the separation of
Belgium from Holland. When however the protocol was sent to the tsar for
ratification, he would only ratify it subject to the condition that its
execution should depend on the consent of the King of the Netherlands.
Meanwhile the London conference was engaged in settling the boundary of
the new kingdom. For the most part it went on the principle of leaving
to Holland the districts that had belonged to the United Provinces
before the wars of the French revolution. The remainder of the kingdom
of the Netherlands, consisting chiefly of the former Austrian
Netherlands, but including also territories which had belonged to
France, Prussia, the Palatinate, the bishopric of Liege, and some minor
ecclesiastical states, was assigned to Belgium. An exception was,
however, made in the case of the grand duchy of Luxemburg. Luxemburg was
reputed to be, next to Gibraltar, the strongest fortress in Europe. It
was regarded as the key to the lower Rhine; it formed a part of the
German confederation, and was garrisoned by German troops. Although
Holland had no historical claim to its possession, the treaty of Vienna
granted it to the Dutch branch of the house of Nassau, as compensation
for its former possessions, merged in the duchy of Nassau; and it was
now felt that a place so important to the safety of Germany could not
safely be handed over to a state which seemed likely to fall under
French influence. The powers therefore determined that this duchy should
continue to belong to the king of the Netherlands.

There was also some difficulty over the apportionment of the debt.
Belgium was the more populous and the richer of the two countries, but
the greater part of the debt had been contracted by Holland before the
union. Belgium was, however, already responsible for its share of the
whole debt, and the powers can hardly be accused of injustice when they
determined to divide the debt in the proportion in which the
debt-charges had been borne in the three previous years, assigning
sixteen thirty-firsts to Belgium, and fifteen thirty-firsts to Holland.
Belgium was moreover to possess the right of trading with the Dutch
colonies and to cont