A tragic incident occurred on March 14th. Mr. Bekaert-Baekelandt, deputy of Courtrai, had first been opposed to the Government's policy. He had, however, been gradually convinced that all resistance had become useless. This conversion to the inevitable had broken his heart. He ended his speech by alluding to the return at a future date of the deputies of the sacrificed provinces to the Belgian Chamber. "Meanwhile," he said, "they will remain Belgians like ourselves, and they will be generous enough to consider that our votes are extorted by force, that they are a painful sacrifice imposed upon us by foreign nations. They will no doubt appreciate how powerless we are to avoid this sad obligation...." He did not proceed further, and fell dead.
These manifestations have been compared with the heartrending scenes which took place at the time of the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany, but it would be wrong to draw too hasty conclusions from such a comparison. On the one hand, the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine is far more recent. On the other, Dutch administration and the Grand-Ducal régime did not provoke the same opposition among the people. If Belgian irredentism proved very strong at the beginning, it gradually diminished, owing mainly to the fact that the patriots, on both sides of the frontier, were unable to entertain any hope of reunion during the long period of neutrality which paralysed Belgian foreign policy. Recent manifestations which took place on the occasion of the revision of the 1839 treaties towards the reunion of Zeeland Flanders, Luxemburg and Limburg to Belgium must, however, not be misjudged. They must not be considered as the outcome of a crude instinct towards aggrandisement, following the military success of the Belgian army at the end of the Great War, or of a wild thirst for revenge, but merely as the outburst of irredentist feelings, nursed in silence during eighty years of neutrality, and revived, among a certain group of intellectuals, by the fierce struggle waged by the nation for the safeguard of its liberties. As for the demand of military guarantees made by the Government during these negotiations, a demand which must be clearly distinguished from the irredentist agitation just mentioned, it was merely prompted by the circumstances in which Belgium is placed at the present time. The territorial losses inflicted upon the country in 1839 were largely compensated for by the pact of neutrality entered into by the Great Powers, which provided Belgium with the strongest and most unequivocal guarantees respecting her territorial integrity. Provided these guarantees were observed faithfully, the closing of the Scheldt by Holland in time of war, the critical situation on the Eastern frontier created by the indefensible cul-de-sac of Dutch Limburg, and the supremacy in Luxemburg of a foreign Power, did not seriously jeopardize the country's security. The treaties of 1839 were considered as forming a whole, the moral safeguard of guaranteed neutrality counterbalancing, to a certain extent, the new territorial encroachments. With the disappearance of neutrality, the substitution of new guarantees of security for the old ones seemed obvious. The demands formulated at the Paris Conference by the Belgian people and Government--free access from the sea towards Belgian ports in order to ensure communication between the country and her allies in time of war, a military entente with Holland towards the defence of Dutch Limburg, and a rapprochement with Luxemburg--were therefore the natural outcome of the revision of the 1839 settlement.