Fotheringham John Knight
The Political History of England – Vol XI
CHAPTER XVIII.
FOREIGN RELATIONS UNDER WILLIAM IV
In 1830 the closing months of Wellington's administration were disturbed by the French and Belgian revolutions. The former of these was occasioned by the publication on July 25 of three ordinances, restricting the liberty of the press, dissolving the chambers, and amending the law of elections. The Parisian populace rose against this infringement of the constitution. In the course of a three days' street-fight (the 27th to the 29th) the troops were driven out of Paris. On the 30th a few members of the chambers, who had continued in session, invited Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans, to assume the office of lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and he was proclaimed on the following day. On August 7 the chamber of deputies offered him the crown, which he accepted, and on the 9th he was proclaimed "King of the French". On the 2nd Charles X. and the dauphin had renounced their rights in favour of the young Duke of Bordeaux, and on the 16th they sailed from Cherbourg to England. The change of dynasty was accompanied by a transference to the bourgeoisie of such political influence as had hitherto belonged to the clergy and noblesse. It remained to be seen whether it would also be accompanied by a change of foreign policy.
RECOGNITION OF LOUIS PHILIPPE.
The new French revolution occasioned no slight perturbation in the European courts. To say nothing of the fear of the precedent being followed in other lands, there was no longer any guarantee that France would respect the arrangements effected by the treaties of Vienna and Paris. Austria, Prussia, and Russia agreed not to recognise Louis Philippe, and entered into a convention for mutual aid in the event of French aggression. Aberdeen, the British foreign secretary, declared that the time had come for applying the treaty of Chaumont, which, as extended at Paris, pledged Great Britain and the three eastern powers to act together in case fresh revolution and usurpation in France should endanger the repose of other states. Wellington, however, saw that the cause of the elder Bourbon line was hopeless, and held now, as in 1815, that if France was not to menace the peace of Europe, her political position must be one with which she could be contented. He considered that the arguments which justified the admission of France to the councils of the powers at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818 applied with no less cogency to the government of Louis Philippe than to that of Louis XVIII. He therefore determined to acknowledge the new French government at an early date after the notification of its assumption of power. Nor were the other powers slow in taking the same course. It is true that Metternich suggested a closer bond between Austria, Prussia, and Russia, partly to restore amicable relations between Austria and Russia, partly to oppose any possible designs of France on Italy. Prussia, fearing war, resisted the proposal, and preferred to draw France into a guarantee of the status quo by recognising Louis Philippe. Russia was last of the great powers to acknowledge the new régime in France, and she only did so on condition that the powers should hold the French king responsible for the execution of the international engagements of the fallen dynasty. Louis Philippe was certainly not the man wilfully to embroil France in a war with her neighbours, and, had he been independent of French public opinion, there would have been no reason to fear French aggression.
The state which had most to fear from an aggressive France was the new kingdom of the Netherlands. Trusting for protection to the great powers rather than to its own forces, the Netherlands government had adopted a system which left it almost entirely without troops except during the military exercises of September and October. Wellington, who knew the pacific character of the new French government, advised the garrisoning of certain isolated points on the frontier, but thought no further preparation necessary. A few weeks were however to prove that the new French revolution had aroused a more implacable enemy, against whom the house of Orange would have needed all the troops it could summon to its aid. The union of Holland and Belgium had been resolved on by the powers at Paris in 1814, mainly for military reasons. Austria had been unwilling to resume the heavy burden of guarding the Belgian Netherlands and southern Germany against French aggression, and the powers had consequently resolved on strengthening those smaller states on whom the duty of resistance would fall. In these days, accustomed as we are to the distinction between the Teutonic and Latin races, it might seem reasonable that two countries in which the prevailing languages are low German should be subject to the same government. But it was not yet customary to turn the principles of comparative philology into arguments for the rearrangement of political boundaries. The French language and culture had moreover made considerable progress among the upper and middle classes of Belgium, while religious differences alienated the clergy from the house of Orange. In the states-general of the Netherlands the Dutch had half the votes, and, as the Orange party was strong in Antwerp and Ghent, commanded a majority. The fiscal system adopted by the government favoured the Dutch rather than the Belgian population. Dutchmen were generally preferred for state offices, and an attempt to control the education of the clergy was deeply resented as an attack on the Roman catholic religion. Belgium in consequence presented the curious spectacle of the liberal and clerical parties working on the same side, united against the Dutch government.
BELGIAN REVOLUTION.
The example afforded by France turned a discontent which might have led to local riots into a national conflagration. On August 25 there was a rising of the populace at Brussels, which the troops proved unable to quell. On the 27th it was suppressed by a body of burgher guards, a volunteer force drawn from the bourgeoisie of the town. The bourgeoisie finding themselves in possession of the Belgian capital, at first presented a series of minor demands to the king, but on September 3 they went the length of demanding a separate administration for Belgium. The king undertook to lay this proposal before the states, which assembled on the 13th. But before the states could come to any conclusion the question had assumed a new aspect. All the leading towns of Belgium had followed the example of Brussels by forming burgher guards and had thus joined in the revolution; and on the 20th a fresh rising of the populace of Brussels had overthrown the burgher guard and instituted a provisional government. This was followed by an attempt on the part of Prince Frederick of Orange, a younger son of the King of the Netherlands, to occupy Brussels with a military force. After five days' fighting he was compelled to retire, and when on the 30th the states-general gave their consent to the proposal for a separate administration, their decision fell upon deaf ears. All the Belgian provinces were in revolt.
It was now clear to everybody that the national party in Belgium would not consent even to a personal union with Holland. As the union of the two countries formed a part of the treaty of Vienna, every European power had a legal right to employ force to prevent its disruption, and Russia and Prussia both desired active intervention. In France, on the other hand, there was a loud popular demand for the reannexation of Belgium to France, of which it had formed a part from 1794 to 1814. Louis Philippe saw that he could not resist this demand if the Belgian insurgents were coerced on the side of Prussia, and therefore announced that Prussian aggression would be met by a French expedition to Belgium to keep the balance even, until the question should be settled by a congress of the powers. On September 25 Talleyrand had arrived in England. He quickly obtained the adhesion of Wellington to the principle of non-intervention. The duke had been among the first to grasp the fact that reconciliation of Dutch and Belgians was impossible, and that the intervention of the powers would necessitate a European war, to avoid which the union of the two countries had originally been designed. He agreed therefore to a separation of the countries on condition that France should bind herself to observe the arrangements of the congress of Vienna in 1815 and should take no separate action in Belgium.
On Talleyrand's suggestion it was decided to refer the question to the conference already sitting in London for the purpose of settling the Greek question, which would of course have to be reinforced by representatives of Austria and Prussia for the present purpose. Molé, the French foreign minister, would have preferred Paris as the seat of the congress, but the King of the Netherlands absolutely refused to entrust his cause to a conference meeting in a city where opinion ran so strongly against him. On October 5 he made a formal appeal to the powers for the aid guaranteed him by treaty, but the demand came too late to induce Wellington to swerve from the policy of non-intervention, and on November 4 the conference of London began its labours by proposing an armistice in Belgium, which was accepted by both parties. This left Maastricht and the citadel of Antwerp in the hands of Dutch garrisons, and Luxemburg in the hands of a garrison supplied by the German confederation. Every other place in Belgium was in the hands of the insurgents. But the further solution of the question was reserved for other hands. On the 3rd Louis Philippe was compelled to accept a revolutionary ministry, and on the 22nd Wellington and Aberdeen had to make way for a whig ministry with Grey as premier, and Palmerston as foreign secretary.
The new foreign secretary had served a long political apprenticeship as secretary at war in the successive administrations of Perceval, Liverpool, Canning, Goderich, and Wellington, and under the three last-mentioned premiers he had enjoyed a seat in the cabinet. It will be remembered that he had been a warm champion of Greece, and had resigned office along with Huskisson, Dudley, and Grant. He now returned in company with Grant as a member of a whig cabinet. Although this change of party involved the adoption of a domestic policy far removed from Canning's, Palmerston's foreign policy remained rather Canningite than whig. The interest and the honour of England ranked with Palmerston as with Canning before all questions which concerned the maintenance of European peace. But instead of Canning's versatile diplomacy he displayed too often a reckless disregard of the susceptibilities of foreign governments, and, if, like Canning, he lent the moral support of Great Britain to the liberal party in every continental country, it was not, as it had professedly been with Canning, because their success would promote the interests of Great Britain, but because he had a genuine sympathy with their cause. It is impossible to deny that in his earlier years at least Palmerston's policy met with a success such as Castlereagh and Wellington had not attempted to gain; real or imaginary dangers at home left the foreign governments too weak to oppose the will of the one strong man of the moment. Yet it is doubtful whether any resultant benefits were not more than counterbalanced by the distrust and ill-will with which the greater nations of Europe have learned to regard the British government and people.
PROPOSED DIVISION OF THE NETHERLANDS.
During the first few weeks of the new administration, the Belgian question advanced far towards a settlement. On November 10 a Belgian national congress assembled at Brussels; on the 18th it voted the independence of Belgium; on the 22nd it resolved that the new state should be a constitutional monarchy, and on the 24th it proclaimed the total exclusion of the house of Nassau. Finally the 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 Liège, 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 contribute towards their defence. These provisions were embodied in two protocols which were issued at London on January 20 and 27, 1831. As compared with the status quo the Dutch were slightly the gainers. The protocol permitted them to keep Maastricht and Luxemburg, but required them to abandon the citadel of Antwerp; while the Belgians were required to surrender those less important places which they had occupied in Dutch Limburg and in the grand duchy of Luxemburg. Talleyrand considered the present a favourable opportunity for claiming for France the cession of Mariembourg and Philippeville which she had been compelled to surrender to the kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815. Palmerston, however, absolutely refused to hear of any extension of French territory, for fear of imperilling the security of Europe. The two protocols were accepted by Holland on February 13 but rejected by Belgium. Though Talleyrand had signed the protocol of January 20, it was repudiated by Sébastiani, the French foreign minister, on the ground that the object of the conference was to effect a mediation, not to dictate a settlement.
BELGIUM CHOOSES A KING.
Meanwhile the national congress at Brussels had attempted to elect a king. At first the most favoured candidate was Auguste Beauharnais, Duke of Leuchtenberg, the grandson of Napoleon's first consort. Louis Philippe naturally objected to the establishment on his frontier of a prince so closely connected with the house of Bonaparte. The pliant Belgians accordingly transferred their preference to the Duke of Nemours, the second son of Louis Philippe. It was in vain that Sébastiani declared that France could not allow such a selection, as it would be interpreted by the powers as evidence of a French design to reincorporate Belgium in France. On February 3, 1831, the Duke of Nemours was actually elected king by the Belgian national congress. But the conference of London had, two days earlier, adopted a resolution, excluding from the Belgian throne all members of the reigning dynasties of the five powers. Still there was a strong party in France, including Laffitte, the revolutionary premier, who advocated the claims of Nemours. Louis Philippe, however, stood firm on the side of European peace, and on the 17th definitively declined the crown offered to his son. The French now recommended the Prince of Naples, but the Belgians declined to accept him, and on the 25th the national congress appointed a regent to hold office till a king should be elected. On March 13 the accession to office of an anti-revolutionary ministry in France rendered the complete co-operation of the powers easier.
On April 17 France declared her adhesion to the protocol of January 20, and by a new protocol the other four powers consented to the demolition of some of the Belgian fortresses on the French frontier. Another protocol of the same date ordered the Belgians to evacuate the grand duchy of Luxemburg. On May 10 a further protocol even threatened Belgium with the rupture of diplomatic relations in case she did not by June I accept the protocol of January 20. But the powers soon adopted a more conciliatory attitude. France and Great Britain desired that Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who in the previous year had resigned the crown of Greece, should now be offered that of Belgium. Prince Leopold would not accept the crown so long as Belgium continued to defy the powers, and on the other hand there was no chance of securing his election by the Belgian congress unless he undertook to maintain the Belgian claim to the possession of Luxemburg. Lord Ponsonby, the British minister at Brussels, succeeded in inducing the London conference to sign a new protocol, undertaking to negotiate with Holland for the cession of Luxemburg to Belgium, in return for an indemnity elsewhere, provided that Belgium should first accept the protocol of January 20. The Belgian congress gathered that the acceptance of Prince Leopold was regarded by the powers as more important than the maintenance of the terms of that protocol, and they accordingly elected him as their king on June 4 without accepting the protocol. In answer to Dutch complaints Ponsonby and General Belliard, the French minister, were recalled from Brussels as the protocol of May 10 required. Leopold refused to accept the crown until the conference should have offered better terms, and on the 26th the conference signed another protocol, which differed from that of January 20 in that it left the Luxemburg question open for future negotiation, and rendered Holland liable for the whole of the debt that it had incurred before the union of the two countries. On the same day Leopold accepted the Belgian crown. The Belgian congress accepted this last protocol on July 7, and on the 21st Leopold was proclaimed king, and immediately recognised by Great Britain and France. The other great powers were not long in following their example.
It was now Holland's turn to feel aggrieved. She refused to recognise the changes proposed by the powers in the terms which she had already accepted. On May 21 she had declared that if the protocol of January 20 were not accepted by June 1 she would consider herself free to act on her own account, and on July 12 that the acceptance in Belgium of a king who had not agreed to that protocol would be an act of hostility. Feeling herself betrayed by the conference she gave notice on August 1 that the armistice which had existed since the previous November would terminate on the 4th. It was soon seen how much Holland had lost in the preceding year by being found in a state of military unpreparedness. When hostilities began the Dutch carried everything before them. On the 8th the Belgians were routed at Hasselt, and on the 13th Leopold in person was compelled to surrender Louvain. But Holland was now arrested in the full tide of her success. The opportunity that French patriots had long desired had presented itself, and Louis Philippe would only have endangered his own throne if he had failed to come to the assistance of Belgium against Holland. On the 4th he received Leopold's appeal for assistance; on the 12th the first French division reached Brussels, and on the following day the Prince of Orange, who led the main Dutch army, received orders from the Hague to retire within the Dutch frontier.
COERCION OF HOLLAND.
The conference had in fact found it necessary to join in measures of coercion. On the first news of the outbreak of hostilities it severely reproached Holland for the breach of the armistice, and ordered the Dutch forces to retire. By a protocol of the 6th it accepted and justified the French expedition, which, it knew, could not safely be recalled, and tried to minimise the danger by forbidding the French to cross the Dutch frontier and requiring them to return to France as soon as the Dutch should return to Holland. At the same time a semblance of joint action was created by the despatch of a British fleet to the Downs. If the Dutch invasion of Belgium created excitement in France, the French expedition had a similar effect in England, and Palmerston found it necessary to insist sternly on the immediate evacuation of Belgium upon the withdrawal of the Dutch troops. The French government naturally desired to point to some tangible triumph of French arms, and requested that the troops should be allowed to remain till the frontier fortresses should have been demolished in accordance with the protocol of April 17. In a somewhat insulting message Palmerston threatened a general war sooner than allow the French troops to remain. The most that France could obtain was that 12,000 men might remain a fortnight longer than the rest and that a number of French officers might enlist in the Belgian service.
The conference now returned to the task of effecting a settlement in accordance with the terms of the protocol of June 26. On October 15 it provided for the partition of the grand duchy of Luxemburg between Holland and Belgium and for the indemnification of Holland with a larger portion of Limburg than had belonged to her in 1790. At the same time provision was made for the freedom of the Scheldt, and the debt was reassessed, 8,400,000 florins of rentes136 being assigned to Belgium and 19,300,000 to Holland. Along with this protocol a letter was sent to the Belgian plenipotentiary, promising that if Belgium accepted it, the powers would undertake to obtain the consent of Holland. The protocol was converted into a treaty by the adhesion of Belgium on November 15. Meanwhile the King of the Netherlands had appealed to the tsar against the action of the western powers and of the Russian plenipotentiaries at London, and the tsar had in consequence refused to ratify the treaty till the King of the Netherlands should have given his consent. That consent was slow in coming. It was only on June 30, 1832, that Holland agreed to the exchange of territories and the reduction of Belgium's share of the debt, and even then questions remained as to the dues on the Scheldt and the transit of goods through Dutch Limburg. The Belgians refused to negotiate further until the citadel of Antwerp should be surrendered; the Dutch on the other hand refused to surrender it till a definite treaty should be signed and ratified. On October 1 France, with the approval of the British government, proposed to suspend the payment of the Belgian share of the interest on the debt until the citadel of Antwerp should be surrendered, and to deduct from the share of the principal payable by Belgium, 500,000 florins of rentes for each week that should elapse before the surrender. The three eastern powers refused to agree to any coercion of Holland, and, in consequence, Great Britain and France determined to act alone.
On the 22nd they signed a convention providing for the coercion of Holland by an embargo and by the despatch of a squadron to the Dutch coast. If any Dutch troops should be still in Belgium on November 15, a French force was empowered, subject to the consent of the Belgian government, to advance into Belgium and expel the Dutch troops from the country. The French were, however, to retire as soon as the Dutch evacuation was complete. The first result of this convention was the suspension of the conference. On the 29th the two powers made their demand. As the Dutch refused compliance, a joint French and British fleet sailed on November 4 to blockade the Scheldt, and the embargo was proclaimed on the 6th. On the 15th a French army of 56,000 men, commanded by Gérard, entered Belgium. On December 4 it opened fire on the citadel of Antwerp, which surrendered after a nineteen days' bombardment on the 23rd. The French army returned to its own country before the end of the year, leaving the Dutch in possession of two small forts on the Belgian side of the frontier, which were more than compensated by the positions held by the Belgians in Dutch Limburg. Even the fall of the citadel of Antwerp did not induce Holland to accept the settlement proposed by the powers, and Great Britain and France now attempted to effect a working agreement pending negotiations on the details of the treaty. It was in vain that Holland asked that Belgium should evacuate the Dutch provinces of Limburg and Luxemburg and pay her share of the interest on the Dutch debt. Palmerston and Talleyrand refused to include these provisions in a preliminary convention. Finally on March 21, 1833, a convention was signed between Great Britain, France, and Holland, which terminated the embargo and provided for the free navigation of the Scheldt and Maas. A similar convention was signed between Holland and Belgium on November 18. Six years, however, were to elapse before the Dutch government would consent to the conditions drawn up by the powers in 1831. Meanwhile the Belgians were free from their share of debt, held the greater part of Limburg and Luxemburg, and enjoyed the free navigation of the Maas and the Scheldt, over and above the terms granted them in 1831.
POLISH REBELLION.
It is inconceivable that the Belgian question should have been left so entirely in the hands of the two western powers, and that the settlement should have taken the form of a foreign coercion of a legitimate king for his unreadiness to make concessions to his revolted subjects, had not the attention of the three absolutist powers of eastern and central Europe been directed to another quarter. Just as the revolution of 1820 had spread through southern Europe in spite of Castlereagh's attempt to maintain that it was not of a contagious order, so that of 1830 awakened similar outbursts not only at Brussels but in various German states, in Switzerland, in Poland, and in Italy. The Polish insurrection was, like the Belgian, a national revolt, and the consequent military operations were of the nature of a war between Poland and Russia. The revolt broke out at Warsaw on November 29, 1830, and on January 25, 1831, the Polish diet proclaimed the independence of Poland. On February 5 a Russian army crossed the Polish frontier. In France there was a loud popular demand for intervention. But even the Laffitte ministry would not move without the co-operation of Great Britain, though the French ambassador at Constantinople tried to stir up the Porte to hostilities. The ministry of Casimir-Perier, which came into office in March, proposed a joint mediation of France and Great Britain, but to this Palmerston would not assent. He remonstrated with Russia on her violations of the Polish constitution, which Great Britain, along with the other powers, had guaranteed at the congress of Vienna, but he could not support the Polish claim to independence, since Great Britain had made herself a party to the union of the two countries. As it happened, the remonstrance was simply a cause of annoyance, which subsequent events were destined to intensify. It was only on September 8, 1831, that the Russians under Paskievitch captured Warsaw, an event which was followed on February 26, 1832, by the abolition of the Polish constitution. Palmerston protested again but with no more success than in the previous year.
DOM MIGUEL AND DON CARLOS.
In the Portuguese, as in the Belgian question, Palmerston drifted from the position of a neutral into that of a partisan. Ever since the year 1828, British subjects accused of political offences had been brutally ill-treated in Portugal, and as time went on the excesses increased. By despatching six British warships to the Tagus Palmerston succeeded in obtaining a pecuniary indemnity and a public apology on May 2, 1831. Similar insults to France were not so readily redressed. A threat of force on the part of the French government was followed by an appeal from Dom Miguel for British assistance. This Palmerston refused to grant, and in July a French squadron under Admiral Roussin forced the passage of the Tagus, and carried off the best ships of the Portuguese navy. Meanwhile much irritation had been caused in Brazil by Peter's advocacy of his daughter's claim to Portugal, which was considered inconsistent with his professed adherence to the separation of the two countries. On April 6, Peter abdicated the crown of Brazil in favour of his infant son, Peter II., and on the following day sailed for Europe in order to assert his daughter's right to the Portuguese throne. He arrived in Europe towards the end of May, and visited both England and France.
Though neither government assisted him directly, he was permitted to raise troops and even to secure the services of naval officers, and in December a force of 300 men sailed from Liverpool to Belleisle, which he had appointed as the rendezvous. Palmerston had thus, unlike Wellington, adopted the same attitude towards the Portuguese liberals that Ferdinand VII. had adopted towards the absolutists. Peter's expedition gathered further strength at the Azores and sailed for Portugal on June 27, 1832. On July 8, the fleet, commanded by Admiral Sartorius, a British officer, appeared off Oporto, which submitted on the following day. The town was, however, blockaded by Miguel's forces and Peter's cause made no headway until in June, 1833, the command of the fleet was transferred to Captain (afterwards Admiral Sir Charles) Napier. On the night of June 24, he landed at Villa Real a force of 2,500 men who conquered the province of Algarve in a week, and on July 5 he annihilated Miguel's navy in an engagement off Cape St. Vincent. After a further battle near Lisbon, Peter's forces entered the capital on the 24th, and subsequently repulsed a Miguelite attack upon the city. Miguel still held out in northern Portugal, when another train of events caused the western powers to substitute direct for indirect interference.