The Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe. Leon Dominian
Europe would then become an accomplished fact.
The language of the Duchy of Luxemburg is a Low German dialect in which a strong proportion of Walloon French words is found. French is taught in schools and is the language of the educated classes. It is also used in tribunals, and in many places as the official language of governing and administrative bodies. The use of French is largely due to intimate intellectual ties which bind Luxemburgers and Frenchmen. It is estimated that at least 30,000 natives of the Grand Duchy, or about one-eighth of its population, emigrate to France for business reasons. Many marry French women. Maternal influences prevail with the children born of these unions with the result that, upon returning to their native land, the families bring French speech along.
But French as a commercial language is on the wane throughout the Grand Duchy. German has been replacing it gradually since 1870. This is one of the results of the small state’s admission into the ring of German customs. Prior to that period business was transacted mainly in the French dialect of Lorraine. The spread of German is furthermore the result of a systematically conducted propaganda carried on with well-sustained determination. German “school associations” and “Volksvereine,” established in every city of importance, help to spread German speech and thought. Lectures of the type entitled “The beauty of Schiller’s and Goethe’s speech” are delivered by orators who are in reality skilled pioneers of empire engaged in the work of reclaiming populations to Germanism. The efficiency of their methods is proved by the results they have obtained. Out of a population of about 21,000 inhabitants, hardly 4,000 natives of Luxemburg speak French exclusively, while of the six or seven papers published in the capital, two alone are issued in French.
This closing of the German grip over the land stimulated the growth of national feeling among the inhabitants. They were reminded by their leaders that, from having formerly been one of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands, the duchy acquired the status of a sovereign state in 1890, on the accession of Queen Wilhelmina to the throne. Henceforth the maintenance of Luxemburg’s independence rests on the European powers’ observance of the pledges by which they guaranteed national freedom for this little state.[21] The natives are free from the burden of onerous taxation imposed on inhabitants of the neighboring powerful countries. Peaceful development of their commerce and industry is thus facilitated. Their land is richly endowed by nature. The wine produced in the Moselle valley and the extensive deposits of high grade iron ore found around Etsch make the community one of the most prosperous on the European continent.
Nevertheless the country seemed predestined by nature itself to form a part of Germany. The broken surface of the Ardenne hilly region and the extension of the plateau of Lorraine are drained by the Sauer and Moselle into German territory. The life of the inhabitants of the entire state is influenced by this easterly drift and tends yearly to greater dispersal in the same direction. This is the danger which prompts them to cling to their independence with patriotic tenacity. Their feelings are reflected in their national hymn, which begins with the words “Mir welle bleiwe wat mer sin” (We wish to remain what we are). These are the words of the tune rendered daily at noon by the chimes of the Cathedral of Luxemburg.
Some fifty miles north of Luxemburg, and at the point of contact of the French, German and Dutch languages, lies the neutral territory of Moresnet, barely three and a quarter square miles in area. This forgotten bit of independent land is claimed by both Prussia and Belgium on account of the exceedingly valuable zinc deposits which it contains. It has a population of some 3,000 inhabitants who, alone among Europeans, enjoy the inestimable privilege of not paying taxes to any government. A Burgomaster, selected alternately from among Prussian and Belgian subjects, rules this diminutive state in conjunction with a Communal Council.
The survival of such a relic of medieval political disorders was due to the impossibility of making a settlement between the two claimants of its territory. In the fifteenth century its mines were the property of the Dukes of Limburg, who had leased them to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. Shortly after the French Revolution, they were declared national property by the French Republic and were operated by the government.[22] With the fall of Napoleon, the estate passed under the management of both Prussia and Holland. After the Belgian revolution of 1830, however, the entire property became part of Belgium’s share. A demand for rents in arrears from the lessee by Prussia, although recognized as valid by the courts of Liége, was not approved by the new Belgian state and the only compromise that could be reached was a declaration of the neutrality of the territory.
The Belgian question as well as the related Luxemburg and Moresnet problems, the latter being of slight significance, present themselves today as economic settlements no less than political adjustments. The inner reason which had led German hope to dwell on the annexation of Belgium is the knowledge that such an addition in territory would convert Germany into the dominating industrial nation of Europe. This position of superiority would be firmly established if, in addition, the French basins of Longwy and Briey could be turned into Reichslands, as had been done with Alsace-Lorraine in 1870. Fortunately for Europe, the developments of the armed contest begun in 1914 proved that the threat of this economic vassalage is no longer to be feared. Incidentally it is worth remembering that its realization would obviously have been followed by the loss of Holland’s independence.
Belgium’s political independence is therefore a necessity for the fine adjustment of the balance of European industrial life. And there are quarters where such economic considerations carry greater weight than national sentiments. The main point to be made, however, is that Belgian nationality is entitled to survival, whether it be examined from a material or a moral standpoint. Changes, if any, of its frontiers are indicated in the east, where Malmedy and its environs in Rhenish Prussia constitute a domain of French language. The exchange of this territory for districts of German speech in Belgian Luxemburg and the strategic reinforcement of this eastern frontier, as a safeguard against future aggression, are desirable for Belgians as well as for Germans.
TABLE I
French- and Flemish-Speaking Inhabitants of Belgium
Census of December 31, 1910
| Speaking | ||||
| Provinces | Number of | French- | Flemish- | French and |
| inhabitants | speaking | speaking | Flemish | |
| Antwerp | 968,677 | 12,289 | 762,414 | 113,606 |
| Brabant | 1,469,677 | 382,947 | 603,507 | 381,997 |
| E. Flanders | 1,120,335 | 9,311 | 934,143 | 116,889 |
| W. Flanders | 874,135 | 31,825 | 669,081 | 123,938 |
| Hainaut | 1,232,867 | 1,113,738 | 17,283 | 49,575 |
| Liége |
|