Flushing / Vlissingen
Holland's policy during two centuries was shutting the Scheldt, and she reluctantly ceded at the dictation of the Five Powers to Belgium in 1839 the "common possession," "common control," and "reciprocal freedom" of and on that river.
Vlissingen, Holland, is a port city some 60 miles south of Amsterdam. As a fortress, Flushing [in Dutch, Vlissingen] commands the mouth of the river Schelde. The Schelde, or Scheldt, one of the most important rivers of the Netherlands, takes its rise in the French Department of L'Aisne, traverses a part of France, east and west Flanders, and, flowing by Ghent, receives the navigable waters of the Lys and two canals; it then turns easterly to the Province of Antwerp, and then northerly between that Province and east Flanders. At Antwerp it forms a secure harbor, and there were a large number of wet and dry docks for the accommodation of large vessels. The Shelde connects to the sea through Dutch territory, and is the connection to the sea for the great Belgian port of Antwerp. As a place of commerce Antwerp had taken an extraordinary development since the middle of the nineteenth century, and, next to Hamburg, it became the most important maritime city of continental Europe.
Flushing was the birthplace of De Ruyter, and one of the first towns from which the Spaniards were expelled, later grew ambitious of attracting the carrying trade which now enriches Antwerp. Vast docks had been constructed, and steamers daily sail to England, but the insalubrity of the climate must ever prove a great disadvantage. It was the fevers of Walcheren which destroyed the English army landed for the purpose of investing Antwerp.
After the Gueux had taken Briel, Flushing was the first Dutch town which raised the standard of liberty [in 1572). Admiral de Kuyter, the greatest naval hero of the Dutch, was born here in 1607 (d. 1676). He was the son of a rope-maker, but his mother, whose name he assumed, was of noble origin. His greatest exploit was the ascent of the Thames with his fleet in 1667, when he demolished fortifications and vessels of war, and threw London into the utmost consternation. A few weeks afterwards, however, peace was declared at Breda, and the achievements of the Admiral were thus terminated. A monument was erected to his memory in 1841 near the harbour. Flushing was also a place of some importance during the Napoleonic wars. It was bombarded and taken by the English fleet under Lord Chatham in 1809, on which occasion upwards of a hundred houses, the handsome town-hall, and two churches, were destroyed. In 1559 Philip II. embarked at Flashing, never again to return to the Netherlands. He is said to have been accompanied thus far by Prince William of Orange, and to have reproached him with having caused the failure of his plans. The prince pleaded that he had acted in accordance with the wishes of the States.
Ship-building, beer-brewing, ropespinning, weaving, sawing wood, grinding corn, tanning leather, £c. were carried on, especially at Flushing. The Flushing Route, opened in 1875, became one of the most popular ways of reaching the Continent from England. Railway from London (Victoria, Holborn Viaduct, or Ludgate Hill Station) to Queenborough in 1-3/4 hr.: steamer thence to Flashing in 8-9 hours. The steamers were large and comfortable. From Flushing a railway had been constructed through West and South Bevel and to Bergen-op Zoom, joining the other continental lines. Flushing had a considerable shipping trade. In many parts are large artificial mounds, supposed to have been erected by the early inhabitants as places of refuge from high tides.
Holland's pretension to the absolute sovereignty of the Scheldt was revived in 1910 by General den Beer Poortugael, who made himself the mouthpiece of the philo-German party at the Hague. By 1910 the question of the proposed Dutch fortifications was a burning one for Great Britain. The attempt by the Dutch Government to revive its old claim to the sole sovereignty of the Scheldt came by the fortification of Flushing. M. Mares von Swinderen, the Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs, said that the relations between Belgium and Holland are so good that it will soon be possible to cry "There is no longer a Schelt!" In such a case the Dutch were unlikely to bind themselves by secret treaty to Germany or any Power, in order to prevent assistance coming to Antwerp from England.
The matter had an enormous military importance for the UK, which was bound by treaty to send a fleet and an army to the assistance of Belgium if attacked either by France, Germany, or Holland. And as an attack by the Dutch was in the highest degree unlikely, Belgium and Britain were equally concerned in providing for a free passage up the Schelt to Antwerp, in case either the French or Germans attempted to take that powerful fortress.
Great Britain did not protest was due simply to the inherent reluctanee of the Foreign Office to grapple with any troublesome question until it became imperative to do so. In this way troublesome questions often become serious difficulties, but it is the method of Downing Street which is open to the reproach that it can attend to only one thing at a time. But it is never at a loss for a plausible excuse in neglecting the other things. In the case of the fortification of Flushing, and its effect on the unrestricted freedom of the Scheldt as an open waterway, it excused itself on the ground that any intervention on its part would have thrown the Dutch' people into the arms of Germany.
The Dutch proposal to fortify Flushing came then at an opportune moment. It promised to provide Antwerp with the defence towards the sea which it lacked. That was one reason why the Belgian Government declined in 1911 to make any protest against the fortification of Flushing, acting on the principle that Holland had an unimpeachable right to take whatever steps it liked on its own soil, and leaving the question of the sovereignty of the Scheldt over for a future occasion.
In 1911 the fortification of Flushing was merely a paper intention; in 1914 it was an accomplished fact. Both the British and the Belgian Governments were blameworthy for neglecting to enforce in 1911 the principle which they had vindicated in 1831, 1839, and finally in 1863, establishing in the first place and recognising in the second the fact that the sovereignty of the Scheldt had become a co-partnership between Holland and Belgium, instead of the sole possession of the House of Orange.
After many debates this proposal was carried in the Dutch Chambers and eventually several cupola forts, armed with 28-cm guns purchased at Krupps, were established in the sand dunes west and north of Flushing. These guns completely command the mouth of the Scheldt, which is about four and a half miles wide; A new factor thus came into force. Whatever paper rights Holland' might or might not have to revive her old usurpation to monopolize the navigation of the Scheldt, she had forged for herself a fresh weapon giving her the control of the river whenever force superseded law. How this complete change in the established order of things was tolerated by either Great Britain or Belgium remains one of the most convincing proofs of the small part that real statecraft plays in the work of Foreign Departments.
The very fact that Holland had a natural right to fortify Flushing or any other part of her territory made it all the more necessary to emphasize the point that it could in no way affect Belgium's co-sovereignty of the Scheldt or fetter the freedom of access to Antwerp. The fall of Antwerp in 1914 was the direct and almost inevitable consequence of the refusal to uphold and make good the Belgian co-sovereignty of the Scheldt in 1911.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
