was sorely tried by the Peace Conference. She
complained of two open wounds which poisoned her existence, stunted her
economic growth, and rendered her self-defense an impossibility: the
vast gap of Limburg on the east and the blocking of the Scheldt on the
west. The great national _reduit_, Antwerp, cut off from the sea,
inaccessible to succor in case of war, on the one side, and Limburg
opening to Germany's armies the road through central Belgium, on the
other--these were the two standing dangers which it was hoped would be
removed. How dangerous they are events had demonstrated. In October,
1914, Antwerp fell because Holland had closed the Scheldt and forbidden
the entrance to warships and transports, and in November, 1918, a German
army of over seventy thousand men eluded pursuit by the Allies by
passing through Dutch Limburg, carrying with them vast war materials and
booty. Militarily Belgium is exposed to mortal perils so long as the
treaties which ordained this preposterous division of territories are
maintained in vigor.

Economically, too, the consequences, especially of the status of the
Scheldt, are admittedly baleful. To Holland the river is practically
useless--indeed, the only advantage it could confer would be the power
of impeding the growth and prosperity of Antwerp for the benefit of its
rival, Rotterdam. All that the Belgians desired there was the complete
control of their national river, with the right of carrying out the
works necessary to keep it navigable. A like demand was put forward for
the canal of Terneuzen, which links the city of Ghent with the Scheldt;
and the suppression of the checks and hindrances to Belgium's free
communications with her hinterland--_i.e._, the basins of the Meuse and
the Rhine. Prom every point of view, including that of international
law, the claims made were at once modest and grounded. But the Supreme
Council had no time to devote to such subsidiary matters, and, like more
momentous issues, they were adjourned.

The Belgian delegation did not ask that Holland's territory should be
curtailed. On the contrary, they would have welcomed its increase by the
addition of territory inhabited by people of her own idiom, under
German sway.[137] But the Dutch demurred, as Denmark had done in the
matter of the third Schleswig zone, for fear of offending Germany. And
the Supreme Council acquiesced in the refusal. Again, when issues were
under discussion that turned upon the R