obody probably will believe this.

The Treaty of 1839 was a treaty just like the Treaty of 1871, with this
difference, that the latter treaty was concluded between two powers, and
the earlier one between five powers on one side and Belgium and Holland
on the other. This gave certain rights to all the signatory powers, any
one of whom had the right to feel itself sufficiently aggrieved to go to
war if any other power disregarded the treaty.

Rights of Neutrals.

There was once another neutral State, the city and district of Cracow,
also established by a treaty to which Great Britain was a signatory.
Three of the signers considered the conditions developing in Cracow to
be so threatening that they abolished Cracow as an independent State.
Great Britain sent a polite note of protest, and dropped the matter.

Since that time, however, two Hague Conferences have been held and
certain rules agreed upon concerning the rights and duties of neutrals.
The Belgian status of inviolability rests on these rules, called
conventions, rather than on the Treaty of 1839. During the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870 Mr. Gladstone very clearly stated that he
did not consider the Treaty of 1839 enforceable. Great Britain,
therefore, made two new treaties, one with France and one with Prussia
(quoted and discussed in Boston Evening Transcript, Oct. 14, 1914) in
which she promised to defend Belgian neutrality, by the side of either
France or Prussia, against that one of them who should infringe the
neutrality.

These treaties were to terminate one year after peace had been
concluded between the contestants. A treaty, like the one of 1839,
however, which was considered unenforceable in 1870, can hardly be
claimed to have gained new rights in 1914. In calm moments nobody will
claim that a greater sanctity attaches to it than to the treaty in which
Alsace and Lorraine are ceded forever to Germany.

No, it is The Hague Conventions to which we must look. The first
convention (1899) contained no rules forbidding belligerents from
entering neutral territory. In the second conference it was thought
desirable to formulate such rules, because it was felt that in war
belligerents are at liberty to do what is not expressly forbidden. At
the request of France, therefore, a new set of rules was suggested, to
which Great Britain and Belgium offered valuable amendments. The rules
were finally accepted, and are today parts of international law. They
read; "