Holland - Thomas Colley Grattan
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It was in this state of public feeling that intelligence was
received in March, 1815, of the reappearance in France of the
emperor Napoleon. At the head of three hundred men he had taken
the resolution, without parallel even among the grandest of his
own powerful conceptions, of invading a country containing thirty
millions of people, girded by the protecting armies of coalesced
Europe, and imbued, beyond all doubt, with an almost general
objection to the former despot who now put his foot on its shores,
with imperial pretensions only founded on the memory of his bygone
glory. His march to Paris was a miracle; and the vigor of his
subsequent measures redeems the ambitious imbecility with which
he had hurried on the catastrophe of his previous fall.
The flight of Louis XVIII. from Paris was the sure signal to
the kingdom of the Netherlands, in which he took refuge, that it
was about to become the scene of another contest for the life or
death of despotism. Had the invasion of Belgium, which now took
place, been led on by one of the Bourbon family, it is probable
that the priesthood, the people, and even the nobility, would
have given it not merely a negative support. But the name of
Napoleon was a bugbear for every class; and the efforts of the
King and government, which met with most enthusiastic support
in the northern provinces, were seconded with zeal and courage
by the rest of the kingdom.
The national force was soon in the field, under the command of
the Prince of Orange, the king's eldest son, and heir-apparent
to the throne for which he now prepared to fight. His brother,
Prince Frederick, commanded a division under him. The English army,
under the duke of Wellington, occupied Brussels and the various
cantonments in its neighborhood; and the Prussians, commanded by
Prince Blucher, were in readiness to co-operate with their allies
on the first movement of the invaders.
Napoleon, hurrying from Paris to strike some rapid and decisive
blow, passed the Sambre on the 15th of June, at the head of the
French army, one hundred and fifty thousand strong, driving the
Prussians before him beyond Charleroi and back on the plain of
Fleurus with some loss. On the 16th was fought the bloody battle
of Ligny, in which the Prussians sustained a decided defeat; but
they retreated in good order on the little river Lys, followed
by Marshal Grouchy with thirty thousand men detached by Napoleon
in their pursuit. On the same day the British advanced position
at Quatre Bras, and the _corps_d'armee_ commanded by the Prince
of Orange, were fiercely attacked by Marshal Ney; a battalion of
Belgian infantry and a brigade of horse artillery having been
engaged in a skirmish the preceding evening at Frasnes with the
French advanced troops.
The affair of Quatre Bras was sustained with admirable firmness
by the allied English and Netherland forces, against an enemy
infinitely superior in number, and commanded by one of the best
generals in France. The Prince of Orange, with only nine thousand
men, maintained his position till three o'clock in the afternoon,
despite the continual attacks of Marshal Ney, who commanded the
left of the French army, consisting of forty-three thousand men.
But the interest of this combat, and the details of the loss
in killed and wounded, are so merged in the succeeding battle,
which took place on the 18th, that they form in most minds a
combination of exploits which the interval of a day can scarcely
be considered to have separated.
The 17th was occupied by a retrograde movement of the allied
army, directed by the duke of Wellington, for the purpose of
taking its stand on the position he had previously fixed on for
the pitched battle, the decisive nature of which his determined
foresight had anticipated. Several affairs between the French
and English cavalry took place during this movement; and it is
pretty well established that the enemy, flushed with the victory
over Blucher of the preceding day, were deceived by this short
retreat of Wellington, and formed a very mistaken notion of its
real object, or of the desperate reception destined for the morrow's
attack.
The battle of Waterloo has been over and over described and
profoundly felt, until its records may be said to exist in the
very hearts and memories of the nations. The fiery valor of the
assault, and the unshakable firmness of the resistance, are perhaps
without parallel in the annals of war. The immense stake depending
on the result, the grandeur of Napoleon's isolated efforts against
the flower of the European forces, and the awful responsibility
resting on the head of their great leader, give to this conflict
a romantic sublimity, unshared by all the manoeuvring of science
in a hundred commonplace combats of other wars. It forms an epoch
in the history of battles. It is to the full as memorable, as an
individual event, as it is for the consequences which followed
it. It was fought by no rules, and gained by no tactics. It was a
fair stand-up fight on level ground, where downright manly courage
was alone to decide the issue. This derogates in nothing from the
splendid talents and deep knowledge of the rival commanders.
Their reputation for all the intricate qualities of generalship
rests on the broad base of previous victories. This day was to
be won by strength of nerve and steadiness of heart; and a moral
grandeur is thrown over its result by the reflection that human
skill had little to do where so much was left to Providence.
We abstain from entering on details of the battle. It is enough
to state that throughout the day the troops of the Netherlands
sustained the character for courage which so many centuries had
established. Various opinions have gone forth as to the conduct of
the Belgian troops on this memorable occasion. Isolated instances
were possibly found, among a mass of several thousands, of that
nervous weakness which neither the noblest incitements nor the
finest examples can conquer. Old associations and feelings not
effaced might have slackened the efforts of a few, directed against
former comrades or personal friends whom the stern necessity of
politics had placed in opposing ranks. Raw troops might here
and there have shrunk from attacks the most desperate on record;
but that the great principle of public duty, on grounds purely
national, pervaded the army, is to be found in the official reports
of its loss; two thousand and fifty-eight men killed and one
thousand nine hundred and thirty-six wounded prove indelibly
that the troops of the Netherlands had their full share in the
honor of the day. The victory was cemented by the blood of the
Prince of Orange, who stood the brunt of the fight with his gallant
soldiers. His conduct was conformable to the character of his
whole race, and to his own reputation during a long series of
service with the British army in the Spanish peninsula. He stood
bravely at the head of his troops during the murderous conflict;
or, like Wellington, in whose school he was formed and whose
example was beside him, rode from rank to rank and column to
column, inspiring his men by the proofs of his untiring courage.
Several anecdotes are related of the prince's conduct throughout
the day. One is remarkable as affording an example of those pithy
epigrams of the battlefield with which history abounds, accompanied
by an act that speaks a fine knowledge of the soldier's heart. On
occasion of one peculiarly desperate charge, the prince, hurried
on by his ardor, was actually in the midst of the French, and was
in the greatest danger; when a Belgian battalion rushed forward,
and, after a fierce struggle, repulsed the enemy and disengaged the
prince. In the impulse of his admiration and gratitude, he tore
from his breast one of those decorations gained by his own conduct
on some preceding occasion, and flung it among the battalion,
calling out, "Take it, take it, my lads! you have all earned it!"
This decoration was immediately grappled for, and tied to the
regimental standard, amid loud shouts of "Long live the prince!"
and vows to defend the trophy, in the very utterance of which
many a brave fellow received the stroke of death.
A short time afterward, and just half an hour before that terrible
charge of the whole line, which decided the victory, the prince
was struck by a musket-ball in the left shoulder. He was carried
from the field, and conveyed that evening to Brussels, in the
same cart with one of his wounded aides-de-camp, supported by
another, and displaying throughout as much indifference to pain
as he had previously shown contempt of danger.
The battle of Waterloo consolidated the kingdom of the Netherlands.
The wound of the Prince of Orange was perhaps one of the most
fortunate that was ever received by an individual, or sympathized
in by a nation. To a warlike people, wavering in their allegiance,
this evidence of the prince's valor acted like a talisman against
disaffection. The organization of the kingdom was immediately
proceeded on. The commission, charged with the revision of the
fundamental law, and the modification required by the increase
of territory, presented its report on the 31st of July. The
inauguration of the king took place at Brussels on the 21st of
September, in presence of the states-general: and the ceremony
received additional interest from the appearance of the sovereign
supported by his two sons who had so valiantly fought for the
rights he now swore to maintain; the heir to the crown yet bearing
his wounded arm in a scarf, and showing in his countenance the
marks of recent suffering.
The constitution was finally accepted by the nation, and the
principles of the government were stipulated and fixed in one
grand view--that of the union, and, consequently, the force of
the new state.
It has been asked by a profound and sagacious inquirer, or at
least the question is put forth on undoubted authority in his
name, "Why did England create for herself a difficulty, and what
will be by and by a natural enemy, in uniting Holland and Belgium,
in place of managing those two immense resources to her commerce
by keeping them separate? For Holland, without manufactures,
was the natural mart for those of England, while Belgium under
an English prince had been the route for constantly inundating
France and Germany."
So asked Napoleon, and England may answer and justify her conduct
so impugned, on principles consistent with the general wishes
and the common good of Europe. The discussion of the question
is foreign to our purpose, which is to trace the circumstances,
not to argue on the policy, that led to the formation of the
Netherlands as they now exist. But it appears that the different
integral parts of the nation were amalgamated from deep-formed
designs for their mutual benefit. Belgium was not given to Holland,
as the already-cited article of the treaty of Paris might at
first sight seem to imply; nor was Holland allotted to Belgium.
But they were grafted together, with all the force of legislative
wisdom; not that one might be dominant and the other oppressed,
but that both should bend to form an arch of common strength,
able to resist the weight of such invasions as had perpetually
periled, and often crushed, their separate independence.
SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER
A.D. 1815--1899
In the preceding chapters we have seen the history of Holland
carried down to the treaty which joined together what are now
known as the separate countries of Holland and Belgium. And it is
at this point that the interest of the subject for the historian
practically ceases. The historian differs from the annalist in
this--that he selects for treatment those passages in the career
of nations which possess a dramatic form and unity, and therefore
convey lessons for moral guidance, or for constituting a basis
for reasonable prognostications of the future. But there are in
the events of the world many tracts of country (as we might term
them) which have no special character or apparent significance, and
which therefore, though they may extend over many years in time,
are dismissed with bare mention in the pages of the historian;
just as, in travelling by rail, the tourist will keep his face
at the window only when the scenery warrants it; at other times
composing himself to other occupations.
The scenery of Dutch history has episodes as stirring and instructive
as those of any civilized people since history began; but it
reached its dramatic and moral apogee when the independence of
the United Netherlands was acknowledged by Spain. The Netherlands
then reached their loftiest pinnacle of power and prosperity;
their colonial possessions were vast and rich; their reputation
as guardians of liberty and the rights of man was foremost in the
world. But further than this they could not go; and the moment
when a people ceases to advance may generally be regarded as
the moment when, relatively speaking at least, it begins to go
backward. The Dutch could in no sense become the masters of Europe;
not only was their domain too small, but it was geographically at
a disadvantage with the powerful and populous nations neighboring
it, and it was compelled ever to fight for its existence against
the attacks of nature itself. The stormy waves of the North Sea
were ever moaning and threatening at the gates, and ever and anon
a breach would be made, and the labor of generations annulled.
Holland could never enter upon a career of conquest, like France
or Russia; neither could she assume the great part which Britain
has played; for although the character of the Dutchmen is in
many respects as strong and sound as that of the English, and
in some ways its superior, yet the Dutch had not been dowered
with a sea-defended isle for their habitation, which might enable
them to carry out enterprises abroad without the distraction and
weakness involved in maintaining adequate guards at home. They
were mighty in self-defence and in resistance against tyranny;
and they were unsurpassed in those virtues and qualities which go
to make a nation rich and orderly; but aggression could not be
for them. They took advantage of their season of power to confirm
themselves in the ownership of lands in the extreme East and in
the West, which should be a continual source of revenue; but
they could do no more; and they wasted not a little treasure and
strength in preserving what they had gained, or a part of it, from
the grasp of others. But this was the sum of their possibility;
they could not presume to dictate terms to the world; and the
consequence was that they gradually ceased to be a considered
factor in the European problem. In some respects, their territorial
insignificance, while it prevented them from aggressive action,
preserved them from aggression; their domain was not worth
conquering, and again its conquest could not be accomplished
by any nation without making others uneasy and jealous. They
became, like Switzerland, and unlike Poland and Hungary, a neutral
region, which it was for the interest of Europe at large to let
alone. None cared to meddle with them; and, on the other hand,
they had native virtue and force enough to resist being absorbed
into other peoples; the character of the Dutch is as distinct
to-day as ever it had been. Their language, their literature,
their art, and their personal traits, are unimpaired. They are,
in their own degree, remarkably prosperous and comfortable; and
they have the good sense to be content with their condition.
They are liberal and progressive, and yet conservative; they are
even with modern ideas as regards education and civilization,
and yet the tourist within their boundaries continually finds
himself reminded of their past. The costumes and the customs of
the mass of the people have undergone singularly little change;
they mind their own affairs, and are wisely indifferent to the
affairs of others. Both as importers and as exporters they are
useful to the world, and if the prophecies of those who foretell
a general clash of the European powers should be fulfilled, it
is likely that the Dutch will be onlookers merely, or perhaps
profit by the misfortunes of their neighbors to increase their
own well-being.
As we have seen in the foregoing pages, Belgium did not unite
with the Hollanders in their revolt of the sixteenth century;
but appertained to Burgundy, and was afterward made a domain
of France. But after Napoleon had been overthrown at Waterloo,
the nations who had been so long harried and terrorized by him
were not satisfied with banishing the ex-conqueror to his island
exile, but wished to present any possibility of another Napoleon
arising to renew the wars which had devastated and impoverished
them. Consequently they agreed to make a kingdom which might act
as a buffer between France and the rest of Europe; and to this
end they decreed that Belgium and Holland should be one. But in
doing this, the statesmen or politicians concerned failed to take
into account certain factors and facts which must inevitably, in
the course of time, undermine their arrangements. Nations cannot
be arbitrarily manufactured to suit the convenience of others.
There is a chemistry in nationalities which has laws of its own,
and will not be ignored. Between the Hollanders and the Belgians
there existed not merely a negative lack of homogeneity, but a
positive incompatibility. The Hollanders had for generations been
fighters and men of enterprise; the Belgians had been the appanage
of more powerful neighbors. The Hollanders were Protestants; the
Belgians were adherents of the Papacy. The former were seafarers;
the latter, farmers. The sympathies or affiliations of the Dutch
were with the English and the Germans; those of the Belgians
were with the French. Moreover, the Dutch were inclined to act
oppressively toward the Belgians, and this disposition was made
the more irksome by the fact that King William was a dull, stupid,
narrow and very obstinate sovereign, who thought that to have a
request made of him was reason sufficient for resisting it.
But over and above all these causes for disintegration of the new
kingdom lay facts of the broadest significance and application.
The arbiters of 1815 did not sufficiently apprehend the meaning of
the French Revolution. The wars of Napoleon had made them forget
it; his power had seemed so much more formidable and positive
that the deeper forces which had brought about the events of the
last decade of the eighteenth century were ignored. But they
still continued profoundly active, and were destined ere long
to announce themselves anew. They were in truth the generative
forces of the nineteenth century.
They have not yet spent themselves; but as we look back upon
the events of the past eighty or ninety years, we perceive what
vast differences there are between what we were in Napoleon's day
and what we are now. A long period of intrigue and misrule, of
wars and revolutions, has been followed by material, mental and
social changes affecting every class of the people, and especially
that class which had hitherto been almost entirely unconsidered.
The wars of this century have been of another character than
those of the past; they have not involved basic principles of
human association, but have been the result of attempts to gain
comparatively trifling political advantages, or else were the
almost inevitable consequence of adjustments of national relations.
Several small new kingdoms have appeared; but their presence
has not essentially altered the political aspect of Europe. It
is the conquests of mind that have been, in this century, far
more important than the struggles of arms. Steam, as applied
to locomotion on sea and land, and to manufactures, has brought
about modifications in social and industrial conditions that
cannot be exaggerated. Steamboats and railroads have not only
given a different face to commerce and industry, but they have
united the world in bonds of mutual knowledge and sympathy, which
cannot fail to profoundly affect the political relations of mankind.
Isolation is ignorance; as soon as men begin to discover, by actual
intercourse, the similarities and dissimilarities of their several
conditions, these will begin to show improvements. To be assured
that people in one part of the world are better off than those in
another, will tend inevitably to bring about ameliorations for
the latter. The domain of evil will be continually restricted,
and that of good enlarged. In the dissemination of intelligence
and the spread of sympathy, the telegraph, and other applications
of electricity, have enormously aided the work of steam. Every
individual of civilized mankind may now be cognizant, at any
moment, of what is taking place at any point of the earth's surface
to which the appliances of civilization have penetrated. This
unprecedented spread of common acquaintanceship of the world
has been supplemented by discoveries of science in many other
directions. We know more of the moon to-day than Europe did of
this planet a few centuries ago. The industrial arts are now
prosecuted by machinery with a productiveness which enables one
man to do the work formerly performed by hundreds, and which more
than keeps up the supply with the demand. Conquests of natural
forces are constantly making, and each one of them adds to the
comfort and enlightenment of man. Men, practically, live a dozen
lives such as those of the past in their single span of seventy
years; and we are even finding means of prolonging the Scriptural
limit of mortal existence physically as well as mentally.
But is all this due to that great moral and social earthquake
to which we give the name of the French Revolution? Yes; for
that upheaval, like the plow of some titanic husbandman, brought
to the surface elements of good and use which had been lying
fallow for unnumbered ages. It brought into view the People,
as against mere rulers and aristocrats, who had hitherto lived
upon what the People produced, without working themselves, and
without caring for anything except to conserve things as they
were. Human progress will never be advanced by oligarchies, no
matter how gentle and well-disposed. We see their results to-day
in Spain and in Turkey, which are still mediaeval, or worse, in
their condition and methods. It is the brains of the common people
that have wrought the mighty change; their personal interests
demand that they go forward, and their fresh and unencumbered
minds show them the way. The great scientists, the inventors,
the philanthropists, the reformers, are all of the common people;
the statesmen who have really governed the world in this century
have sprung from the common stock. The French Revolution destroyed
the dominance of old ideas, and with them the forms in which
they were embodied. Political, personal and religious freedom
are now matters of course; but a hundred years ago they were
almost unheard of, save in the dreams of optimists and fanatics.
The rights of labor have been vindicated; and the right of every
human being to the benefit of what he produces has been claimed
and established. Along with this improvement has come, of course,
a train of evils and abuses, due to our ignorance of how best
to manage and apply our new privileges and advantages; but such
evils are transient, and the conditions which created them will
suffice, ere long, to remove them. The conflict between labor
and capital is not permanent; it will yield to better knowledge
of the true demands of political economy. The indifference or
corruption of law makers and dispensers will disappear when men
realize that personal selfishness is self-destructive, and that
only care for the commonweal can bring about prosperity for the
individual. The democracy is still in its swaddling clothes,
and its outward aspect is in many ways ugly and unwelcome, and
we sigh for the elegance and composure of old days; but these
discomforts are a necessary accompaniment of growth, and will
vanish when the growing pains are past. The Press is the mirror of
the aspirations, the virtues and the faults of the new mankind; its
power is stupendous and constantly increasing; many are beginning
to dread it as a possible agent of ill; but in truth its real
power can only be for good, since the mass of mankind, however
wedded to selfishness as individuals, are united in desiring
honesty and good in the general trend of things; and it is to
the generality, and not to the particular, that the Press, to
be successful, must appeal. It is the great critic and the great
recorder; and in the face of such criticism and record abuses
cannot long maintain themselves. Men will be free, first of external
tyrannies, and then of that more subtle but not less dangerous
tyranny which they impose upon themselves. As might have been
expected, extremists have arisen who sought to find a short road
to perfection, and they have met with disappointment. The dreams
of the socialists have not been realized; men will not work for one
another unless they are at the same time working for themselves.
The communist and the nihilist are yet further from the true
ideal; there will always remain in human society certain persons
who rule, and others who obey. There must always, in all affairs,
be a head to direct as well as hands to execute. Men are born
unequal in intelligence and ability; and it will never be possible
to reduce leaders to the level of followers. The form of society
must take its model from the human form, in which one part is
subordinate to another, yet all work together in harmony. Only
time--and probably no very long time--is required to bring a
recognition of these facts. Meanwhile, the very violence of the
revolts against even the suspicion of oppression are but symptoms
of the vigorous vitality which, in former centuries, seemed to have
no existence at all. On the other hand, industrial co-operation
seems to promise successful development; it involves immense
economies, and consequent profit to producers. The middleman has
his uses, and especially is he a convenience; but it is easy to
pay too dear for conveniences; and there seems no reason why the
producer should not, as time goes on, become constantly better
equipped for dealing direct with the consumer, to the manifest
advantage of both.