1. ‘Notre seule sauvegarde dans la famille des peuples!’ : Belgian neutrality⁷⁵

20The opposition attacked Rogier. The first orator was Alphonse Nothomb, MP from the rural province of Luxemburg and former Minister of Justice.⁷⁶ Nothomb directed his criticism at the system of ‘annexion’ practiced in Italy. The ‘rupture’ with the Kingdom of Naples would equate a violation of the duties inherent to Belgian neutrality and the law of nations more generally. First, neutrality, as created by article VII of the Treaty of 19 April 1839, was for Nothomb a ‘condition d’existence européenne’.⁷⁷ This alone should have sufficed for the Belgian government. In no way could the country choose to help a foreign state conducting a war.⁷⁸ Nothomb, a lawyer at the local bar in Arlon, appealed to the ‘conscience de tous les hommes qui pratiques les choses du droit’. In other words, the conscience of ordinary law practitioners (traditionally well represented in Parliament) ought to be shocked by the Government’s lack of prudence.⁷⁹

21Nothomb cited definitions of neutrality, ranging from ‘staying in the same attitude’ towards sovereigns in a state of war, to ‘exact and perfect impartiality, demonstrated in fact by the neutral’s attitude towards belligerents’. Rogier would have openly taken part for one side against the other. By granting assistance to one the parties, the Liberals committed a ‘violation manifeste’ of their neutral condition. Rogier presented Italian unification, as proclaimed by Parliament in Turin in Mach 1861, as a fait accompli. But, Nothomb opined, where was the peace treaty between the Holy See and Piemonte, or the Peace Treaty between Naples and Piemonte? Belgium gives ‘gain de cause’ to Piemonte, whereas Garibaldi’s men or Victor Emmanuel’s troops had only occupied territory, and committed ‘ursurpations’ against other sovereigns.⁸⁰

22Resuscitating an 1840 quote by the liberal Founding Father Paul Devaux, Nothomb recalled that Belgian neutrality had to be a synonym for impartiality against the British, the French and the Germans alike. Why not add ‘Piemontese’ to the enumeration? Nothomb recalled that the liberal MP Auguste Orts⁸¹ had taken this stance in Parliament, when he condemned Belgian volunteers for the Papal forces. Orts insisted they should lose their nationality, since:

23‘We ought to be more scrupulous than anybody else, since this is a condition of our independent existence in Europe […]. We have to prove that we desire to remain neutral, since we want to remain independent […] Besides the beautiful right we call independence, we ought to accept the countervailing obligations, namely the obligation not do to others what one would like to avoid others to do in one’s proper home.’⁸²

24Of course, Nothomb defended the right of every individual to ‘serve abroad’, since ‘treaties only bind states’. The liberal government tried to deprive men of their ‘natural liberty’, although neutrality was only a ‘collective’ concept, which could only apply to the State as a whole. Even more, Nothomb argued, Rogier was so hypocritical in his reasoning that he would allow the Belgian State what would be forbidden for the individual citizen: choosing sides for a belligerent in an international conflict not yet settled by a treaty.⁸³

25A major Catholic argument, recurring with several MPs, is that of the possible consequences of Rogier’s letter. What if Belgium would argue that another state violated its duties as a neutral power, when this case would offer a precedent where it had committed such a violation itself?⁸⁴ How would Belgium react, if the Italian irredentist movement annexed Ticino, Venice, Dalmatia or even Corsica? What if Poland would rise and revolt against Russia? What if Ireland would proclaim some far relative of an ‘ancienne race’ as its ruler? Why recognize a ‘state of fact’ in Italy, and not elsewhere? De Decker added that the massive investments required by the government to buttress the fortifications in Antwerp were a clear indication that the country was ‘most threatened by annexation of all countries in Europe’.⁸⁵ Why spend 50 million to transform Antwerp into ‘un Gibraltar’, or 15 million to buy Prussians canons?⁸⁶ Wasn’t the government taking an enormous risk by encouraging Italian irredentism? What if the future annexation of Venice would arouse similar ideas in France? Pleas stating that ‘Italy without Venice would be as France without Belgium’ were already in print.⁸⁷ Louis Julliot (1795-1881), Catholic MP from Limburg (a province bordering the Netherlands) warned against the recognition of potential claims of the new King of ‘Italy’ on Venice and Rome. Didn’t the European Great Powers link Belgium’s recognition to its abandoning of the claim on Maastricht?⁸⁸

26Furthermore, why would Belgium recognise so quickly? Three out of five guarantors of Belgian independence (Russia, Prussia and Austria) had not yet reacted. De Decker argued that Belgium should orient its foreign policy on a similar footing as… Switzerland!⁸⁹ The former cabinet leader argued that the Swiss Confederation had only recognised Italy with reservations, but Rogier and Frère-Orban were able to contradict this quickly. Viscount Vilain XIIII,⁹⁰ by contrast, claimed to have heard from Prussian and Russian voyagers that they did not suffer any inconveniencies from their governments’ wise decision to delay a full recognition. Rogier’s argument of absolute necessity and urgency was thus a mere pretext.⁹¹ Vilain XIII’s words were not without weight. The viscount had personally represented Leopold I during the 1830s, and had had to negotiate with the various Italian courts to ensure Leopold I’s recognition as King of Belgium. Furthermore, Vilain XIIII thought any recognition of the ‘Kingdom’ of Italy was premature:

27‘non seulement parce qu’il n’est pas fait, mais parce qu’il est en train de se défaire, et j’espère qu’il ne se fera pas.’

28Vilain hoped that the House of Savoy would simply add the title of ‘King of Italy’ to a long list including ‘King of Cyprus’ and ‘King of Jerusalem’.⁹² If Victor Emmanuel II would keep the title of ‘Duke of Savoy’, while he had ceded the Duchy to France, the title ‘King of Italy’ might well enter into the same category, without any harm. Didn’t the English royal family revindicate the Kingdom of France up to 1815, more than three centuries after the Hundred Years’ War had ended?⁹³

29Why, finally, would Belgium help to eliminate small nationalities? The recognitions of independent Greece and Belgium respected the forms agreed at the Congress of Vienna. Belgium had to wait for more than a year after Leopold I’s inauguration for all ‘puissances secondaires’ in Europe to recognise his accession. On 23 November, Barthélémy Dumortier from Tournai,⁹⁴ amplified his colleagues’ reasoning, by stating that Italian unification posed an existential threat to Belgium, because it consisted of

30‘la négation de la base essentielle de notre existence politique […] du respect dû aux petites nationalités.’⁹⁵

31Dumortier portrayed the equal sovereignty of independent states as the essential contribution of international law to the world. Politics knows either force, or law. Since ‘les petites nationalités’ are deprived of the former, they can only have a sole source of prestige or support: law. The creation of the Kingdom of Italy was nothing but the ‘suppression’ of the balance of power (‘équilibre européen’), which was the best guarantee for Belgium’s political existence. The formation of the Kingdom of Italy shows nothing but violations of the rights of small nationalities.⁹⁶ Moreover, France had previously announced that a recognition of the ‘fait accompli’ would in no way be guaranteed to Piemonte-Sardinia.⁹⁷ Why would Belgium then deviate from the principle of non-intervention?⁹⁸ For priest de Haerne, the Lombards, Venetians, Tuscans (Etrurians), Romans, Calabresi and Siculi were separate ‘races’, just as the ‘Belgian race’.⁹⁹

32Rogier’s decision to interrupt official relations with the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was a mere ‘patente frauduleuse’ to cover the Liberal’s true merchandise. For Dumortier, the government’s declarations constituted an abuse of law (‘en fraude de votre droit’).¹⁰⁰ Barthélémy de Theux, former and future Catholic Cabinet Leader, argued that recognition was only possible, conformable to prescription in civil law, when a ‘possession complète’ of ‘more or less long duration’, was ‘à peine contestable’.¹⁰¹ De Theux continued by pointing to the existing commercial treaty between Piemonte-Sardinia and Belgium.¹⁰² This treaty contained a Most Favoured Nation-clause. If France concluded a new treaty with Piemonte-Sardinia, Belgium could unilaterally grant the same advantages to Piemonte-Sardinia as French subjects currently enjoyed in Piemonte-Sardinia. As a consequence, according to de Theux, Belgian merchants and industrialists would enjoy the same rights in Italy as their French competitors.¹⁰³

2. ‘Un regime imposé’ : the extension of Piemonte-Sardinia and popular sovereignty

33‘ah, si la révolution s’était faite à Naples par les Napolitains, si le peuple de Naples avait renversé le gouvernement de François II’

Thibaut, 28 November 1861¹⁰⁴

34De Decker argued as first speaker that the ‘right of peoples to command their destiny themselves’ was not being questioned by any Catholic orator. However, where was the Italian national will? Did the Belgian government contribute to freezing a situation that in essence, was merely temporary? The Italian unification was not ‘réellement voulu[e]’ by the population, and nothing but a ‘régime momentané imposé par l’étranger, sous le coup de la terreur’.¹⁰⁵

35De Decker borrowed from the French liberal thinker Benjamin Constant¹⁰⁶. Only the most oppressive governments demand that their citizens fall over themselves to bring their ordained enthusiastic adherence. Abstention would bring the gravest dangers: ‘tables de proscription’ would list citizens destined for banishment or death.¹⁰⁷ Belgium ought to lead by example, demonstrating by the spontaneous happiness of its citizens that truly representative and constitutional institutions are to be preferred over civil war, martial law and shootings.¹⁰⁸ Dumortier added that no less than twenty-five thousand people were told to have been incarcerated by the Piemontese, without any judgment or hope of a fair trial. Why would the Liberals cry out at the violations of the Maronites’ rights by the Druses,¹⁰⁹ or those of the Polish by the Russians, and remain silent at the exactions committed by Pinelli?¹¹⁰

36Again, following Dedecker, the Liberal government thought its recognition of Italy would encourage the rise of constitutional government, but it merely sanctioned revolts. It would have been better to respect ‘les petites nationalités’, the sole and true warranty for peace in Europe. De Decker concluded that even ‘great interests’ of political liberalism were alien to the Italian question, as he thought transpired from Guizot, Thiers, de Broglie, Lamartine and so many other French authors. In Belgium, only the Catholic party represented wise and prudent liberal political thought.¹¹¹

37Vilain XIII equally tried to undermine Piemonte-Sardinia’s credibility. When count Walewski, Napoleon III’s minister for foreign affairs, had insisted on measures against the freedom of the press in Belgium, almost all powers abstained (including the conservative courts), while Britain supported Belgium. Piemonte, by contrast, tried not to alienate France, on which it relied for the realisation of its designs for Lombardy.¹¹² Van Overloop remarked that Cavour went after journalists before criminal tribunals! This was, of course, impossible under the regime of the Belgian constitution of 1831, where the popular jury alone judged political and press crimes.¹¹³

38The conservative Catholic MP and former lawyer for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Eugène Van Overloop¹¹⁴, likened Belgian patriotic feelings to the supposed loyalty of Italians to the Pope, against ‘l’oppression étrangère’.¹¹⁵ During the debates, Charles Rogier explained Garibaldi’s success in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies as a reaction to the reactionary government in Naples, and reassured that (his own) prudent administration had saved Belgium from revolution in 1848.¹¹⁶ Van Overloop replied that Rogier had omitted the ‘preparation of Garibaldi’s success by treason’, and hoped rural revolts against him would jettison the Piemontese ‘yoke.’¹¹⁷ Dumortier added that recognising the title ‘King of Italy’ would inevitably encourage Italian irredentism, and constituted an implicit encouragement to annex the Papal States.¹¹⁸ Likewise, for de Theux, no title of ‘King of Italy’ could be recognised until ‘all Italians recognised it’, with Rome as capital and Venice as a security.¹¹⁹ De Haerne feared that the Belgian government encouraged annexationism. He pleaded the case that 200 million Catholics all over the world had created a Catholic colony, and that a ‘pacte social’ underpinned the sovereignty of the Holy See.¹²⁰ De Haerne’s disquiet was a logical consequence of the de facto annexation of parts of the Papal State (Emilia Romagna, Marche, Umbria) by Victor Emmanuel II, based on an extensive interpretation of the Peace Treaties of Villafranca and Zurich.¹²¹

39Dumortier told the tale of the Duchess of Parma, who accordingly had been on the run for her Parliament.¹²² Yet, the population implored her to return, as the ‘idol of the Nation’, and brought her back in triumph in her capital. Only ‘la corruption piémontaise’ could push her out, and achieve the annexation of Parma to Piemonte.¹²³ Victor Emmanuel II had been so vicious as to make his ambassador, Buoncompagni, the chief of a conspiracy against the Grand Duke of Tuscany.¹²⁴ Dumortier said he agreed with Lord Strafford that the ruler should have hung the diplomatic agent in front of the Palazzo Pitti!¹²⁵

3. ‘Une guerre sans déclaration, par avidité, sans motif valable’ : general law ofnations

40The opposition sought legitimacy for her political point of view in the ‘cold-headed quest’ (froidement) of the applicable principles of the law of nations (‘droit des gens’).¹²⁶ Thibaut mixed rhetorics and law, stating that since the principle of non-intervention was binding upon all nations, ‘tous les Etats sont neutres les uns à l’égard des autres’.¹²⁷ Thibaut continued by putting forward a definition of voluntary neutrality:

41‘un droit et un devoir: droit de refuser de prendre parti entre les nations, des peuples qui sont en état d’hostilité ; devoir de s’abstenir de tout acte qui aurait le caractère de parti pris patent ou secret’.

42As a secondary power, regardless of the status of imposed neutrality, Belgium does not have the right, in any case, to recognise a state before the great powers, ‘les nations gardiennes et garantes du droit public européen’, had done. Belgium’s guarantors were entrusted with a specific mission to prevent ‘usurpations and violent annexations on behalf of the revolutionary principle of unity of race, origin and language’, and had to prevent ‘any state from violating public law to the detriment of another state.’¹²⁸ Neutral states had the obligation to recognise any internal organisation of any state, and could not opt for either party when ‘les gouvernements grandissent ou s’élèvent par usurpation ou conquête’.¹²⁹

43Thibaut’s insistence on a consensus between the Great Powers was of course illusory. Attempts by Austria to align Britain on its point of view had been in vain, since Russell publicly supported the right of populations to determine their own future.¹³⁰ For Thibaut, it was clear that a neutral state ought to tie its recognition to two preconditions. First, it has to wait for recognition by the Great Powers. Second, a reparation of violations of the general law of nations allegedly committed by Victor Emmanuel II is warranted.¹³¹ This, Thibaut alleged, had been the line of Rogier’s liberal predecessor, baron de Vrière.¹³²

44Nothomb argued violations of the law of nations had been so evident, that an exhaustive enumeration would not be required. Victor Emmanuel II had started a war without declaration, had intervened in a civil war between the King of Naples and his subjects.¹³³ There was no just case for the war, since there was not a single grief between the King of Piemont-Sardinia and the King of Naples. Only personal aggrandizement was the reason for the turmoil.¹³⁴ Dumortier accused Victor Emmanuel of invading Naples without any pretext, and of secretly sponsoring Garibaldi’s fleet and army.¹³⁵ How could the King of Piemonte allow the revolutionary’s ships in the ports of Tuscany, and publicly declare he had nothing to do with them? During the fight over Gaeta, treachery had allowed the Piemontese to incinerate the gunpowder storages of the King of the Two Sicilies. Gone were courage, virtue and law…¹³⁶

45Julliot, in addition, underlined that Piemonte-Sardinia created a unitary Italian state, whereas France had clearly expressed its desire of a federal Italy.¹³⁷ Couldn’t this lead to a conflict with a humiliated France? Moreover, why wouldn’t Emperor Napoleon III try to resuscitate the claims of his family to the throne of Naples? Priest de Haerne thought that France had recognised the Kingdom of Italy with an ‘inadmissible’ motive. Napoleon III could exert blackmail on Italy, and threaten at any moment to withdraw his recognition. Recognition of a ‘state of possession’, as in Rogier’s letter to Carolus, was ‘imprudent’ in the priest’s eye.¹³⁸ Thibaut added that a recognition of vicious possession could not lead to acquisitive prescription: ‘est-ce que le temps justifie la spoliation’?¹³⁹

46Van Overloop sought analogies in the Old Regime foreign policy of France. Napoleon III would be best served with a balance between multiple Italian sovereigns, as created and repetitively amended after the Peace of Utrecht.¹⁴⁰ Moreover, according to Dumortier, Belgium’s geostrategic interest would suffer from a strong Kingdom of Italy. What if France would decide to invade Belgium, and ask Italy to mobilise 300 000 men to prevent Austria or Prussia from conforming to their duty as guarantors of Belgian independence?¹⁴¹ This argument did not fall into deaf ears at court, as Leopold I counted on the Central Powers to counterbalance a potential French desire of aggression.¹⁴² A second geostrategic danger was that Piemonte would try to convince Napoleon III to intervene in Belgium, to divert his attention away from the Papal State.¹⁴³

47Kervyn de Lettenhove is the first orator to refer to international legal doctrine. He quoted Vattel on recognition, namely in the sense that:¹⁴⁴

48‘Les nations étrangères, ne sont point obligées de déférer aux volontés du souverain qui prend un titre nouveau ou du peuple qui appelle son conducteur de tel nom qu’il lui plaît […] Si ce titre est contre l’usage, s’il désigne des choses qui ne se trouvent pas dans celui qui l’affecte, les étrangers peuvent le lui refuser, sans qu’il ait raison de se plaindre.’

49For Kervyn, recognition was mainly an affair for the Great Powers alone, not for secondary powers such as Belgium. He considered the title ‘King of Italy’ as ‘une affaire de vanité’¹⁴⁵. Kervyn quoted Vattel again to argue that the unification of Italy could not have been complete without a peace treaty:

50‘La trêve ou la suspension d’armes ne termine point la guerre ; elle en suspend seulement les actes’¹⁴⁶

51Kervyn notably thought that the individual utterances of Sardinian MP Brofferio, who had asked why the Sardinian army would not just march on to Rome, constituted an indication that the Pope and Victor Emmanuel II were in a state of war.¹⁴⁷

4. National constitutional history

52‘Nous sommes pour 89, contre 93, nous sommes pour la révolution qui fonde et non pour celle qui détruit. Nous sommes pour celle des Washington, des Franklin, des Mounier, des Lafayette, des Barnave, nous ne sommes pas, nous ne pouvons pas être pour la révolution de M. Cavour et moins encore pour celle de M. Mazzini.’
Alphonse Nothomb, 28 November 1861¹⁴⁸

53The second Catholic orator was Pierre De Decker, former cabinet leader between 1855 and 1857. De Decker’s government fell after Liberal protest against the creation of legal personality for religious charity foundations. In his speech, the parallels with Belgian constitutional history are an argument to highlight the perceived hypocrisy of the Liberal government. First, the constitutional system under Dutch period (1814-1830, against which the Belgian constitution was actually written), was likened to the Statuto Albertino¹⁴⁹, in the sense that its extension to the rest of Italy was presented as an imposition of a preconceived text, just as the Dutch constitution of 1814 had contained the majority of the dispositions of the joint constitution of 1815.¹⁵⁰ Second, De Decker thought the South of Italy was being ‘exploited and sacrificed’ to the North, just as the Dutch ‘intolerant minority’ would have persecuted the Belgian Catholic religion, and William I had ‘ruined the national press.’¹⁵¹

54Van Overloop recalled that the troops of Francis II of Bourbon were still holding on to the city of Gaeta, which was under siege by Piemonte. Would this mean that Francis II had ceased to reign in Naples, or would it be more prudent to wait?¹⁵² How would the Belgian government react, if Leopold I would be obliged to retreat to the citadel of Antwerp to fight of an attack, while the rest of the territory would be under armed occupation?¹⁵³ For Dumortier, it was clear that the Liberal government prepared itself to concentrate the whole governmental machinery in Antwerp, ‘afin de pouvoir attendre les événements lorsque la Belgique aurait été envahie’.¹⁵⁴

55The Piemontese practice of plebiscites, reclaimed by Cavour to underline that Italian unification rested on popular legitimacy,¹⁵⁵ were likened by Van Overloop and Dumortier to French practice in 1792, 1793 and 1794.¹⁵⁶ Undercover agents stir up revolts in the name of liberty, gangs of criminals are dispatched under the pretext of overthrowing a tyrannical government, any kind of hostile press is supressed. A unanimous vote in favour of annexation logically follows under threats with bayonets. Supporters of independence are treated as criminals and chased as wild beasts, to be shot by dozens. In sum, the end of the true Italian nationalities and installation of internal despotism are presented under the cover of liberty.¹⁵⁷ Cavour did nothing different from the French general Dumouriez, who pretended in 1792 to plant the ‘tree of liberty’.¹⁵⁸ Adolphe Dechamps¹⁵⁹ stated that if one page of Belgian national history was conformable to what happened in Italy, it was the history of 1792, when general Dumouriez’s bayonets forced Belgian citizens in mock elections to adhere to annexation, scrutinized by commissaries of the Convention Nationale, and not what had happened in 1830.¹⁶⁰ This criticism of the exceptionally high scores in favour of Victor Emmanuel II was shared by other outside observers, as well as by current historiography, which sees it as improbable that less than 1% of the votes cast would have been negative, especially in view of the uprisings in the South.¹⁶¹ In the most recent overview of Italian international legal history, the plebiscites were called ‘simulacra of democracy’, manipulated by Piemontese officers.¹⁶²

56Dumortier insisted that the Belgian Revolution of 1830 had taken place thanks to a ‘spontaneous popular movement,’ ‘auquel l’étranger n’a eu aucune part’.¹⁶³ The true revolutionaries in Italy, in his eyes, were those who fought against Piemonte, in the Abruzzi and Calabria. Without conscription and compulsory voting for Victor Emmanuel II, these regions had ‘true volunteers, as in Belgium in 1830’, armed with the spirit of the ‘righteous brigand, as we used to be in 1830’, treated as criminals by an oppressor.¹⁶⁴

57Priest de Haerne claimed authority as a member of the National Congress and ‘patriote de 1830’.¹⁶⁵ Any comparison between the Italian revolt and the noble Belgian Revolution was anathema. The 1815 Constitution had been imposed on the Belgian population, which had wisely tolerated the regime to avoid political instability. Yet, William I had ‘déchiré la constitution’ (tore the Constitution apart) by his message of 11 December 1829 to the Estates-General, the elected parliament of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. The King curtailed freedom of expression, by prohibiting the use of the constitutional right to petition the monarch. He hereby violated the ‘tacit pact’ that allowed for the toleration and legitimation of the constitution. De Haerne began a slow demonstration, indicating he considered the Belgian Revolution had been more dignified and wise than the Italian Revolt. He lauded Charles Rogier’s intervention in 1830 to stop the pillaging of Dutch supporters’ belongings in Brussels. The Pope, de Haerne argued, had been much more moderate and tolerant. He had approved the Belgian constitutional order in 1847, and had publicly expressed his wish in 1848 for the creation of an Italian confederation and customs union.¹⁶⁶ Thibaut, finally, likened Victor Emmanuel II’s invasion of Naples with William I of Orange’s attack on Belgium in August 1831. Leopold I had accused the King of the Netherlands of attacking without prior declaration…¹⁶⁷ Francis II of Bourbon spoke ‘le même langage que le roi Léopold’.

58The Catholic descriptions of a purely ‘national’ and noble Belgian revolution of 1830 were of course derided by the Liberal party. Joseph Lebeau (1794-1865), who had also been a member of the National Congress,¹⁶⁸ insisted on the vital French help in repelling the Dutch invasion of 1831, or in liberating the Citadel of Antwerp late in 1832. Furthermore, a joint Franco-British blockade of Dutch ports had helped to bring William I to acquiesce in the separation. Alphonse Nothomb tried to contradict this by hinting at a greater harmony, or at least a tacit agreement between the Great Powers in 1831. In 1859-1860, Napoleon III would have been a dissident in the concert of European Great Powers. In other words, Belgian independence would have been ‘posé […] conformément au droit public admis par l’Europe et de concert avec l’Europe entière’.¹⁶⁹

59This story is not without relevance for Italy. Cavour desired recognition by Belgium, precisely because he saw Belgian independence as the first breach in the conservative state system created by the Congress of Vienna, thanks to French protection and British support.¹⁷⁰ He was even irritated at Belgian stalling manoeuvres in the Spring, for instance when minister of War Chazal enquired how the army of the ‘King of Italy’ was organised, whereas his government had not yet recognised this title at all.¹⁷¹