And yet Belgium’s demands were extremely modest.[136] They were formulated, not as the guerdon for her heroic defense of civilization, but as a plain corollary flowing direct from each and every principle officially recognized by the heads of the Conference—­right, nationality, legitimate guarantees, and economic requirements.  Tested by any or all of these accepted touchstones, everything asked for was reasonable and fair in itself, and seemingly indispensable to the durability of the new world-structure which the statesmen were endeavoring to raise on the ruins of the old.  Belgium’s forlorn political and territorial plight embodied all the worst vices of the old balance of power stigmatized by President Wilson:  the mutilation of the country; the forcible separation of sections of its population from each other; the distribution of these lopped, ethnic fragments among alien states and dynasties; the control of her waterways handed over to commercial rivals; the transformation of cities and districts that were obviously destined to figure among her sources of national well-being and centers of culture into dead towns that paralyze her effort and hinder her progress.  In a word, Belgium had had no political existence for her own behoof.  She was not an organic unit in the sodality of nations, but a mere cog in the mechanism of European equilibrium.

Ruined by the war, Belgium 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,