4 - Belgium: fragile neutrality, solid neutralism

Summary

In the course of 1936, the apparent return of Belgium to a policy of so-called ‘independence’ (in fact, neutrality) was the reason for much comment in chancelleries and stimulated considerable controversy in the press. This policy appeared to have major implications for the balance of power in Europe, a fragile equilibrium liable to be shattered by the diplomatic game to which the great western European states had entrusted their fate.

The German invasion on 10 May 1940, followed by the rapid military collapse and dissolution of the institutions, should have put an end to the public careers of those who had conceived and then assumed responsibility for this policy. Nevertheless, its main protagonists, although (or perhaps because) they were divided concerning both their ends and their means, managed to re-emerge – some in the very short term – in occupied Belgium. And others, in the relatively long-term and after many ups and downs, surfaced again in a country which had been liberated by the Allied armies.

Needless to say, the propagandists and historians continued to write long after the events, either to attack or defend this policy, or to try to understand and explain it. The time for anathemas now seems to be past. In this chapter I will not attempt to describe for the umpteenth time the course of events in these brief pages: other historians have taken care of that well before me.