:i-1-

THE NEUTRALITY OF BELGIUM

treaty was therefore drawn up on May
which the second article ran as follows :-

I 1,

1867, of

'The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, within the Limits
determined by the Act annexed to the Treaties of the r9th
April, 1839, under the Guarantee of the Courts of Great
Britain, Austria, France, Prussia, and R ussia, shall henceforth form a perpetually Neutral State.
'It shall be bound to observe the same Neutrality towards
all other States.
'The High Contracting Parties engage to respect the
principle of Neutrality stipulated by the present Article.
'That principle is and remains placed under the sanction
of the collective Guarantee of the Powers signing as Parties to
the present Treaty, with the exception of Belgium, which is
itself a Neutral State.' 1

The third article provided for the demolition of the
fortifications of Luxemburg and its conversion into an
open town, the fourth for its evacuation by the Prussian
garrison, and the fifth forbade the restoration of the
fortifications.
Such then was the treaty guaranteeing the neutrality
of Luxemburg, which was proposed, it may be observed,
by Prussia herself; but, until the treaty was broken by
the very Power which had proposed the neutrality, only
one incident need be noted in the history of the country,
namely, the part it played in the war of 1870- r. On
December 3, 1870, Count Bismarck issued from Versailles a circular to the Prussian Ambassadors, calling
attention to the fact that both the French and the
Luxemburgers had violated the neutrality of the Grand
Duchy, mainly by giving facilities for French soldiers
to return to France. Precautions were taken by the
Prussian Government on the frontier to prevent such
1 Hertslct, rt/ sup., vol. iii, p. 1803. The High Contracting Powers
were Great Britain, Austria, France, Belgium, Italy, the Nethcr-

~~nds,

Prussia, and Russia.