Liberation and Annexation 429
French or revolutionary demands. For the purchase of food, fuel, bedding, horses,
hay, and other requirements, he thought it best to deal with Belgian business men
himself, and to pay them in hard currency, not the paper money which the Revolu-
tion had brought into circulation in France. In this way the Belgian business classes
might be attached to the new regime. To pay the contractors, he hoped to obtain a
loan of several millions from the Belgian clergy, who controlled a large share of the
wealth of the country, and would presumably be willing to pay for liberation from
Austria. If they were to make such a loan, however, they must be assured in the
possession of their incomes from tithes and manorial dues. They expected protec-
tion, also, against the rampant anti- clericalism brought in by French soldiers and
Belgian exiles. Dumouriez, in having to protect the church, if only for financial
reasons, departed widely from the views of the men now in power in Paris.
He showed signs also, like Bonaparte in Italy in 1796, of developing a foreign
policy of his own. Dutch as well as Belgian exiles were with him on the campaign.^5
The Batavian Legion soon reached the Dutch frontier, which it was eager to cross.
Schemes were in the air for a combined Dutch- Belgian republic, of all seventeen
Netherlands provinces, an idea that Dumouriez toyed with for a while, though he
soon gave it up. He did propose, however, the invasion of the United Provinces, not
to liberate the Dutch, but rather with the thought that these provinces could be
returned to the House of Orange at a peace conference in return for international
recognition of a Belgian republic. (Here Bonaparte’s treatment of Venice will sug-
gest itself.) The Convention forbade Dumouriez to enter Dutch territory. It or-
dered him to pursue the Austrians into Germany instead. He refused, saying his
troops were tired. The Convention became suspicious. The Dutch patriots also
were alarmed. They feared that France, Austria, and Britain might agree to an in-
dependent Belgium, and the war be over, before their own aims were achieved.
In Belgium, Dumouriez’ program met with difficulties from the start. While af-
fronting the Democrats, it reckoned also without the actual Statist aspirations.
Immediately after Jemappes the Belgian émigrés in England were heard from.
Their leader there was Van der Noot, the anti- Austrian hero of 1789. Van der Noot
now proposed to Dumouriez and the French, while thanking them for the libera-
tion of Belgium, that an independent federal republic be set up, to be composed of
the ten provinces each with its historic constitution (clergy, nobles, and privileged
towns), with a kind of stadtholder or president to be chosen from the ruling family
of England, Holland, or Prussia. Neither Dumouriez, nor the French, nor the Bel-
gian Democrats could of course tolerate such a solution, which would not only
leave Belgium in the hands of their class enemies, but probably make it a protec-
torate of Great Britain.
Lebrun, in reply, took a step that proved to be a turning point in the war. He
persuaded a not very reluctant Convention to declare the river Scheldt open to
international navigation. The significance of this move was far- reaching. For well
over a century the Scheldt had been closed by international treaties. Attempts in
the past to open it by international negotiation had always failed. The decay of
5 For Dumouriez and the Dutch during the Belgian campaign see H. T. Colenbrander, Gedenk-
stukken der algemeene geschiedenis van Nederland, I, 34–124, 176–295.