Note to II, 28

The so-called "Polish Corridor" was 42,928 square kilometers in area and came from former German provinces as follows:

The boundaries as described above are drawn in red on a one-ina-million map which is annexed to the present Treaty (Map No 1.) [Map not reproduced.]

In the case of any discrepancies between the text of the Treaty and this map or any other map which may be annexed, the text will be final.

ARTICLE 30.

In the case of boundaries which are defined by a waterway, the terms "course" and "channel" used in the present Treaty signify: in the case of non-navigable rivers, the median line of the waterway or of its principal arm, and, in the case of navigable rivers, the median line of the principal channel of navigation. It will rest with the Boundary Commissions provided by the present Treaty to specify in each case whether the frontier line shall follow any changes of the course or channel which may take place or whether it shall be definitely fixed by the position of the course or channel at the time when the present Treaty comes into force.

Note to II, 30

The instructions relative to boundary commissions, first issued on October 6, 1919, were approved in an amended form by the Conference of Ambassadors on July 22, 1920 (file 763.72119/10348). The commissions were empowered to modify the attribution of localities in unimportant respects by unanimous decisions. The text of the treaty overruled the maps of the treaty in case of any discrepancy, taking into account "administrative boundaries and local economic interests to the exclusion of any national, linguistic or religious reason". The protocols they drew up concerned the settlement

Note to II, 30—Continued

of juridical questions and became definitive after approval by the interested states.

The Japanese Government withdrew its representatives on all commissions of delimitation as of the end of February 1923 (file 763.72119/11951).

PART III.

POLITICAL CLAUSES FOR EUROPE.

[The vertical rule indicates treaty text.]

Notes to Part III, Articles 31 to 117

The treaty restoring friendly relations between the United States and Germany, signed at Berlin, August 25, 1921 and in force on November 11, 1921 with retroactive effect to July 2, 1921, stipulates in article II (3) "that the United States assumes no obligations under or with respect to the provisions" of this part. The Senate of the United States in its resolution of October 18, 1921 giving advice and consent to the ratification of the treaty restoring friendly relations stipulated "that the United States shall not be represented or participate in any body, agency or commission, nor shall any person represent the United States as a member of any body, agency or commission in which the United States is authorized to participate by this Treaty, unless and until an Act of the Congress of the United States shall provide for such representation or participation".

Part III of the treaty was not printed as an annex-technically a schedule of the treaty restoring friendly relations by the Department of State in Treaty Series 658, nor in 42 Stat. 1939. The entire treaty of peace with Germany, as well as those with Austria and Hungary, was printed as a separate appendix to the treaty restoring friendly relations in the volume compiled under resolution of the Senate of August 19, 1921 and published as Senate Document 348, 67th Congress, 4th session, serial 8167 (Treaties, Conventions, etc., 1910-23, III).

SECTION I-Belgium.

ARTICLE 31.

Germany, recognizing that the Treaties of April 19, 1839, which established the status of Belgium before the war; no longer conform to the requirements of the situation, consents to the abrogation of the said Treaties and undertakes immediately to recognize and to observe whatever conventions may be entered into by the Principal Allied and Associated Powers, or by any of them, in concert with the Governments of Belgium and of the Netherlands, to replace the said Treaties of 1839. If her formal adhesion should be required to such conventions or to any of their stipulations, Germany undertakes immediately to give it.

Note to III, 31

The treaties of April 19, 1839 consisted of (1) a treaty of separation negotiated between Belgium and the Netherlands (37 British and Foreign State Papers, p. 1320); (2) a treaty recognizing that separation signed with the Netherlands by Austria, France, Great Britain, Russia, and Prussia (27 British and Foreign State Papers, p. 990); and (3) a treaty signed by Austria, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia establishing the neutrality of Belgium under a joint guaranty of neutralization (27 British and Foreign State Papers, p. 1000).

Article 31 deals with one of the decisive phases of the outbreak of the war of 1914-18. On August 4, 1914 Chancellor von BethmannHollweg told the German Reichstag: "We are now in a state of necessity and necessity knows no law. Our troops have occupied Luxembourg, and perhaps have already entered Belgian territory. Gentlemen, this is a breach of international law. . . The wrong— I speak openly-the wrong we thereby commit we will try to make good as soon as our military aims have been attained." This German action brought into operation the joint guaranty of Belgian neutrality under the treaty signed between Austria, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia. The British Government—the only party to the treaty not already involved in the war-fulfilled its obligation and entered the war in support of Belgium, notwithstanding the German Chancellor's plaint that Great Britain was going to war just for a "scrap of paper". The Belgian Government under King Albert removed to French territory on October 13, 1914. This article, incorporated in the treaty of peace at the instance of the Belgian Government, intended to abandon the policy of neu

Note to III, 31-Continued

tralization and to secure Germany's assent thereto in advance. It also committed Germany to accepting any future arrangements effected by Belgium with the Principal Allied and Associated Powers. The article did not concern the other Allied and Associated Powers.

As to the guarantors of the 1839 treaty, Austria and Hungary, as successors to the Empire of Austria of 1839, by articles 71 and 83 respectively of the treaties of peace with them, were bound by provisions identic, mutatis mutandis, with this article. Russia in 1919 was ignored. The British Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on April 10, 1922 (House of Commons Debates, 5th series, 153, col. 31) made the following statement:

"Of the five guarantor Powers, after excluding Russia and those which have been at war with Belgium, there remain France and Great Britain. These two and Belgium are in mutual agreement that, in consequence of past events, the treaty establishing the guarantee can no longer be regarded as in force."

On June 4, 1919 the Paris Peace Conference appointed a commission consisting of representatives of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Belgium, and the Netherlands to study the measures which might result from revision, to submit proposals implying neither transfer of territorial sovereignty nor the creation of international servitudes, and to consider any suggestions agreed upon between Belgium and the Netherlands regarding navigable streams (Foreign Relations, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, iv, 792, 857). The commission's work ended on March 23, 1920 with the drafting of projects for a Belgo-Netherlands treaty and of a collective treaty (file 763.72119P94/55). Disagreements between Belgium and the Netherlands with respect to the waterways prevented a settlement. The principal difference was over the Wielingen channel, which is the largest and most frequented of the three passages giving access to the Scheldt. The Netherlands claimed exclusive jurisdiction over this channel, which is parallel with the Belgian coast and is partially within the three-mile limit of Belgian territorial waters and entirely so at the mouth of the Scheldt.

Negotiations were not resumed until 1924, in part owing to a dispute arising out of a refusal by the Netherlands to permit some torpedo boats taken over by Belgium from Germany to pass from Antwerp to the sea. Nor was the Netherlands eager to forward the Rhine-Meuse canal contemplated by article 361 of the treaty of peace, which would pass through its territory. The treaty signed on April

Note to III, 31-Continued

3, 1925 (file 755.56/55 and /62) provided in article I for the abrogation of article VII of the treaty of 1839 between Belgium and the Netherlands, so far as it concerned neutrality, and canceled article XIV, which limited Antwerp to being solely a commercial port. The rest of the treaty related to the control and management of the Meuse and Scheldt Rivers and the waterways connected with them. Articles VIII, IX, and X of the treaty of 1839 and subsequent treaties in execution of them were abrogated and superseded by elaborate provisions regulatory of the Flanders waterways, the Scheldt and the Meuse, and the subsidiary canals and constructions. Article VII gave Netherlands consent to a Belgian Rhine-Meuse canal (see art. 361). The treaty as a whole was a slight revision of the 1920 draft. The Wielingen channel question was not dealt with. The defense of Limburg, which Belgium had sought in 1919-20 to induce the Netherlands to undertake in concert, was also omitted, though the Netherlands reiterated its statement made in 1920 in the interpretative memorandum that, within the obligations of the Covenant, "it considered a deliberate violation of Netherlands territory, in whatever spot it might occur, as a casus belli”.

In July 1926 the Belgian Chamber and Senate approved the treaty, Belgium then feeling that the rapprochement resulting from the Locarno détente and the entrance of Germany into the League of Nations had satisfied some of its objections on the ground of security. The Netherlands, on the other hand, gave principal attention to the financial and economic terms, which were considered by the Parliament from July 1926 until March 24, 1927, when the First Chamber voted 33 to 17 against approving the treaty. No treaty between Belgium and the Netherlands supplanting the treaty of 1839 has been subsequently negotiated.

A collective treaty between Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands for abrogating the treaties of guaranty of 1839, signed at Paris May 22, 1926, did not go into force (Belgium, Ministère des affaires étrangères, Documents diplomatiques relatifs à la revision des traités de 1839, p. 24), in view of the failure of the Belgian-Netherlands treaty of April 3, 1925. It provided for the abrogation of the treaties of April 19, 1839 between Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia and Belgium and the Netherlands, respectively (27 British and Foreign State Papers, pp. 990, 1000), and for the ending of Belgian neutrality and the special regime applicable to Antwerp. Germany, Austria, Hungary, and the Soviet Union were to be invited to adhere.