Professor Van der Linden has given to his valuable work on Belgian history the sub-title of _The Making of a Nation_, and shown conclusively how the present institutions of Belgium are the result of various contributions from the Middle Ages to the present time. But a book on Belgian history might just as aptly be called _The Resistance of a Nation_, since history tells us not only how the monument was built, but also how it was not destroyed in spite of the most adverse circumstances. From that point of view, Belgium may indeed be considered as the embodiment of steadfastness, rather than that of sheer heroism. She has succeeded in preserving, far more than in acquiring. From her fifteenth century frontiers she has been reduced to her present limited boundaries, which, nevertheless, contain all the elements of her past and present genius. She sacrificed territory, centuries of independence, long periods of prosperity, but she remained essentially one people and one land, a small people on a small land, combining the genius of two races and two languages and acting as a natural intermediary between the great nations of Europe. Her history, up to her last fight, is nothing but the struggle of a nation to assert her right to live, in spite of her weakness, in the midst of great military Powers. Unity, first constituted in the fifteenth century, is at once endangered by the rule of a foreign dynasty. During the first part of the sixteenth century the two influences, national and foreign, contend in the counsels of the nation. The latter tendency prevails, and, though remaining nominally independent in regional matters, the country passes under foreign rule. When, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, after the failure of several insurrections under the Austrian and French regimes, independence is finally granted, and when a new dynasty is at last inaugurated as a symbol of national unity, Belgium remains nevertheless under foreign tutelage. Her independence is bought at the price of neutrality; and it is only after the violation of this guaranteed neutrality by two of the foremost Powers which established it that the cycle of Belgium's trials comes to an end and that she is allowed to exert her sovereign rights in external as well as internal affairs. [_TREATY OF VERSAILLES_]