‘It is important to distinguish war planes from warlike intentions,’ stresses Christophe Bechet. ‘All the European armies at the time had war plans in order not to be taken by surprise. These plans are put into practice only on the day when war breaks out.’ To paraphrase Clausewitz’s famous maxim, ‘war is only ever the continuation of politics by other means.’

On the eve of 1870 war, the Liège historian reveals in particular, the French army’s intelligence sector clearly identified there possible lines for a Prussian offensive against France, including one through the Meuse valley in the direction of the Chimay gap and the Oise valley. They also for the first time became interested in a crossing of the Ardennes and the ‘Luxemburg gap’ (which had become highly strategic.).

For his part, Bismarck had for a long time expressed his fears concerning the French appetite for rail to the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. Over the course of the 1850s and 1860s the French Eastern Company had increased its railway line acquisitions there, becoming in the eyes of the future Chancellor of the Reich a de facto instrument of French imperialism. Bismarck detected that control over the communication arteries in the ‘Gibraltar of the North’ would soon supplant the fortresses. It would be in vain, nonetheless, that Prussian diplomacy would oppose the French acquisition of the majority of the Grand Duchy network, thus losing control, to its great displeasure, of a communication corridor towards Belgium judged essential.

Prussian interest in the Luxemburg network would not subsequently flag, both before and after the French-German war of 1870. That shows to what extent the railways counted in this era in the subtle game of balances between the powers.

The 1869 Franco-Belgian rail crisis

This French-German arm wrestle over the Luxemburg railways would be very attentively followed in Belgium – and by Prime Minister Frère-Orban himself, for economic as much as strategic reasons.

In 1868, the Belgian rail network was a curious mix of private and public property. Several lines were managed by the state. This was the case for the main economic axis towards Germany:  Ostend/Antwerp – Malines – Louvain – Liège – Verviers – Aachen. In east Belgium private companies nevertheless remained in the majority. Two of them, the Great-Luxemburg Company (the only ‘Belgian’ thing about it was its judicial status) and the Liégeois-Limbourgeois Company, whetted French appetites. But the government was firmly opposed to any transfer. But there was nothing to be done. On January 30, 1869, the French Eastern Company – once again! – signed a simultaneous convention with the two Belgian companies, which conferred it the exploitation rights over the two lines for a period of 43 years.

The affair – with marked political-financial accents – caused a great stir. Spirits became heated and the Belgian response was not long in coming. On February 13 an Act was voted in at the Chamber. It not only forbid any private company from ceding its exploitation rights to another company without the agreement of the government, but in addition allowed the Belgian state to seize the exploitation of the line should there be a refusal. There followed a fierce Parisian press campaign accusing Belgium of being under Bismarck’s orders!