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 the present Treaty, excepting Belgium, which is itself a Neutral State."
In the 3d Article it is declared that "the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg being Neutralized, according to the terms of the preceding Article, the maintenance or establishment of fortresses upon its territory becomes without necessity as well as without object. In consequence, it is agreed, by common consent, that the City of Luxemburg, considered in time past, in a military point, as a Federal fortress, shall cease to be a fortified city."
The above Treaty of Neutralization is unusually precise and explicit in its terms, and yet, at the commencement of the Franco-German War of 1870, it was thought expedient for the French and North German Governments severally to notify, in July, 1870, their intention to respect the Neutrality of the Grand Duchy as long as it was likewise respected by the other Belligerent.[1]
A question subsequently arose as to whether the Neutrality of Alleged violation of the territory by the French, 1870. Luxemburg was not violated in a variety of ways by the French, and a circular on the subject was issued by Count Bismarck on December 3d, 1870; the previous notification was referred to, and such acts of violation of Neutrality were alleged as the provisioning of railway trains at night from Luxemburg for the use of a French fortress; the transit of French soldiers and officers in masses through the Grand Duchy for the purpose of evading the German posts; and the official furtherance of these acts by the French Vice-Consul residing in Luxemburg. Count Bismarck announces, at the close of his despatch, that his "Government can no longer
- ↑ See Lord A. Loftus's Despatch in Herlslet, p. 1877, and Count Bismarck's Circular, Herlslet, p. 1901.
