As the years passed by, the movement gathered ever-increasing numbers of adherents, and the demand was repeated with growing insistence."[2] In 1897 the Flemish party attained its ambition, and Flemish became the official language of the country, side by side with French.

The remarkable thing about this Teutonising movement is that its mainstay has always been the extreme Catholic party, which on religious grounds had been the most violent opponent of the attempted Teutonification by the Dutch.

The opposition between Flemish and Walloon, indeed, became so marked in recent years that many feared that the Belgian nation was about to split into two.

Germany has, however, postponed this national calamity for generations if not for ever, and the Belgium which arises like a phoenix from the ashes of this third attempt at Teutonification will, we cannot doubt, be a Belgium indissolubly knit together by common memories of a glorious struggle for freedom and cemented by the blood and tears of the whole population.

Germany, like Napoleon a century ago, will call many nations into being; the first and not the least of her creations is a transfigured and united Belgium.
[Footnote 1: _Cambridge Modern History_, vol.x.p.