Belgium receives Austria-Hungary's declaration of war

On 28 August 1914 the government of Belgium, sitting in Antwerp, received a note in which Austria-Hungary announced that it considered itself to be at war with Belgium. The British chronology of the war dates the declaration itself to 22 August, as we describe in the article Austria-Hungary declares war on Belgium. Belgian documents indicate, however, that the formal note was delivered on 28 August.

A telegram via The Hague

The note was signed by Prince Siegfried von Clary-Aldringen, Austro-Hungarian minister in Belgium since 1902 and doyen of the diplomatic corps in Brussels. According to the “Grey Book” published by the Belgians, a collection of diplomatic documents from the beginning of the war, the note did not reach the Belgians directly. Clary sent it by telegraph from The Hague on 28 August, and it was passed on to the Belgian Foreign Minister, Julien Davignon, by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In it Clary repeated Vienna’s charges: Belgium had rejected Germany’s proposals and was giving military assistance to France and Britain, and Austro-Hungarian citizens in Belgium had been treated in a manner contrary to “the most elementary requirements of humanity”. The minister announced that he was leaving the country with the staff of the legation and entrusting the protection of the monarchy’s subjects to the United States minister in Brussels. The Belgian minister in Vienna was handed his passports.

The Belgian reply

Davignon replied the next day, 29 August, also through the Dutch. He acknowledged receipt of the note and rejected all the charges. He recalled that Belgium had maintained friendly relations with all its neighbours and had scrupulously fulfilled the obligations of a neutral state. It had rejected the German proposals because they meant breaking the commitments on which its very existence rested. It had asked France and Britain, the guarantors of its neutrality, for help only when German troops had entered its territory. The minister also firmly denied that Austrians and Hungarians had been ill-treated in Belgium, and stressed that since the start of the war the government had issued strict orders to protect their persons and property.

The exchange of notes did not change the military situation; it merely confirmed the state of affairs. Austro-Hungarian siege mortars, lent to the Germans, had already been shelling the Belgian forts for several days.