Belgian Revolution

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the Belgian Revolution of 1789–90, see Brabant Revolution.

Belgian Revolution
Part of the
The Low Countries
Result Treaty of London
Territorial
changes		 Most European powers' recognition of Belgium's independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Belligerents
 United NetherlandsCommanders and leaders
Strength
  • Belgium: 60,000[1]
  • France: 70,000 men[2]
50,000[1]

The Belgian Revolution (

Kingdom of Belgium
.

The people of the south were mainly

Dutch Reformed) people of the north. Many outspoken liberals regarded King William I's rule as despotic. There were high levels of unemployment and industrial unrest among the working classes.[3]

On 25 August 1830, riots erupted in Brussels and shops were looted. Theatregoers who had just watched the nationalistic opera La muette de Portici joined the mob. Uprisings followed elsewhere in the country. Factories were occupied and machinery destroyed. Order was restored briefly after William committed troops to the Southern Provinces but rioting continued and leadership was taken up by radicals, who started talking of secession.[4]

Dutch units saw the mass desertion of recruits from the southern provinces and pulled out. The States-General in Brussels voted in favour of secession and declared independence. In the aftermath, a

Ten Days' Campaign" failed because of French military intervention. The Dutch accepted the decision of the London conference and Belgian independence in 1839 by signing the Treaty of London
.

United Kingdom of the Netherlands

Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (German Luxemburg; borders after 1839)
In blue, the borders of the German Confederation
.

After the defeat of Napoleon at the

Habsburg territory.[relevant?] When the United Kingdom insisted on retaining the former Dutch Ceylon and the Cape Colony
, which it had seized while the Netherlands was ruled by Napoleon, the new Kingdom of the Netherlands was compensated with these southern provinces (modern Belgium).

Causes of the revolution

The revolution was due to a combination of factors, the main one being the difference of religion (

Protestant in today's Netherlands
) and the general lack of autonomy given to the south.

Other important factors are

  • The under-representation of today's Belgians in the General Assembly (62% of the population for 50% of the seats)[5]
  • Most of the institutions were based in the North and public burdens were unevenly distributed. Only one minister out of four was Belgian. There were four times as many Dutch people in the administration as Belgians.[6] There was a general domination of the Dutch over the economic, political, and social institutions of the Kingdom;
  • The public debt of the north (higher than the one of the south) had to be supported by the south as well.[6] The original debts were initially of 1.25 billion guilders for the United Provinces and only 100 million for the South.
  • The action of William I in the field of education (construction of schools, control of the competence of teachers and the creation of new establishments, creation of three State universities) placed it under the total control of the State, which displeased Catholic opinion.[7]
  • The contingent imposed on Belgium by the recruitment of militiamen was proportionally high, while the proportion of Belgians among the officers was low, the high staff being mainly composed of former officers of the French army or of the British army. Only one officer out of six would be from the South.[8] Most Belgian soldiers were therefore commanded by officers who were not originally from the Southern Netherlands. Moreover, the Dutch language had become the sole language of the army of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1823/24, which was an additional grievance on the part of the francophone elites and the Walloon people who spoke Romance dialects.
  • The unsatisfactory application of freedom of the press and freedom of assembly were considered by Belgian intellectuals as a means of control of the South by the North.
  • Belgian merchants and industrialists complained about the free trade policy pursued from 1827 onwards. The separation of France had caused the industry of the South to lose a large part of its turnover. On the other hand, the colony of the East Indies was experiencing a long period of revolt and British products were competing with Belgian production. With the end of the continental blockade, the continent was invaded by cheap British products, appreciated by the North, still mainly agricultural, but which excluded the productions of the South.
  • A linguistic reform in 1823 was intended to make Dutch the official language in the Flemish provinces. This reform was met with strong opposition from the upper classes who at the time were mostly French-speaking, whether they came from Flanders or Wallonia,[9] but also from the Flemish speakers themselves, who at the time did not speak standard Dutch but their own dialects. On 4 June 1830, this reform was abolished.[10]
  • The conservatives in the northern Netherlands were pushing for only followers of the former (
    bishops.[11]

"Night at the opera"

Charles Rogier leads the 250 revolutionary volunteers from Liège to Brussels (Charles Soubre, 1878)

Catholic partisans watched with excitement the unfolding of the

Palais de Bruxelles. The Belgian rebels began to organize and fortify their positions in preparation for further confrontations with Dutch forces. The following days saw an explosion of the desperate and exasperated proletariat of Brussels, who rallied around the newly created flag of the Brussels independence movement which was fastened to a standard with shoelaces during a street fight and used to lead a counter-charge against the forces of Prince William.[citation needed
]

Retreat of the Dutch cavalry on the Vlaamsesteenweg in Brussel, 1830

William I sent his two sons, Crown-

Charles Latour Rogier. The Provisional Government then issued a Declaration of Independence on 4 October 1830.[15]

The European powers and an independent Belgium

On 20 December 1830 the London Conference of 1830 brought together five major European powers: Austria, the United Kingdom, France, Prussia and Russia. At first, the European powers were divided over the Belgian cry for independence. The Napoleonic Wars were still fresh in the memories of the major European powers, so once the French, under the recently installed July Monarchy, supported Belgian independence, the other European powers unsurprisingly supported the continued union of the provinces of the Netherlands. Russia, Prussia, Austria, and the United Kingdom all supported the Netherlands, since they feared that the French would eventually annex an independent Belgium (particularly the British: see Flahaut partition plan for Belgium). However, in the end, none of the European powers sent troops to aid the Dutch government, partly because of rebellions within some of their own borders (the Russians were occupied with the November Uprising in Poland and Prussia was saddled with war debt). Britain would come to see the benefits of isolating France geographically with the new creation of a new Belgian buffer state between France, the Netherlands and Prussia. It was for that reason that Britain would eventually sponsor the creation of Belgium.

Accession of King Leopold

Main article: Leopold I of Belgium
See also: Monarchy of Belgium
Gustaf Wappers
, 1831)

In November 1830, the

Belgian Constitution
was proclaimed. However, no actual monarch yet sat on the throne.

The Congress refused to consider any candidate from the Dutch ruling house of Orange-Nassau.[16] Eventually the Congress drew up a shortlist of three candidates, all of whom were French. This itself led to political opposition, and Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who had been considered at an early stage but dropped due to French opposition, was proposed again.[17] On 22 April 1831, Leopold was approached by a Belgian delegation at Marlborough House to officially offer him the throne.[18] At first reluctant to accept,[19] he eventually took up the offer, and after an enthusiastic popular welcome on his way to Brussels,[20] Leopold I of Belgium took his oath as king on 21 July 1831.

21 July is generally used to mark the end of the revolution and the start of the Kingdom of Belgium. It is celebrated each year as Belgian National Day.

Post-independence

Ten Days' Campaign

Main article:
Ten Days' Campaign

King William was not satisfied with the settlement drawn up in London and did not accept Belgium's claim of independence: it divided his kingdom and drastically affected his Treasury. On 2 August 1831 the Dutch army, headed by the Dutch princes, invaded Belgium, in what became known as the "

Ten Days' Campaign
" On 4 August the Dutch force took control of Antwerp and moved deeper into Belgium. The Belgian army of the Meuse was defeated in the battle of Hasselt. On 8 August Leopold called for support from the French and the British. As a result Marshal Étienne Maurice Gérard crossed the border with 70,000 French troops under his command on 9 August.

The battle of Leuven (where King Leopold had placed his headquarters) began on 12 August. In order to avoid war with the approaching French the Dutch agreed an armistice with Belgium and withdrew after briefly taking control of the city. While the victorious initial campaign gave the Dutch an advantageous position in subsequent negotiations, the Dutch were compelled to agree to an indefinite armistice, although they continued to hold the Antwerp Citadel and occasionally bombarded the city from it. Gerard returned to Belgium in November 1832 with the Armée du Nord and besieged the citadel taking it on 23 December 1832. William I would refuse to recognize a Belgian state until April 1839, when he had to yield under pressure by the Treaty of London and reluctantly recognized a border which, with the exception of Limburg and Luxembourg, was basically the border of 1790.

Germany's violation of the 1839 Treaty of London in 1914 outraged British public opinion.

1839 Treaty of London

Main article: Treaty of London (1839)

On 19 April 1839 the

Luxembourg and Limburg. The Dutch army, however, held onto Maastricht, and as a result, the Netherlands kept the eastern half of Limburg and its large coalfields.[21]

Germany broke the treaty in 1914 when it invaded Belgium on 4 August and dismissed British protests over a "scrap of paper". Britain declared war on Germany the same day.[22]

Orangism

Main article: Orangism (Belgium)

As early as 1830 a movement started for the reunification of Belgium and the Netherlands, called Orangism (after the Dutch royal color of orange), which was active in Flanders and Brussels. But industrial cities, like Liège, also had a strong Orangist faction.[23] The movement met with strong disapproval from the authorities. Between 1831 and 1834, 32 incidents of violence against Orangists were mentioned in the press and in 1834 Minister of Justice Lebeau banned expressions of Orangism in the public sphere, enforced with heavy penalties.[24]

Anniversary remembrances

Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary)

The golden jubilee of independence set up the Cinquantenaire park complex in Brussels.

175th anniversary commemoration

In 2005, the Belgian revolution of 1830 was depicted in one of the highest value Belgian coins ever minted, the 100 euro

Wappers
' painting Scene of the September Days in 1830.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East, by Spencer C. Tucker, 2009, p. 1156
  2. ^ "1830–1831 The Belgian Revolution". Timeline Dutch History. Rijksmuseum. Retrieved 3 August 2016.
  3. ^ E.H. Kossmann, The Low Countries 1780–1940 (1978) pp. 151–54
  4. ^ Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics 1763–1848 (1994) pp. 671–91
  5. ISBN 2-8011-0332-2
    ), p. 13
  6. ^ a b Jacques Logie, op. cit., p. 12
  7. ^ Jacques Logie, op. cit., pp. 14–15.
  8. ^ In the absence of a serious statistical study, this figure is subject to reservation.
  9. ^ E.H. Kossmann, De lage landen 1780/1980. Deel 1 1780–1914, 1986, Amsterdam, p. 128
  10. ^ Jacques Logie, De la régionalisation à l'indépendance, 1830, Duculot, 1980, Paris-Gembloux, p. 21
  11. ^ Jacques Logie, op. cit., p. 16.
  12. ^ Slatin, Sonia. "Opera and Revolution: La Muette de Portici and the Belgian Revolution of 1830 Revisited", Journal of Musicological Research 3 (1979), 53–54.
  13. ^ Porter, Maj Gen Whitworth (1889). History of the Corps of Royal Engineers Vol I. Chatham: The Institution of Royal Engineers.
  14. ^ "Ministerie van Defensie".
  15. ^ "Belgium's independence (1830 – present time)". Belgium.be. Belgian Federal Government. Retrieved 27 January 2023.
  16. ^ Pirenne 1948, p. 11.
  17. ^ Pirenne 1948, p. 12.
  18. ^ Pirenne 1948, p. 26.
  19. ^ Pirenne 1948, pp. 26–7.
  20. ^ Pirenne 1948, p. 29.
  21. ^ Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics 1763–1848 (1994) pp. 716–718
  22. ISBN 978-0814797044
    .
  23. ^ Rolf Falter, 1830 De scheiding van Nederland, België en Luxemburg, 2005, Lannoo
  24. ^ "Universiteit Gent" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 March 2009. Retrieved 1 October 2009.

Bibliography

  • Fishman, J. S. "The London Conference of 1830," Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis (1971) 84#3 pp. 418–428.
  • Fishman, J. S. Diplomacy and Revolution: The London Conference of 1830 and the Belgian Revolt (Amsterdam, 1988)
  • Kossmann, E. H. The Low Countries 1780–1940 (1978), pp. 151–160
  • Kossmann-Putto, J. A. and E. H. Kossmann. The Low Countries: History of the Northern and Southern Netherlands (1987)
  • Omond. G. W. T. "The Question of the Netherlands in 1829–1830," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1919) vol 2 pp. 150–171 in JSTOR
  • Pirenne, Henri (1948). Histoire de Belgique (in French). Vol. VII: De la Révolution de 1830 à la Guerre de 1914 (2nd ed.). Brussels: Maurice Lamertin.
  • Schroeder, Paul W. The Transformation of European Politics 1763–1848 (1994) pp. 671–691
  • Stallaerts, Robert. The A to Z of Belgium (2010)
  • Witte, Els; et al. (2009). Political History of Belgium: From 1830 Onwards. Asp / Vubpress / Upa. pp. 21ff.
    ISBN 978-9054875178
    .

External links
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