History of Belgium

This article covers the history of Belgium over the last 2000 years. For current events see Belgium

See also and Netherlands, history

Historically, Belgium and the Netherlands were known as the Low Countries. From the end of the Middle Ages until the middle of the sixteenth century, the Low Countries, and Flanders in particular, were a prosperous centre of commerce and culture. From the fourteenth century onward they were governed by Dukes of Burgundy and later by the Habsburg emperor Charles V. From the middle of the sixteenth century until the Belgian revolution of 1830, Belgium changed hands several times. It is an independent state since 1830.

Belgium independence

AFter 1815 Belgium became the southern part of of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. King William I favored the Protestantd who dominated Holland, and he became unpopular in the south. The French-speaking Walloons strenuously rejected his attempt to make Dutch the universal language of government. However Flemings spoke a Dutch dialect (Flemish) and welcomed the encouragement of Dutch with a revival of literature and popular culture. Other Flemings, notably the educated bourgeoisie, preferred to speak French. Although Catholics possessed legal equality, after centuries as the state church in the south, they resented their subordination to a government that was fundamentally Protestant in spirit and membership. Few Catholics held high office in state or army. Political liberals in the south complained as well about the king's authoritarian methods. All southerners complained of underrepresentation in the national legislature. Although the south was industrializing and was more prosperous than the north the accumulated grievances allowed the multiple opposition forces to coalesce. The outbreak of revolution in France in 1830 was a signal for action, at first on behalf of autonomy for Belgium, as the southern provinces were now called, and later on behalf of total independence. William dithered and his half-hearted efforts to reconquer Belgium were thwarted both by the efforts of the Belgians themselves and by the diplomatic opposition of the great powers.

At the the London Conference of 1830–31, the chief powers of Europe ordered (in November, 1830) an armistice between the Dutch and the Belgians. The first draft for a treaty of separation of Belgium and the Netherlands was rejected by the Belgians. A second draft (June, 1831) was rejected by William I, who resumed hostilities. Franco-British intervention forced William to withdraw Dutch forces from Belgium late in 1831, and in 1833 an armistice of indefinite duration was concluded. Belgium was effectively independent but William’s attempts to recover Luxembourg and Limburg led to renewed tension. The London Conference of 1838–39 prepared the final Dutch-Belgian separation treaty of 1839 and divided Luxembourg and Limburg between the Dutch and Belgian crowns. The Kingdom of the Netherlands thereafter was made up of only the 11 northern provinces.

Interwar

After four years of occupation, Belgium emerged ruined at the end of World War I. The king returned from Yser, the sliver of territory he controlled throughout the war, leading the victorious army and acclaimed by the population. In contrast, the government and the exiles came back discreetly, and the absence of the dead was felt strongly. Many saw themselves as victims of the occupation and sought revenge. Waves of popular violence accompanied liberation in November and December 1918 and the government responded through the judiciary punishment of collaboration with the enemy conducted between 1919 and 1921, mainly by military and civil tribunals. Shop windows were broken and houses sacked, men were harassed, and women's heads were shaved. Manufacturers who had closed their businesses sought the severe repression of those who had pursued their activities. Journalists who had boycotted and stopped writing called for harsh treatment of the newspapers that submitted to German censorship. Many people stigmatized profiteers and demanded justice. Thus in 1918, Belgium was already confronted with the problems associated with occupation that most European countries only discovered at the end of World War II.

Recent

Turkish immigrants

Turkish labor was brought in to work the Belgian coal mines during the 1960s and 1970s. Between 1963 and 1971, the Belgian coal industry recruited more than 14,000 Turkish workers, not counting those who arrived independently and who were employed by other sectors in need of the assistance of foreign labor. Despite its high cost, official recruitment of labor in Turkey proved to be effective. Thus, the Belgian authorities decided to promote actively the stabilization of the new immigrant workers, notably by giving increased assistance to reuniting families. The arrival of the first contingents of Turkish workers was, however, marked by a lack of preparedness to receive and look after this new population, and the incidents that flared up during the first year of the Turkish presence in Belgium seemed to indicate that the new policy might fail. The resolution of the difficulties encountered with the Turkish labor was achieved through the combined action of the different parties involved in the recruitment program: the mining companies and the Belgian and Turkish authorities. The organizational structures put in place to create and perpetuate a social order favorable to the authorities concerned had a considerable impact on the future of the Turks in Belgium. Moreover, the Belgian trade-union organizations also became involved and sought to bring the immigrant workers into their structures. The professional and social integration of the Turkish miners and of the first families to arrive was reinforced with the appointment of social delegates from Turkey, while the stabilization of the population and the reunification of families were assisted by an official publication in the Turkish language. The sociocultural and religious structures of support for the population were taken charge of by the Turkish authorities with the intention of preserving intact a strong sense of the workers' Turkish identity and their unwavering loyalty to their homeland. These various partners pursued their cooperation during the 1970s.

Historiography

The most influential historian of Belgium was medievalist Henri Pirenne (1862-1935), a Walloon who wrote a masterful multivolume history of Belgium and became a national hero. At the University of Liège he was a student of Godefroid Kurth (1847-1916) and Karl Lamprecht (1856-1915), was professor of history at the University of Ghent (1886-1930), and participated in the French Annales School of social history. A leader of Belgian passive resistance in World War I, the Germans held him (1916–18) as a hostage. Pirenne's Histoire de Belgique (7 vol., 1899–1932) stressed how traditional and economic forces had drawn Flemings and Walloons together. Pirenne, inspired by patriotic nationalism, presupposed a Belgian unity - social, political, and ethnic - which predated its 1830 independence by centuries. Although a liberal himself, he wrote his seven volume history with such a masterly balance that Catholics, liberals and socialists could quote from it with equal respect in their newspapers or sometimes even in their political gatherings. Conceived and written a century ago, Pirenne's history remains crucial to the understanding of Belgium's past.

Bibliography

Reference and surveys

• Encyclopédie du Mouvement wallon, 3 vol., Charleroi, 2000. ISBN:2870350171
• Arblaster, Paul. A History of the Low Countries. (2006). 298 pp.
• Blom, J. C. H. and E. Lamberts, eds. History of the Low Countries (2006) 504pp excerpt and text search; also complete edition online
• Cammaerts, Émile. A History of Belgium from the Roman Invasion to the Present Day (1921) 357 pages; complete text online
• Pirenne, Henri. Histoire de Belgique (1907) full text online

Specialty studies

• Dumont, Georges-Henri. Histoire de Bruxelles. Biographie d'une capitale (Brussels 1997)
• Fishman, J. S. Diplomacy and Revolution. The London Conference of 1830 and the Belgian Revolt (Amsterdam 1988).
• Mansel, Philip. "Nation Building: the Foundation of Belgium." History Today 2006 56(5): 21-27. Issn: 0018-2753 Fulltext: Ebsco
• Pirenne, Henri. Belgian Democracy, Its Early History (1910, 1915) 250 pp. history of towns in the Low Countries online free
• Polansky, Janet L. Revolution in Brussels 1787-1793 (1987)
• Stanard, Matthew G. "Selling the Empire Between the Wars: Colonial Expositions in Belgium, 1920-1940." French Colonial History 2005 6: 159-178. Issn: 1539-3402 Fulltext: Project Muse
• Tollebeek, Jo. "Historical Representation and the Nation-State in Romantic Belgium (1830-1850)," Journal of the History of Ideas 59.2 (1998) 329-353 in Project Muse
• VanYpersele, Laurence and Rousseaux, Xavier. "Leaving the War: Popular Violence and Judicial Repression of 'Unpatriotic' Behaviour in Belgium (1918-1921). European Review of History 2005 12(1): 3-22. Issn: 1350-7486 Fulltext: Ebsco