History

Overview

Belgium was part of the Roman Empire until the 2nd century AD, and after being invaded by Germanic tribes it became part of the Frankish Empire. In 1385, some semi-independent provinces and cities were absorbed by the House of Burgundy and became known as the Spanish Netherlands, before being transferred to Austria as the Austrian Netherlands in 1713. The country was conquered by the French in 1794 and formed part of the First French Republic and Empire until it united with the northern (Dutch) provinces in 1815 under King William I of the Netherlands. However, the southern provinces were unhappy with the union and the Belgian Revolution began in Brussels on 25 Aug 1830. In 1831, the provisional government declared the independence of Belgium and made the country a constitutional monarchy with Leopold of Saxe-Coburg as its first king (Leopold I).

During the 20th century, Belgium was occupied by Germany in both World Wars, and political tension between the Flemings in the north and the Walloons in the south caused the collapse of several governments. In 1980, Flanders and Wallonia were given regional 'subgovernments', and in 1989, the country was divided into three autonomous regions: the Flemish Region (Flanders), the Walloon Region (Wallonia), and the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. The Belgian franc was replaced by the Euro in Jan 2002.

Prehistory

The oldest primitive stone instruments found on the area of today's Belgium date 800,000 BC. It is claimed that Circa Neanderthals were living on the edge of the Meuse river, near the village of Spy around 400,000 BC. Neolithic remains can be found today at Spiennes where there was a flint mine. The first signs of Bronze age activity in Belgium date from around 1750 BC. From 500 BC Celtic tribes settled in the region and traded with the Mediterranean world.

Early History

The earliest named inhabitants of Belgium were the Belgae (after whom modern Belgium is named). The population covered a significant area of Gaulish or Celtic Europe, living in northern Gaul at the time of the Roman occupation. The distinction between the Belgae to the North and the Gauls to the south of them is disputed, but it seems clear that the Gauls were the dominant group in the area until the Roman and Germanic influence came to dominate.

In 54 BC, the Belgae were over-run by the armies of Julius Caesar, as described in his chronicle De Bello Gallico. What is now Belgium flourished as a province of Rome. This province was much larger than the modern Belgium and included five cities: Nemetacum (Arras), Divodurum (Metz), Bagacum (Bavay), Aduatuca (Tongeren), Durocorturum (Reims).

At the northeast was the neighbouring province of Germania Inferior. Its cities were Traiectum ad Mosam (Maastricht), Ulpia Noviomagus (Nijmegen), Colonia Ulpia Trajana (Xanten) and Colonia Agrippina (Cologne). Both provinces include what are now known as the Low Countries.

Early Middle Ages

After the Roman Empire collapsed (5th century), Germanic tribes invaded the Roman province of 'Gallia'. One of these peoples, the Franks, eventually managed to install a new kingdom under the rule of the Merovingian Dynasty. Clovis I was the most well known of the kings of this dynasty. He ruled from his base in northern France, but his empire included today's Belgium. He converted to Christianity. Christian scholars, mostly Irish monks, preached Christianity to the populace and started a wave of conversion (Saint Servatius, Saint Remacle, Saint Hadelin).

The Merovingians were short-lived and were succeeded by the Carolingian Dynasty. After Charles Martel countered the Moorish invasion from Spain (732 - Poitiers), the King Charlemagne (born close to Liège in Herstal or Jupille) brought a huge part of Europe under his rule and was crowned the 'Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire' by the Pope Leo III (800 AD in Aachen).

The Vikings were defeated in 891 by Arnulf of Carinthia near Leuven. The Frankish lands were divided and reunified several times under the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties, but eventually were firmly divided into France and the Holy Roman Empire. The parts of the County of Flanders stretching out west of the river Scheldt (Schelde in Dutch, Escaut in French) became part of France during the Middle Ages, but the remainders of the County of Flanders and the Low Countries were part of the Holy Roman Empire. Through the early Middle Ages, the northern part of present-day Belgium (now commonly referred to as Flanders) had become an overwhelmingly Germanized and Germanic language-speaking area, whereas in the southern part people had continued to be Roman and spoke derivatives of Vulgar Latin.

As the Holy Roman Emperors lost effective control of their domains in the 11th and 12th centuries, the territory more or less corresponding to the present Belgium was divided into the following mostly independent feudal states:

• County of Flanders
• Marquisate of Namur
• Duchy of Brabant
• County of Hainaut
• Duchy of Limburg
• Luxemburg
• Bishopric of Liège

During the 11th and 12th centuries, the Rheno-Mosan or Mosan art movement flourished in the region moving its centre from Cologne and Trier to Liège, Maastricht and Aachen. Some masterpieces of this Romanesque art are the shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne Cathedral, the baptistry of Renier de Huy in Liège, the shrine of Saint Remacle in Stavelot, the shrine of Saint Servatius in Maastricht or, Notger's gospel in Liège.

Burgundian and Habsbourgian Netherlands

By 1433, most of the Belgian and Luxembourgian territory along with much of the rest of the Low Countries became part of Burgundy under Philip the Good. When Mary of Burgundy, granddaughter of Philip the Good married Maximilian I, the Low Countries became Habsburg territory. Their son, Philip I of Castile (Philip the Handsome) was the father of the later Charles V. The Holy Roman Empire was unified with Spain under the Habsburg Dynasty after Charles V inherited several domains.

During the Burgundy period (the 15th and 16th centuries), Ypres, Ghent, Bruges, Brussels, and Antwerp took turns at being major European centres for commerce, industry (especially textiles) and art. The Flemish Primitives were a group of painters active primarily in the Southern Netherlands in the 15th and early 16th centuries (for example, Van Eyck and van der Weyden). Flemish tapestries hung on the walls of castles throughout Europe.

The Pragmatic Sanction of 1549, issued by Charles V, established the Seventeen Provinces (or Spanish Netherlands in its broad sense) as an entity separate from the Empire and from France. This comprised all of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg except for the lands of the Bishopric of Liège.

However, the northern region now known as the Netherlands became increasingly Protestant (Calvinistic), while the south remained primarily Catholic. The schism resulted in the Union of Atrecht and the Union of Utrecht. When Philip II, son of Charles ascended the Spanish throne, he tried to abolish all Protestantism. Portions of the Netherlands revolted, beginning the Eighty Years' War between the Netherlands and Spain. For the conquered Southern Netherlands the war ended in 1585 with the Fall of Antwerp. This can be seen as the start of Belgium as one region. That same year, the northern Low Countries (i.e. the Netherlands proper) seized independence in the Oath of Abjuration (Plakkaat van Verlatinghe) and started the United Provinces and the Dutch Golden Age. For them, the war lasted until 1648 (the Peace of Westphalia), when Spain recognised the independence of the Netherlands, but held onto the loyal and Catholic region of modern-day Belgium, which was all that remained of the Spanish Netherlands.

While the United Provinces gained independence, the Southern Netherlands remained under the rule of the Spanish Hapsburgs (1519-1713).

Until 1581, the history of Belgium (except the Bishopric of Liège), the grand duchy of Luxembourg and the country the Netherlands is the same: they formed the country/region of the Netherlands or the Low Countries. In Dutch, a distinction still exists between on the one hand 'de Nederlanden' (plural, the Low Countries) and 'Nederland' (singular, the present-day state of the Netherlands) that is a consequence of this separation in the 17th century. Before 1581, the Netherlands refers to the Lowlands (De Nederlanden).

During the 17th century, Antwerp was still a major European centre for commerce, industry and art. The Brueghels, Peter Paul Rubens and Van Dyck's baroque paintings were created during this period.

The Belgian and Luxemburgian territories(except the Bishopric of Liège) were transferred to the Austrian Hapsburgs (1713-1794) after the War of the Spanish Succession when the French Bourbon Dynasty inherited Spain at the price of abandoning many Spanish possessions.

Following the campaigns of 1794 of the French Revolutionary Wars, the Southern Netherlands were invaded and annexed by the First French Republic in 1795; they were divided into nine united départements and became an integral part of France. The Bishopric of Liège was dissolved and its territory was divided over the départements Meuse-Inférieure and Ourte. Austria confirmed the loss of the Austrian Netherlands by the Treaty of Campo Formio, in 1797.

In 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte was forced to abdicate by the Allies and was exiled to Elba, ending the French period. However, he managed to escape and quickly returned to power during the Hundred Days. Napoleon knew that his only chance of remaining in power was to attack the existing Allied forces in Belgium before they were reinforced. He crossed the Belgian frontier with two armies and attacked the Prussians under the command of General Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at the Battle of Ligny on June 16, 1815. Meanwhile, Ney engaged the forces of the Duke of Wellington and the Prince of Orange in the Battle of Quatre Bras on the same day.

Napoleon was finally defeated by the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at Waterloo in present-day Belgium on 18 June 1815. Napoleon's strategy failed and his army was driven from the field in confusion, by a combined Allied general advance. The next morning the Battle of Wavre ended in a hollow French victory. Napoleon was forced to surrender and was exiled to Saint Helena.

King William I of the Netherlands had the Butte du Lion erected on the battlefield of Waterloo to commemorate the location where his son, William II of the Netherlands (the Prince of Orange), was knocked from his horse by a musket ball to the shoulder and as a tribute to his courage. It was completed in 1826. The younger William had fought as commander of combined Dutch and Belgian forces at the Battle of Quatre Bras and the Battle of Waterloo.

1815-1830: United Kingdom of the Netherlands

After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815, the major victorious powers (Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia) agreed at Congress of Vienna on reuniting the former Austrian Netherlands and the former Dutch Republic, creating the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, which was to serve as a buffer state against any future French invasions. This was under the rule of a Protestant king, namely William I of Orange. Most of the small and ecclesiastical states in the Holy Roman Empire were given to larger states at this time, and this included the Prince-Bishopric of Liège which became now formally part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.

1830: Independence

In August 1830, stirred by a performance of Auber's La Muette de Portici at the Brussels opera house La Monnaie (Dutch: De Munt), the Belgian Revolution broke out, and the country wrested its independence from the Dutch, aided by French intellectuals and French armed forces. The real political forces behind this were the Catholic clergy, which was against the Protestant Dutch king, William I, and the equally strong liberals, who opposed the royal authoritarianism, and the fact that the Belgians were not represented proportionally in the national assemblies at all. At first, the Revolution was merely a call for greater autonomy, but due to the clumsy responses of the Dutch king to the problem, and his unwillingness to meet the demands of the revolutionaries, the Revolution quickly escalated into a fight for full independence.

Among the revolutionaries, there was an idea to join France, but after international pressure, Belgium became an independent state. A constitutional monarchy was established in 1831, with a monarch invited in from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in Germany by the British. The major powers in Europe agreed, and on July 21 1831, the first king of Belgium, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg was inaugurated. This day is still the Belgian national holiday.

The Netherlands still fought on for 8 years, but in 1839 a treaty was signed between the two countries. Belgium thus started life as an independent state, equipped with a very liberal constitution (constitutional monarchy), but with suffrage restricted to the haute-bourgeoisie and the clergy, all together less than 1% of the adult population, and fully French speaking in a country where French was not the majority language.

By the treaty of 1839, Luxemburg did not fully join Belgium, and remained a possession of the Netherlands until different inheritance laws caused it to separate as an independent Grand Duchy. Belgium also lost Eastern Limburg, Zeeuws Vlaanderen and French Flanders (Dutch: Frans Vlaanderen) and Eupen, four territories which it had all claimed on historical grounds. The Netherlands retained the former two while French Flanders, which had been annexed at the time of Louis XIV remained in French possession, and Eupen remained within the German Confederation, although it would pass to Belgium after World War I as compensation for the war.

1870-1908: The Congolese Colony

European exploration and administration of the Congo took place from the 1870s until the 1920s. In a succession of negotiations, Leopold II, professing humanitarian objectives in his capacity as chairperson of the Association International Africaine, played one European rival against the other. The Congo territory was acquired formally by Leopold at the Conference of Berlin in 1885. He made the land his private, personal property and named it the Congo Free State. Congolese territory was more than 80 times as large as Belgium's.

Leopold's regime began undertaking various development projects, such as a railway that ran from the coast to Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), which took years to complete. Nearly all of these projects were aimed at increasing the capital Leopold and his cohorts could extract from the colony, leading to exploitation of Africans. Leopold's fortune was greatly increased through the proceeds of Congolese rubber, which had never been mass-produced in such surplus quantities.

During the period between 1885 and 1908, between five and fifteen (the commonly accepted figure is about ten) million Congolese died due to exploitation and diseases. To enforce the rubber quotas, the Force Publique (FP) was called in. The FP was an army, but its aim was not to defend the country, but to terrorise the local population The Force Publique made the practice of cutting off the limbs of the natives as a means of enforcing rubber quotas a matter of policy; this practice was disturbingly widespread. However, there were international protests spearheaded mainly by Edmund Dene Morel and British diplomat/Irish patriot Roger Casement, whose 1904 report on the Congo condemned the practice, as well as famous writers such as Mark Twain (who wrote King Leopold's Soliloquy) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness also takes place in Congo Free State. In 1908, the Belgian parliament bowed to international pressure, forcibly adopting the Free State as a Belgian colony from the king. From then on, it became the Belgian Congo.

1914-1918: World War I

The neutrality of Belgium was violated in 1914 when Germany invaded Belgium as part of the Schlieffen Plan. King Albert I stayed in Belgium with his troops to lead the army while the government withdrew to Le Havre, France. The Germans were stopped by the allied at the front-line along the Yser, the battle of the Yser. The Belgian population suffered very much under the German rule.

Flanders saw some of the greatest losses of life of the First World War, including the first and second battles of Ypres. Due to the hundreds of thousands of casualties, the poppies that sprang up from the battlefield and that were immortalised in the poem 'In Flanders Fields', have become an emblem of human life lost in war.

Flemish feeling of identity and consciousness grew through the events and experiences of war. The experiences of the Dutch-speaking soldiers on the front led by French speaking officers catalyzed Flemish emancipation. Their suffering is still remembered by Flemish organisations during the yearly Yser pilgrimage and Wake of the Yser (the latter associated with Right wing extremists) in Diksmuide at the monument of The Yser tower.

1918-1939: Between the Wars

After the defeat of Germany, the two former German colonies, Rwanda and Burundi, were mandated to Belgium by the League of Nations.

Belgium did not receive the war reparations that she was promised from Germany. This had a significant effect on the Belgium economy, which, like the economies of many countries involved in World War One, had been bankrupted by the war.

After a period of alliance with France, Belgium tried to return to neutrality in the 1930s.

1939-1945: World War II

Nazi Germany invaded Belgium 10 May 1940 (Belgium surrendered on May 28). The King remained in Belgium.

Belgium was liberated beginning in 1944 by Allied forces, including British, Canadian, and American armies, including a small Belgian national contingent. The British second Army seized Antwerp in September 1944, and the First Canadian Army began conducting combat operations around the port that same month. Antwerp became the most fought highly prized objective due to its deep-water port facilities and the fact that French ports remained in German hands until the end of the war. The Battle of the Scheldt in October 1944 was fought primarily on Dutch soil, but with the intent of opening the waterway to Antwerp. The port city was also the main objective of German armies in December; the inability of the Allies to end the war in 1944 meant that Allied troops had to winter in Belgium, during which time the Ardennes Offensive was launched by the Germans, resulting in heavy fighting on Belgian soil lasting into 1945.

1945-1960: Post World War II

Due to controversy about his conduct during the war, Léopold III and his wife and children were unable to return to Belgium from Germany (where they had been deported by the Nazis) and spent the next six years in exile in Switzerland. During Leopold's exile in Switzerland (1945-1950), Prince Charles of Belgium acted as the regent.

In 1946, a commission of inquiry exonerated Leopold of treason. Nonetheless, controversy concerning his loyalty continued, causing civil uprisings, and eventually led to a statewide referendum. In Flanders they voted in favour of his return, in Wallonia against. Although he narrowly won the referendum, the militant socialist movement in Liège, Hainaut and other urban centres incited major protests and strikes. Because of the probability of the escalation of the conflict, Léopold III abdicated on July 16, 1951 in favour of his 20-year-old son Baudouin.

World War II marked a turning point in Belgium's economics. Because Flanders had been widely devastated during the war and had been largely agricultural since the Belgian uprising, it benefited most from the Marshall Plan. Its standing as an economically backward agricultural region meant that it obtained support from Belgium's membership of the European Union and its predecessors. At the same time, Wallonia experienced a slow relative decline as the products of its mines came to be less in demand. The economic balance between the two parts of the country has remained less in favour of Wallonia than it was before 1939.

1970-2007: State Reforms

The successive linguistic wars between the French- and the Dutch-speakers made successive Belgian governments very unstable. The three major parties (Liberal -right wing-, Catholic -centre- and, Socialist -left wing-) split in two according to their French- or Dutch-speaking electorate. A language border was determined by the first Gilson Act of November 8, 1962. The boundaries of certain provinces, arrondissements and municipalities were modified (among others, Mouscron became a part of Hainaut and Voeren became a part of Limburg) and facilities for linguistic minorities were introduced in 25 municipalities. On August 2, 1963, the second Gilson Act entered into force, fixing the division of Belgium into four language areas: a Dutch, a French and a German language area, and Brussels as a bilingual area with both French and Dutch as its official languages.

1970: The First State Reform

In 1970, there was a first state reform, which resulted in the establishment of three cultural communities: the Dutch Cultural Community, the French Cultural Community and the German Cultural Community. This reform was a response to the Flemish demand for cultural autonomy. The constitutional revision of 1970 also laid the foundations for the establishment of three Regions, which was a response to the demand of the Walloons and the French-speaking inhabitants of Brussels for economic autonomy. On February 18, 1970, Prime Minister Gaston Eyskens announces the end of 'La Belgique de papa'.

1980: The Second State Reform

The second state reform took place in 1980, when the cultural communities became Communities. The Communities assumed the competencies of the cultural communities with regard to cultural matters, and became responsible for the 'matters relating to the person', such as health and youth policy. From then on, these three Communities were known as the Flemish Community, the French Community and the German-speaking Community. Two Regions were established as well in 1980: the Flemish Region and the Walloon Region. However, in Flanders it was decided in 1980 to immediately merge the institutions of the Community and the Region. Although the creation of a Brussels Region was provided for in 1970, the Brussels-Capital Region was not established until the third state reform.

1988-89: The Third State Reform

During the third state reform in 1988 and 1989, under Prime Minister Wilfried Martens, the Brussels-Capital Region was established with its own regional institutions, as well as Dutch and French institutions for community matters. The Brussels-Capital Region remained limited to 19 municipalities. Other changes included that the competencies of the Communities and Regions were expanded. One notable responsibility that was transferred to the Communities during the third state reform is education.

1993: The Fourth State Reform

The fourth state reform, which took place in 1993 under Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene, consolidated the previous state reforms and turned Belgium into a fully-fledged federal state. The first article of the Belgian Constitution was amended to read as follows, 'Belgium is a Federal State which consists of Communities and Regions'. During the fourth state reform, the responsibilities of the Communities and the Regions were expanded again, their resources were increased and they were given more fiscal responsibilities. Other major changes included the direct election of the parliaments of the Communities and the Regions, the splitting up of the Province of Brabant into Flemish Brabant and Walloon Brabant, and the reformation of the Federal Parliament's bicameral system and the relations between the Federal Parliament and the Federal Government. The first direct elections for the parliaments of the Communities and the Regions took place on May 21, 1995.

2001: The Fifth State Reform

However, the fourth state reform was not the end of the process of federalization. In 2001, a fifth state reform took place, under Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, with the Lambermont and the Lombard Accords. During the fifth state reform, more powers were transferred to the Communities and the Regions, with regard to agriculture, fisheries, foreign trade, development cooperation, auditing of electoral expenses and the supplementary financing of the political parties. The Regions became responsible for twelve regional taxes, and local and provincial government became a matter for the Regions. The first municipal and provincial elections under the supervision of the Regions were the 2006 municipal elections. The functioning of the Brussels institutions was also amended during the fifth state reform, which resulted among other things in a guaranteed representation of the Flemish inhabitants of Brussels in the Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region.

The fifth state reform is the last state reform to date. However, several Flemish political parties want a sixth state reform following the 2007 general election. Major issues that a sixth state reform would have to deal with include, among others, Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde.

1996: The Marc Dutroux Scandal

In 1996, Belgium's political and criminal justice systems were shaken when a man called Marc Dutroux was arrested and charged with several counts of murder and kidnapping. Many charged that local law enforcement had not acted competently enough to observe and eventually arrest Dutroux and his accomplices before they kidnapped at least six girls, of which they murdered four. Dutroux went on trial in March 2004 and received a life sentence in prison.

On October 26, 1996, about 300,000 Belgians marched in Brussels to protest at the failures of the police force and judicial system in this affair. It was one of the largest demonstrations in Belgium and was called the 'White March' (French: 'Marche Blanche', Dutch: 'Witte Mars').

1999 - Present

In the 1999 Belgian general election, the government parties suffered an historical defeat, and Jean-Luc Dehaene's reign of eight years ended. Guy Verhofstadt formed a government of Liberals, Socialists and Greens. For the first time in since 1958, Belgium had a government that did not include the Christian People's Party (Christelijke Volkspartij).

During the Kosovo crisis of 1999, 600 Belgian paratroopers participated in Operation Allied Harbour, a NATO operation to protect and provide assistance to the huge number of ethnic Albanian refugees in Albania and Macedonia. That same year, 1,100 Belgian soldiers left for Kosovo to participate in the Kosovo Force (KFOR), a NATO-led peacekeeping force for Kosovo. In December 1999, the Belgian Federal Government announced that it would again pursue an active foreign policy, particularly in Central Africa where among others Belgium's former colony, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is situated. As soon as there was being peace in the region, Belgium would support the reconstruction.

In July 1999, Belgium's nuclear phase-out legislation was decided by the Flemish Liberals and Democrats-led Government including the Belgian Greens party, Groen!. The phase-out law calls for each of Belgium's seven reactors to close after 40 years of operation with no new reactors built subsequently.

On January 1, 1999, the Euro was introduced and the Belgian franc ceased to exist independently, when it became fixed at one EUR=40.3399 BEF. New notes and coins were introduced on January 1, 2002. Old coins and notes lost their legal tender status on February 28, 2002.

Belgium pursued a policy of strong anti-Iraq-war diplomacy during the Iraq crisis of 2003, and formally and officially opposed the Iraq War. The stance of Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt was that Saddam Hussein had to leave and Iraq had to disarm, but that a solution had to be found by diplomatic means, and that military action could only be considered if that failed and only after approval by the United Nations.