History of Belgium: From a Contested Crossroads to an Independent State

Published on January 17, 2026 and written by Cyril Jarnias

The historical trajectory of the country known today as History of the country Belgium resembles less a straight line than a palimpsest. Romans, Burgundian dukes, Habsburgs of Spain then Austria, French revolutionaries, Dutch kings, and finally Belgians themselves successively wrote—and sometimes erased—entire chapters. For a long time, there was no unified “Belgium,” only a mosaic of principalities, counties, and duchies. Yet, in little more than a century, this territory went from being an imperial periphery to an independent kingdom, then to an industrial and colonial power, and finally to a federal state at the heart of Europe.

From the Belgae to the Mosaic of Medieval Principalities

Long before being a political entity, the region was a name in Caesar’s Commentaries: he speaks of the Belgae to refer to Celtic tribes settled between the Seine, Rhine, and the English Channel. Annexed in the 1st century BCE, the territory was integrated into the Roman provinces of Gallia Belgica and then Germania Inferior. With progressive Christianization and the settlement of Germanic peoples, notably the Franks, the region became a contact zone between the Romanized and Germanic worlds.

In the early Middle Ages, the area corresponding to the History of the country Belgium was encompassed within the Carolingian Empire, before being attached to the Holy Roman Empire. But it did not form a single bloc: it fragmented into powerful local powers. Notably found there were:

Principality / Territory	Political Nature	Main Historical Specificities
Duchy of Brabant	Duchy of the Holy Roman Empire	Political and economic center around Brussels, Leuven, Antwerp
County of Flanders	Fief held from France then the Empire	Strong urbanization, major cloth towns (Bruges, Ghent)
County of Hainaut	Feudal county	Early industrial zone (coal, metals)
County of Namur	Feudal county	Strategic position on the Meuse River
Prince-Bishopric of Liège	Ecclesiastical principality	Broad political autonomy within the Holy Roman Empire
County of Luxembourg	County then duchy	Pivotal territory towards the Germanic world

These entities had their own history of wars, alliances, and revolts. Battles like Worringen (1288) or the Battle of the Golden Spurs at Kortrijk (1302), long reinterpreted by romantic historiography, later became milestones in a Belgian national narrative valorizing local resistance to neighboring great powers.

From the Burgundian Netherlands to the Spanish and Austrian Netherlands

From the 15th century, the Dukes of Burgundy managed to unite a large part of the region’s principalities under their scepter. This was the birth of the Burgundian Netherlands, a political entity that prefigured the space of modern History of the country Belgium. Under the Habsburgs, first Spanish (16th–17th centuries) then Austrian (18th century), these territories took the name of the Spanish Netherlands then the Austrian Netherlands, often referred to as the “Southern Netherlands” or “Austrian Netherlands.”

At the end of the 18th century, the reforms of Joseph II concerning administration, justice, and especially the Church (closure of monasteries, seminaries replaced by a general seminary in Leuven) triggered riots from 1787, the “little revolution.” The movement crystallized in 1789 around two currents: the Statists, conservatives, defenders of provincial privileges and the Church, and the Vonckists, more liberal, supporters of government inspired by the Enlightenment. Victorious over Austrian troops at the Battle of Turnhout, the insurgents proclaimed the United Belgian States in 1790, the first official appearance of the term “Belgium” as a political entity. The experiment was short-lived: internal divisions, the return of the Austrians, then the eruption of the French Revolution.

The French Revolutionary Interlude: Laboratory of a Modern State

The decade 1790–1800 was decisive for the History of the country Belgium. After the Austrian reconquest, the French revolutionary army definitively defeated the imperial forces at Fleurus in 1794. The following year, the Austrian Netherlands and the Prince-Bishopric of Liège were annexed to France and transformed into departments. The integration was brutal: suppression of Old Regime institutions, confiscation of clergy property, dissolution of the University of Leuven, symbolic destruction like that of Saint Lambert’s Cathedral in Liège. Conscription and anti-clerical persecutions fueled peasant revolts, notably the Boerenkrijg (Peasants’ War) of 1798.

But this period matters at least as much for what it destroyed as for what it built. The French power introduced:

– a centralized administrative system, in departments;

– a unified taxation system;

– the Napoleonic codes, which would remain the basis of Belgian law;

– freedom of commerce, the end of guilds, the opening of the port of Antwerp.

In a few decades, what was merely a set of provinces became a relatively integrated economic space, structured by common law and shared infrastructure. All elements that would later facilitate the birth of a centralized Belgian state.

The United Kingdom of the Netherlands: A Forced Marriage to the North

The fall of Napoleon opened a new era. The victorious powers, assembled at the Congress of Vienna, sought to build a “sanitary cordon” north of France to prevent any return of French ambitions. They decided to unite the former United Provinces (the future Kingdom of the Netherlands) and the former Austrian Netherlands into a single entity: the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, entrusted to the House of Orange-Nassau.

But beneath the surface, tensions mounted. Several major fractures ran through the kingdom:

Domain	North (United Provinces)	South (Southern Netherlands)	Main Source of Tension
Religion	Predominantly Reformed Protestant (Calvinist)	Predominantly Catholic	Distrust of a Calvinist king controlling education
Language	Dutch	Dialectal Flemish, French among elites and in Wallonia	Imposition of Dutch as the state and army language
Economy	Maritime trade, colonies	Heavy industry, textiles	Distribution of public debt to the detriment of the South
Representation	2 million inhabitants, 55 deputies	3.5 million inhabitants, 55 deputies	Under-representation of the South in institutions
Administration	Centers in Amsterdam, The Hague	Institutions transferred to the North	Civil service dominated by Dutchmen

King William I compounded blunders that turned these structural differences into political resentment. His conception of power was authoritarian; many liberals, in both the North and South, denounced a despotic regime. His educational reforms placed schooling under tight state control, irritating the Catholic hierarchy; his project, inspired by the German Lutheran model where the sovereign dominated the Church, clashed with a clergy submitted to Rome. The army became the symbol of this domination: southern conscripts were numerous, but the proportion of officers from the South was very low, and in 1823–1824, Dutch was imposed as the sole language of the army.

Finally, the linguistic issue became explosive. In 1823, a reform sought to impose Dutch as the official language in the Flemish provinces, provoking hostility from both the French-speaking elites of Flanders and Wallonia and from Flemings themselves, many of whom spoke dialects far from standard Dutch. Under pressure, the reform was repealed in June 1830, too late to calm spirits.

The Seeds of Revolution: Religion, Liberties, Social Crisis

Starting in 1828, an unprecedented phenomenon occurred: Catholics and liberals, long opposed, united against the ruling power. This alliance, called “unionism,” crystallized around common demands: respect for press and assembly freedoms, an end to state interference in Catholic education, better representation of southerners in institutions, a fairer sharing of debt and military burdens.

He published virulent articles against the government, particularly denouncing the burden of Dutch debt on Belgian taxpayers. Tried in 1828, his ideas spread among the enlightened bourgeoisie, which demanded ministerial responsibility and an end to a system where ministers answered only to the king.

Louis de Potter, journalist at the Courrier des Pays‑Bas

On the social front, the situation deteriorated. The 1820s saw rising urban unemployment, especially in the textile basins of Verviers, Liège, or Tournai; British competition, after the end of the Napoleonic continental blockade, flooded the continent with cheap products, favored by the agricultural North which found an outlet, to the detriment of southern industry oriented towards France, now lost. Poor harvests in 1830 further aggravated difficulties. Industrialization, begun early, had created a concentrated urban proletariat, available for rioting.

Brussels, August 1830: When the Opera Becomes Revolution

The tipping point occurred in Brussels on August 25, 1830. That evening, the Théâtre de la Monnaie staged La Muette de Portici (The Mute Girl of Portici), an opera by Daniel Auber that tells the Neapolitan insurrection of Masaniello against Spanish domination in the 17th century. The performance was exceptional: it was offered in honor of King William I’s birthday. While the regime wanted to celebrate its power, the opposite happened.

Faced with chaos, the local bourgeoisie tried to regain control. A citizen militia formed to control the streets, defend property, and prevent the protest from degenerating into uncontrolled social revolution. As early as September 1, the leaders of this guard, aware of the gravity of the situation, requested the arrival of Crown Prince William (future William II) to negotiate a solution. The prince, a moderate, went to Brussels and discussed with notables and the States General. He was convinced that an administrative separation between North and South, under the Orange-Nassau crown, would be the best compromise.

Four Days of Street Fighting and the Birth of a Provisional Government

The street fighting from September 23 to 26, 1830 marked a decisive stage. In a Brussels bristling with barricades, where volunteers poured in from all southern regions, Dutch troops struggled to advance. Unlike the initial riots, the movement was now structured: a committee of notables and revolutionaries, around Charles Rogier, coordinated the action, controlled the bourgeois guard and volunteers. The city turned into a battlefield.

As early as September 24, while fighting still raged, a Provisional Committee formed in Brussels, quickly transformed into a Provisional Government chaired by Charles Rogier. On October 4, it published a Declaration of Independence, officially breaking with the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. A National Congress was convened to draft a constitution. The break was complete, even if part of the bourgeoisie remained hesitant: in the elections of November 3, out of 46,000 potential voters, only 30,000 voted, and nearly a third of ballots were blank, a sign that many would still have accepted a compromise solution with The Hague.

The International Question: Fear of French Annexation, Invention of a Neutral State

The proclaimed independence was not enough: it had to be recognized by the great powers. Yet in 1830, they remained obsessed by the Napoleonic specter and the need to preserve the European balance drawn at Vienna. When Louis-Philippe and the new July Regime gave their support to the Belgian cause, London, Vienna, Berlin, and Saint Petersburg primarily feared a straightforward annexation of the southern provinces to France, which would reconstitute a French bastion on the Scheldt and facing the English Channel.

On December 20, 1830, the conference recognized the principle of Belgian independence and the dissolution of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. It remained to specify the modalities: borders, international status, political regime. This is where a major innovation intervened: neutralization. Inspired by the Swiss precedent (1815), the idea was to make Belgium an “independent and perpetually neutral” state, whose integrity would be guaranteed by the signatory powers.

Belgium “shall form an independent and perpetually neutral State.” In exchange for this neutrality, the integrity of its borders is guaranteed.

Treaty of London, April 19, 1839, Article VII

Forging a Kingdom: Constitution, Monarchy, and Choosing a King

Meanwhile, in Brussels, the National Congress elected in November 1830 drafted the institutional architecture of the new state. On November 22, it settled a central question: Belgium would be neither a French-style republic nor a return to Old Regime absolutism, but a constitutional monarchy. The vote was clear: 174 votes against 13. The aim was to reassure the powers, avoid overly visible alignment with Paris, and provide a unifying figure for a country riven by linguistic, religious, and regional divides.

It remained to find this king. The Congress refused to consider any candidate from the House of Orange-Nassau, to mark the break with The Hague. In February 1831, it chose the Duke of Nemours, son of Louis-Philippe. But under pressure from Lord Palmerston, who feared the extension of French influence, the French king refused the crown on behalf of his son. A regent, Érasme-Louis Surlet de Chokier, was appointed in the interim.

The chosen title, “King of the Belgians” and not “King of Belgium,” is not trivial: it suggests a sovereignty emanating from the people, not merely a dynastic right over a territory. The monarchy, from the outset, defined itself as popular and constitutional.

William I’s Revenge: The Ten Days’ Campaign

Installed on his throne, Leopold I had no time to savor: William I accepted neither the London settlement nor the loss of his southern provinces. Besides the blow to his prestige, the separation severely reduced his tax revenues and industrial outlets. In the summer of 1831, he attempted a forceful move.

In November 1832, a new French intervention, with Gérard’s Army of the North, besieged and took the Antwerp citadel. Despite these setbacks, William I persisted and still refused to endorse Belgian independence. It was only in April 1839, under pressure from the great powers and after lengthy negotiations, that he resigned himself to signing the Treaty of London. The History of the country Belgium then established borders close to those of 1790, with two exceptions: the province of Luxembourg was split between a Grand Duchy kept under the authority of the King of the Netherlands and a western part attached to Belgium; Limburg was shared, with Maastricht and the eastern part of the province remaining Dutch.

The same treaty enshrined Belgium’s permanent neutrality, guaranteed by all signatory powers. A neutrality that, in 1914, would be swept aside by the German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg speaking of a “scrap of paper,” but which, in 1839, reassured London, Paris, and Berlin alike.

The 1839 Treaty and German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg

From Unitary State to Industrial Power

Once the Dutch question was settled, the History of the country Belgium entered a phase of consolidation and spectacular growth. Under Leopold I then Leopold II, the country became one of the first industrialized nations on the continent, after Great Britain. The head start gained under the French and Dutch regimes made it a “little England” on the Meuse and Sambre rivers.

This takeoff had a downside: it deepened regional and social inequalities. For a long time, industrial Wallonia was richer than rural Flanders, still marked by the textile crisis and emigration; and everywhere, workers paid a high price for the economic miracle. Dangerous working conditions, low wages, child labor: all realities that fueled the development of the labor movement. Mass strikes, like those of 1886 or the general strike of 1893, sometimes ended in bloodshed but wrested decisive reforms: prohibition of child labor in mines, limitation of working hours, first social insurance systems, and above all the progressive broadening of the right to vote, up to universal male suffrage after World War I.

A Colonial Power Under Moral Strain: The Congo

From the reign of Leopold II onwards, the country’s internal history was coupled with a heavy colonial history. The king harbored imperial ambitions very early on, less from ideology than economic calculation: he believed small Belgium needed an empire to ensure its financial independence. Lacking enthusiastic support from Parliament, he acted first in a personal capacity. Starting in 1876, he organized supposedly philanthropic societies, like the International African Association, and sent explorer Henry Morton Stanley to trace routes, build posts, and sign treaties with African chiefs in the Congo Basin.

From the 1890s onwards, missionaries, diplomats, and journalists sounded the alarm. George Washington Williams, Roger Casement, and then especially Edmund Dene Morel, with the Congo Reform Association, documented atrocities and led an international campaign. Under this pressure, a commission of inquiry set up by Leopold confirmed in 1905 the essence of the accusations. The Belgian Parliament, until then reluctant to assume the management of a vast African territory, was forced to react. In 1908, it voted to annex the Congo Free State, which then became a state colony: the Belgian Congo.

A Neutral State at the Heart of European Wars

The neutrality imposed in 1839 was intended as a shield. In 1914, it proved a strategic trap. Since the 1890s, the German General Staff had planned in detail an offensive to the west in case of war with France and Russia. The plan, elaborated by von Schlieffen then modified by von Moltke, envisaged bypassing French fortifications by passing massively through Belgium, sweeping away resistance on the Meuse, and thrusting towards Paris from the north. The Belgians, aware of the danger, had undertaken to modernize their army, increased conscription in 1909 then 1913, and built forts at Liège, Namur, and around Antwerp. But the reforms came late; society, marked by Catholic and socialist anti-militarism, was reluctant to finance a major military tool.

The Belgian resistance, though militarily doomed to failure against an adversary of over a million soldiers, played a crucial role. The forts of Liège held for eleven days instead of the two planned by the German plan; Namur resisted a few days; Antwerp, transformed into a “national redoubt,” held until October. On the coastal plain, by flooding the lowlands of the Yser, Albert I’s army managed to stabilize a reduced but tenacious front. A small portion of the territory remained free; the rest of the country endured occupation.

The economy was methodically tapped: monthly war contributions, requisitions of raw materials, dismantling of factories to supply German industry. Famine threatened in a country that was a net importer of grain, subjected to the Allied naval blockade. A vast relief effort, the National Committee for Relief and Food, in liaison with American organizations, managed to feed a large part of the population, but unemployment affected up to 650,000 people. Starting in 1916, tens of thousands of workers were deported as forced laborers to Germany or to military construction sites.

In this context, Belgian neutrality shattered in fact. After the war, the Treaty of Versailles abolished the obligatory neutrality established in 1839. Belgium obtained some territorial compensations (Eupen-Malmedy), a mandate over Ruanda-Urundi, and reparations. But above all, it was the trauma of having served as a battlefield that marked minds. And yet, in the interwar period, the country briefly became neutral again from 1936, before being invaded again by Germany in 1940.

From Unitary State to Federal Belgium: The Slow Internal Recomposition

At its birth, History of the country Belgium was a unitary state dominated by a French-speaking elite, even in Dutch-speaking regions. The 1831 Constitution, however liberal, reserved the vote to a wealthy minority of men and recognized only one official language: French. Yet the majority of the population spoke Flemish dialects in the north, and French or Romance dialects in the south.

These linguistic tensions, already sensitive before 1914, exploded in the 20th century, notably after the two world wars. They were superimposed on socio-economic divides: a long-time rich and industrial Wallonia facing a long-time poorer Flanders, then the gradual reversal after 1945, when Walloon steelmaking declined and the north became the economic engine. After several political crises, a series of state reforms, between 1970 and 1993, transformed the History of the country Belgium into a complex federation. Three regions (Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels-Capital) and three communities (Flemish, French, German-speaking) now have extended powers, notably in cultural, educational, and economic matters.

A History Reread Through the National Prism

From the aftermath of 1830, the intellectual elites of the History of the country Belgium undertook to construct a historical narrative legitimizing the new state. Historians like Étienne-Constantin de Gerlache or Théodore Juste selected, interpreted, and linked past episodes to draw a continuity: from the Nervii resisting Caesar to the Ghent forces defeated at Gavere, from the Flemish militias of the Golden Spurs to the Brabanters rising against Joseph II, all became, retrospectively, the ancestors of the Belgians of 1830.

This vision, nourished by 19th-century Romanticism, also influenced the arts. The painting of Gustaaf Wappers, statues of crusaders like Godfrey of Bouillon, historical novels by Hendrik Conscience, the great paintings of the 1830 Revolution, all participated in the fabrication of a visual and literary memory of the nation.

Between Continuities and Ruptures: What the History of the Country Belgium Reveals

Seen from afar, the History of the country Belgium could be summarized as a succession of dominations and ruptures: Roman Empire, Frankish kingdoms, Holy Roman Empire, Burgundy, Spain, Austria, France, United Kingdom of the Netherlands, then independence; imposed neutrality, two German invasions, passage from unitary state to federal state. But behind these political upheavals, several underlying trends remain.

The 1830 Revolution, far from being a simple flashpoint, appears then as a moment of articulation of these inheritances. It is social as much as political, national as much as European, inspired by Paris but keen to assert its own path, protected by London but jealous of its independence. The kingdom that emerged, with its constitutional monarchy, its neutrality, then its industrialization and empire, continues, to this day, to seek a balance between European integration, internal diversity, and sovereignty.

In this quest, the History of the country Belgium is neither that of a marginal small state, nor that of a great power, but that of a crossroads: a place of passage for yesterday’s armies, for capital, for legal norms, and now for European institutions. An uncomfortable but fertile position, which explains why, for two centuries, debates about its future fascinate its inhabitants as much as its neighbors.