Belgian general strike of 1893

[1] The general strike was called on the evening of 11 April 1893 after politicians of Catholic and Liberal parties joined to block a proposal to expand the suffrage.

Conservatives, led by the Catholic Prime Minister Auguste Beernaert, feared a full revolution and clashes broke out between strikers and the military.

According to Henri Pirenne, the strike was only called under pressure from the miners of the Borinage and its rapid spread took the POB–BWP leadership, under Emile Vandervelde, by surprise.

[2] The elections however brought socialist deputies into parliament for the first time and led to the beginning Liberals' decline from one of the two dominant parties in Belgian politics.

The 1913 strike lead to the promise of reform to the plural voting system, but this was halted by the outbreak of World War I and subsequent German occupation.