Belgium in the long nineteenth century

In the years leading up to 1789, the territory today known as Belgium was divided into two states, called the Austrian Netherlands and Prince-Bishopric of Liège, both of which were part of the Holy Roman Empire.

[2] Aside from Zeelandic Flanders, part of Luxembourg, and Eastern Limburg, which were ceded to the Dutch to compensate for the loss of the rest of the territory, the outline of Belgium in 1914 was virtually identical to that established by the French in 1795.

[4] The economy of the Austrian Netherlands developed little, as its neighboring states imposed high export tariffs and the port of Antwerp remained blocked by the Dutch.

[18] Use of the French language was actively encouraged and publications in Dutch banned as the government tried to integrate the territory into France, leaving a lasting legacy.

In an attempt to strengthen their position in Belgium, the Austrians began to recruit a Belgian Legion of infantry, cavalry and artillery, which was merged with the Dutch army.

[26] Keen to promote the economic development of the southern provinces as well, William I founded the Société Générale des Pays-Bas in 1822 to provide businesses with capital to invest in machinery.

[26] The Belgian Revolution broke out on 25 August 1830, after the performance of a nationalist opera (La muette de Portici) in Brussels led to a minor insurrection among the capital's bourgeoisie, who sang patriotic songs and captured some public buildings in the city.

[26] The Provisional Government of Belgium, led by Charles Rogier, was formed on 24 September and Belgian independence was officially proclaimed on 4 October while work began on creating a constitution.

[40] The Catholics saw religious teachings as a fundamental basis for the state and society and opposed all attempts by the liberals to attack the church's official privileges.

[42] Radical parties like the Association Démocratique, founded in 1847 at the instigation of Karl Marx, who had briefly lived in Brussels in exile, actively agitated against the unpopular Liberal government under Charles Rogier.

Shortly after the revolution in France, Belgian migrant workers living in Paris were encouraged to return to Belgium to overthrow the monarchy and establish a republic.

It was characterized by the resurgence of the Catholic Party, political confrontation over military action, educational and franchise reform and his creation of a personal empire in Central Africa.

[44] After being repeatedly turned down, he launched a personal venture to colonize the Congo river basin in central Africa, without the backing or support of the Belgian state.

[44] Some of the vast personal wealth he accumulated from the colony was spent on construction of grandiose public buildings across Belgium, earning him the nickname "Builder King" (roi batisseur).

[45] Most of these projects were focused in Brussels, where he constructed two large palaces,[c] and Ostend, where a vast colonnaded arcade was built along the seafront in an attempt to turn the town into a fashionable seaside resort.

Towards the end of his reign, public awareness of the atrocities committed under his colonial regime, as well as his marital infidelity, led to a significant fall the monarchy's popularity.

From 1860, large numbers of Belgian Catholic volunteers went to Italy in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to defend the independence of the Papal States against Giuseppe Garibaldi's revolutionaries.

Shortly before the conflict, a draft treaty from the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 between Napoleon III and German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck discussing the annexation of Belgium as the price for French neutrality was made public.

[44] Politically, however, colonization was extremely unpopular, as it was perceived as a risky and expensive gamble with no obvious benefit to the country and his many attempts were rejected:[44] Walthère Frère-Orban, liberal prime minister from 1878–84, wrote that: Belgium does not need a colony.

[62] Determined to look for a colony for himself and inspired by recent reports from central Africa, Leopold began patronizing a number of leading explorers, including Henry Morton Stanley.

[44] Leopold established the International African Association, a charitable organization to oversee the exploration and surveying of a territory based around the Congo River, with the stated goal of bringing humanitarian assistance and civilization to the natives.

[68] The International Workingmen's Association held its first conference outside Switzerland in Brussels in 1868 as Belgian socialism, under figures such as César De Paepe, expanded dramatically.

[70] Numerous politicians of the Workers' Party were arrested by the government in the subsequent backlash,[70] but a wave of industrial legislation, including reforms to ban child labor and limit working hours, were introduced in the aftermath of the strike.

[84] The issue of military reform, which had been extremely contentious right up to the end of Leopold II's reign, continued to be important up to the outbreak of the First World War.

In a surprising victory, the Belgian army managed to halt the German advance at the Yser, paving the way for the static trench warfare that which would characterize the Western Front for the next four years.

Although the town of Ghent, a centre of cotton production in Flanders, industrialised rapidly, the effects of the Industrial Revolution were most felt in Wallonia, particularly in the cities of Mons, Charleroi, Liège and Verviers.

[89] One of the most successful exporters was Édouard Empain, nicknamed the "Tramway King", whose company ran infrastructure projects across Europe, Asia and South America.

In Flanders, the Literary Romanticist movement, aided by a renewed interest in Belgium's medieval past, flourished under authors including Hendrik Conscience, who is credited as "father of the Flemish novel", and poets like Theodoor van Rijswijck.

[95] Heavily influenced by Belgian dialects such as West Flemish, the poet and priest Guido Gezelle produced lyric poems in Dutch from the 1850s until his death in 1899.

[95] Among the members of the Jeune Belgique were the writer Camille Lemonnier, whose works were often set against the background of Belgian peasant life in the naturalist style, and the poet Charles Van Lerberghe.