History of Luxembourg
In the territory now covered by the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, there is evidence of primitive inhabitants dating back to the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age over 35,000 years ago.
The dwellings were made of a combination of tree trunks for the basic structure, mud-clad wickerwork walls, and roofs of thatched reeds or straw.
The Gaulish tribe in what is present-day Luxembourg during and after the La Tène period was known as the Treveri; they reached the height of prosperity in the 1st century BC.
The Treveri constructed a number of oppida, Iron Age fortified settlements, near the Moselle valley in what is now southern Luxembourg, western Germany and eastern France.
It was Siegfried I, count of Ardennes who traded some of his ancestral lands with the monks of the Abbey of St. Maximin in Trier in 963 for an ancient, supposedly Roman, fort named Lucilinburhuc, commonly translated as "little castle".
[2] Modern historians link the etymology of the word with Letze,[2] meaning fortification, which may have referred to either the remains of a Roman watchtower or to a primitive refuge of the early Middle Ages.
Around the fort of Luxembourg, a town gradually developed, which became the centre of a small but important state of great strategic value to France, Germany and the Netherlands.
The first Hohenzollern claimant to descend from both Anna and her younger sister Elisabeth, was John George, Elector of Brandenburg (1525–98), his maternal grandmother having been Barbara Jagiellon.
In the late 18th century, the younger line of Orange-Nassau (the princes who held sway in the neighbouring Dutch oligarchy) also became related to the Brandenburgers.
In 1598, the then possessor, Philip II of Spain, bequeathed Luxembourg and the other Low Countries to his daughter, the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia and her husband Albert VII, Archduke of Austria.
Albert was an heir and descendant of Elisabeth of Austria (d. 1505), queen of Poland, the youngest granddaughter of Sigismund of Luxembourg, the Holy Roman Emperor.
Albert VII was a descendant of Anna of Bohemia and William of Thuringia, having that blood through his mother's Danish great-great-grandmother, but was not the heir-general of that line.
The Bourbons of France held a strong claim to Luxembourg, whereas the Emperor Francis of Austria, on the other hand, had controlled the duchy until the revolutionary forces had joined it to the French republic.
However, his Chancellor, Klemens von Metternich, was not enthusiastic about regaining Luxembourg and the Low Countries, as they were separated so far from the main body of the Austrian Empire.
Luxembourg, somewhat diminished in size (as the medieval lands had been slightly reduced by the French and Prussian heirs), was augmented in another way through the elevation to the status of grand duchy and placed under the rule of William I of the Netherlands.
It is situated in Holland (then as now used by English speakers as shorthand for the Netherlands) but by treaty is garrisoned by Prussians and 5,000 of their troops occupy it under a Prince of Hesse.
[7] The Catholic Church helped provide a sense of a unique cultural identity, and as early as 1840, Luxembourg had been granted its own diocese, and in 1870, a separate bishopric.
[8][9] Famous visitors to Luxembourg in the 18th and 19th centuries included the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the French writers Émile Zola and Victor Hugo, the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, and the English painter Joseph Mallord William Turner.
[7] While the government officially maintained its neutrality in spite of German occupation, the population was sympathising with the Entente forces, and number of Luxembourgers joined the French army during as a result.
The victorious Allies disapproved of the choices made by the local élites, and some Belgian politicians even demanded the (re)integration of the country into a greater Belgium.
Especially under Joseph Bech, head of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the country participated more actively in several international organisations, in order to ensure its autonomy.
The government tried to counter communist-led unrest in the industrial areas and continued friendly policies towards Nazi Germany, which led to much criticism.
They did not encounter any significant resistance save for some bridges destroyed and some land mines since the majority of the Luxembourgish Volunteer Corps stayed in their barracks.
[11] The Luxembourg royal family and their entourage received visas from Portuguese consul Aristides de Sousa Mendes in Bordeaux.
They crossed into Portugal and subsequently travelled to the United States in two groups: on the USS Trenton from Lisbon to Baltimore in July 1940, and on the Pan American airliner Yankee Clipper in October 1940.
In October 1941, a census was administered, including questions on jetzige Staatsangehörigkeit (‘current citizenship’), Muttersprache (‘mother tongue’), and Volkszugehörigkeit (‘ethnicity’).
[7] Forced draft of the local population into the German army starting in 1942 resulted in the outbreak of numerous strikes, an event which is referred to today in collective terms as the Generalstreik.
After World War II, Luxembourg abandoned its politics of neutrality, when it became a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations.
Although in the early years of the 21st century Luxembourg enjoyed one of the highest GNI per capita in the world, this was mainly due to the strength of its financial sector, which gained importance at the end of the 1960s.
In October 2023, the Christian Social People's Party (CSV) won the general election, meaning Prime Minister Xavier Bettel's ruling liberal coalition lost its clear majority.
