Belgian Revolution against the Netherlands
The Kingdom of the Netherlands created in 1815 yoked the Protestant Dutch north to the Catholic, industrialising, partly French-speaking Belgian south in a union resented from the start. Dutch dominance of government posts, language policy favouring Dutch, and economic friction between the free-trade north and the protectionist-minded industrial south generated mounting grievance. In August 1830, inspired by the July Revolution in Paris, riots in Brussels escalated into a full secessionist rising. The southern provinces declared independence and formed a provisional government; Dutch attempts to reconquer them, including the 1831 'Ten Days' Campaign', were halted by French intervention. The London Conference of the great powers recognised Belgium as an independent and permanently neutral state. For the Netherlands this was the loss of more than half its population, though it retained the lucrative East Indies colonial empire. The episode was the first successful territorial revision of the Vienna settlement and a structural defeat for the metropolitan Dutch state.
- Year: 1830 CE
- Category: Political
