Belgium (1918–40)

The history of Belgium extends before the founding of the modern state of that name in 1830, and is intertwined with those of its neighbors: the Netherlands, Germany, France and Luxembourg. For most of its history, what is now Belgium was either a part of a larger territory, such as the Carolingian Empire, or divided into a number of smaller states, prominent among them being the Duchy of Brabant, the County of Flanders, the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the County of Namur, the County of Hainaut and the County of Luxembourg. Due to its strategic location as a country of contact between different cultures, Belgium has been called the "crossroads of Europe"; for the many armies fighting on its soil, it has also been called the "battlefield of Europe" or the " cockpit of Europe". It is also remarkable as a European nation which contains, and is divided by, a language boundary between Latin-derived French and Germanic Dutch.

Belgium's modern shape can be traced back at least as far as the southern core of the medieval Burgundian Netherlands. These lands straddled the ancient boundary of the Scheldt that had divided medieval France and Germany, but they were brought together under the House of Valois-Burgundy, and unified into one autonomous territory by their heir Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, in his Pragmatic Sanction of 1549. The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) later led to the split between a northern Dutch Republic and the Southern Netherlands from which Belgium and Luxembourg developed. This southern territory continued to be ruled by the Habsburg descendants of the Burgundian house, at first as the Spanish Netherlands. Invasions from France under Louis XIV led to the loss of what is now Nord-Pas-de-Calais to France.

The area, long a Habsburg stronghold, briefly came under Bourbon control during the War of the Spanish Succession. The resulting Peace of Utrecht transferred the area back to Habsburg control, creating what is now known as the Austrian Netherlands. The French Revolutionary wars led to Belgium becoming part of France in 1795, bringing the end of the semi-independence of areas which had belonged to the Catholic church. After the defeat of the French in 1814, the Congress of Vienna created two new states, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, both of which were placed in dynastic union under the House of Orange-Nassau.

The Southern Netherlands rebelled during the 1830 Belgian Revolution, establishing the modern Belgian state, official recognized at the London Conference of 1830. The first King of Belgium, Leopold I, assumed the throne in 1831. Leopold became known domestically for bringing a swift end to the Belgian theater in the Revolutions of 1848, and internationally as pacifying force in European politics, mediating disputes between great powers and maintaining Belgian neutrality.

Belgium's second king, Leopold II, became a controversial figure when he established a colony in south-central Africa, the Congo Free State, as his own personal fief. When the atrocities of his rule became public, he was stripped of control of the colony by the Belgian government, establishing the Belgian Congo. Domestically, Leopold presided over a state known for growing liberal sentiments, with the growth of the labour movement and the establishment of universal male suffrage.

The first half of the twentieth century was much more tumultuous for Belgium. Its historic neutrality was violated twice in each of the World Wars, as Germany used the relatively open terrain of Belgium to bypass French defenses. Belgian resistance to the German invaders resulted in the Rape of Belgium during World War I. The surrender by Leopold III of Belgium to German forces shortly after the 1940 invasion of the country served to drive a wedge between the King and his people, and would forever damage his legacy. After the war he remained in exile while a regent, Prince Charles, Count of Flanders, ruled in his stead. His attempt to return to the country and re-exert personal control of the country led to a constitutional crisis in 1950, which led to his abdication in favor of his son Baudouin.

Baudouin took a less active role in politics than his predecessors, and Belgium entered the second half of the twentieth century showing an unprecedented era of economic growth, as Belgium took an active role in the formation of the Benelux customs union with its neighbors, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The union allowed the states to resist American political and economic influence during the period of the Marshall Plan, and allowed the region to plot its own economic path. Ultimately, the Benelux union would serve as a model for the European Economic Community, a precursor to the European Union; to this day Brussels serves as the seat of many of the European Union institutions. Other major events during Baudouins reign included the independence of the Belgian Congo leading to the Congo Crisis, the conflicts between the Christian Social Party and its more left-leaning opponents over school funding, and the growth of the Flemish Movement.

Domestically, the country has faced divisions over differences of language and unequal economic development. This ongoing antagonism has caused far-reaching reforms since the 1970s, changing the formerly unitary Belgian state into a federal state, and repeated governmental crises. It is now divided into three regions: Flanders (Dutch-speaking) in the north, Wallonia (French-speaking) in the south, and bilingual Brussels in the middle.

Since the 1990s, Belgium has become involved in several international conflicts, under the aegis of various United Nations peacekeeping forces, including the Rwandan Civil War, the ongoing civil wars in Somalia, the Kosovo War, and several others. Environmental concerns came to a head in the Dioxin affair, bringing down the Belgian government of Jean-Luc Dehaene's premiership. Since then, the Belgian political landscape has become increasingly politically fragmented; the notorious 2010 Belgian federal election, it took nearly a year to form a government, in more recent elections a growing right-wing Flemish nationalist movement has had a strong influence over domestic politics.

Names

Belgium is an old name which had various meaning, but a key turning point when it was used specifically to refer to the southern part of the Netherlands was during the so-called "Brabant revolution" or "First Belgian Revolution" in 1790, during a short period of independence from Austrian rule, only a few years before the invasion of France. This terminology was revived after the better known revolution of 1830, when modern Belgium broke out of the post-Waterloo kingdom of the Netherlands.

Belgium and Flanders were the first two common names used for the Burgundian Netherlands which was the predecessor of the Austrian Netherlands, the predecessor of Belgium. It is originally a Latin term used by Julius Caesar. The term continued to be used occasionally in different ways until the creation of the modern country. While Caesar described the Belgian part of Gaul as a larger area, much bigger than modern Belgium, including large parts of modern France, Germany and the Netherlands, he only used the term "Belgium" once, referring to a smaller area now mostly in Northern France, where the tribes ruling the Belgian military alliance lived. Under Roman rule this region was the equivalent of the province of ''Belgica Secunda'', which stretched into the coastal Flemish part of modern Belgium.

In late Roman and medieval times the term Belgium tended to be used to refer to Roman ''Belgica Prima'', and its successor Upper Lotharingia, in the Moselle region of Germany, Luxembourg and France. Only slowly in modern times did the old term start to be used for the area to the north of the two Roman ''Belgica'' provinces, now the Netherlands and Belgium. For example, it was sometimes used as a classical name for the northern " United Provinces", roughly the predecessor of the modern Netherlands, after they separated from the Spanish-ruled south, roughly the predecessor of modern Belgium, in the early modern era.

Prehistory

On Belgian territory Neanderthal fossils were discovered at Engis in 1829–30 and elsewhere, some dating back to at least 100,000 BC.

The earliest Neolithic farming technology of northern Europe, the so-called LBK culture, reached the east of Belgium at its furthest northwesterly stretch from its origins in southeast Europe. Its expansion stopped in the Hesbaye region of eastern Belgium around 5000 BC. The Belgian LBK is notable for its use of defensive walls around villages, something which may or may not have been necessary because of the proximity of hunter gatherers.

So-called "Limburg pottery" and "La Hoguette pottery" are styles which stretch into northwestern France and the Netherlands, but it has sometimes been argued that these technologies are the result of pottery technology spreading beyond the original LBK farming population of eastern Belgium and northeastern France, and being made by hunter gatherers. A slightly later-starting Neolithic culture found in central Wallonia is the so-called "Groupe de Blicquy", which may represent an offshoot of the LBK settlers. One notable archaeological site in this region is the Neolithic flint mines of Spiennes.

Farming in Belgium however failed to take permanent hold at first. The LBK and Blicquy cultures disappeared and there is a long gap before a new farming culture, the Michelsberg culture, appeared and became widespread. Hunter gatherers of the Swifterbant

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