BELGIUM
THE COUNTRY OF EUROPE
Belgium, a country in Western Europe, is known for medieval towns, Renaissance architecture and as headquarters of the European Union and NATO. The country has distinctive regions including Dutch-speaking Flanders to the north, French-speaking Wallonia to the south and a German-speaking community to the east. The bilingual capital, Brussels, has ornate guildhalls at Grand-Place and elegant art-nouveau buildings.
HISTORY OF BELGIUM
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 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"[1] or the "cockpit of Europe".[2] 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