Belgium, Oh Belgium - Who Shall Claim Thee, Belgium?

[isabella]

Her parents were second cousins, her paternal grandparents were first cousins and were first cousins with her maternal grandfather. It's bad now, but at the time it was normal - Queen Victoria's children and grandchildren married and intermarried way more than this.

Exactly and you need to do worse for being truly genetically screwed

 

[The_Most_Happy]

Exactly and you need to do worse for being truly genetically screwed

Read this really wrong at 3am my time as you telling me to deliberately do worse and genetically screw Louise and her descendants

 

[Mikestone8]

Well, it can't be a Frenchman. The other powers won't have that.

I gather the Belgians didn't fancy either a Dutchman or an Austrian, so we're probably back to good old Saxe-Coburg. God save King Ferdinand.

 

[aenigma]

Wallonia was and is a huge moneymaking area: "In the 18th century, Wallonia was the second industrial power in the world, in proportion to its population and its territory, after the United Kingdom... currently Wallonia has some companies which are world leaders in their specialized fields, including armaments, glass production, lime and limestone production, cyclotrons, and aviation parts." From what I understand, this is part of the reason they have the independence they do. I think the monarchy could be persuaded to forgo a little control for a better overall economy / richer country.

Wallonia used to be very rich for a short time, when coal was easy to be mined in the walloons they had industry right next to it, unfortunatly they never adepted when all that closed since the 70-80ish,
Right now its pisspoor and unlikely to change anytime soon, i dont know where you get your info from to be honest but in belgium 85+% of the export and wealth is flemish not walloons or brussels

they got a pisspoor economy that is kept poor by decades of socialist control
and the only reason that economy is stil somewhat standing is billions of cash moving north to south every year essentially as a blank cheque where they do with it what they want
even after that they fail to balans the budget year after year and majority of the current belgian debt has been calculated to come from them not the federal level,

they got no real foreign policy to speak off but they do occasionally do a trade mission somewhere but thats about it

wallonia present day on its own would be greece during the worst time at best, especially if you consider the high % unemployed and high % working for the goverment in that region

with no ability to speak anything but french in most cases they would be in serious trouble if the region became independend(and they are notorious for that)
thats also why they are so afraid of the flemish nationalists in the north since they combined with extreme right already have 40% of the current flemish parlement(both are seperatists to a degree), if these ever reach +50% there is a good change that its over for belgium

 

[The_Most_Happy]

Wallonia used to be very rich for a short time, when coal was easy to be mined in the walloons they had industry right next to it, unfortunatly they never adepted when all that closed since the 70-80ish,
Right now its pisspoor and unlikely to change anytime soon, i dont know where you get your info from to be honest but in belgium 85+% of the export and wealth is flemish not walloons or brussels

they got a pisspoor economy that is kept poor by decades of socialist control
and the only reason that economy is stil somewhat standing is billions of cash moving north to south every year essentially as a blank cheque where they do with it what they want
even after that they fail to balans the budget year after year and majority of the current belgian debt has been calculated to come from them not the federal level,

they got no real foreign policy to speak off but they do occasionally do a trade mission somewhere but thats about it

wallonia present day on its own would be greece during the worst time at best, especially if you consider the high % unemployed and high % working for the goverment in that region

with no ability to speak anything but french in most cases they would be in serious trouble if the region became independend(and they are notorious for that)
thats also why they are so afraid of the flemish nationalists in the north since they combined with extreme right already have 40% of the current flemish parlement(both are seperatists to a degree), if these ever reach +50% there is a good change that its over for belgium

Totally my bad, I looked up Walloon in the 18th / 19th centuries because that's when my timeline is. I didn't realize they had gotten that bad - it said they had 'dropped a bit' when they closed factories etc but made it sound like they bounced back pretty well. I'm not saying Wallonia would become independent per se but rather would follow along with Luxembourg when it became independent following the accession of a Queen of the Netherlands. In theory, the daughter of Willem and Charlotte would inherit the throne of the Netherlands, but due to the Nassau pact, Luxembourg would go to the next male in the line - her cousin, the son of Prince Alexander and Princess Clementine. As Prince Alexander and his son would have been serving as the 'Governor' (not sure of proper title) in that region to keep down rebellions following the attempt in 1831 to create Belgium, the area would have sympathy for them and 'leave' the Netherlands to join Luxembourg. Depending on how bad the economy is at the time, I'm pretty sure the new Queen would let them go without a fuss - as you said, Wallonia speaks French and from what I read is mostly Catholic, making it easier to align with Luxembourg and Alexander's son than a Protestant Dutch woman. Or at least, that's the working theory right now, as I'm still only in 1819/1820 in my timeline writing.

Any ideas on how to better make that work out? Should Alexander's son just drop Wallonia like a bad girlfriend and move onto Luxembourg?

 

[aenigma]

Totally my bad, I looked up Walloon in the 18th / 19th centuries because that's when my timeline is. I didn't realize they had gotten that bad - it said they had 'dropped a bit' when they closed factories etc but made it sound like they bounced back pretty well. I'm not saying Wallonia would become independent per se but rather would follow along with Luxembourg when it became independent following the accession of a Queen of the Netherlands. In theory, the daughter of Willem and Charlotte would inherit the throne of the Netherlands, but due to the Nassau pact, Luxembourg would go to the next male in the line - her cousin, the son of Prince Alexander and Princess Clementine. As Prince Alexander and his son would have been serving as the 'Governor' (not sure of proper title) in that region to keep down rebellions following the attempt in 1831 to create Belgium, the area would have sympathy for them and 'leave' the Netherlands to join Luxembourg. Depending on how bad the economy is at the time, I'm pretty sure the new Queen would let them go without a fuss - as you said, Wallonia speaks French and from what I read is mostly Catholic, making it easier to align with Luxembourg and Alexander's son than a Protestant Dutch woman. Or at least, that's the working theory right now, as I'm still only in 1819/1820 in my timeline writing.

Any ideas on how to better make that work out? Should Alexander's son just drop Wallonia like a bad girlfriend and move onto Luxembourg?

its ok i would love them to do better so i can pay less taxes but the picture isnt that good unfortunatly
they have had some succes with microsoft moving there but at the same time the last heavy industry(steel) left and now they got not much left
i wasnt joking when i sayd 85% of the export comes from flanders (with 60% of the population living there)

to think what should happend or should have happend to Wallonia you got to consider one thing
Wallonia was not one coherent region at the time
you got about 1/3 luxembourg 1/3 liege and 1/3 hainaut(french) i think

what they should have done to be honest is keep luxembourg in one piece (half of luxembourg is in belgium today in a province called .... luxembourg)
give hainaut back to france
liege back to germany or independend(used to be a independent bishopry in the HRE up to napoleon i believe)
and split namur between france/luxembourg is probably the best option or add it to luxembourg

and keep brabant and flandern either independent or part of netherlands
maybe give french flanders back for hainaut while where at it

 

[aenigma]

to give a idea on employment walloons vs flanders

that little red dot in flanders is brussel by the way

 

[The_Most_Happy]

Biggest challenge with the Eaglet is having him giving up his claim to the French throne. Than again, if there are certain not so moral people in his inner circle, they might even talk him into it and use Belgium as gateway into France. There are a lot of Bonaparte sympathizers and the new regime is highly unstable. So it might end with Bonaparte return to power just as it was in OTL-1848.

Just saw this when I was re-reading the thread (still have no idea what I'm going to do); how would you the not so moral people to talk him into it?

 

[The Zeppelin]

Just saw this when I was re-reading the thread (still have no idea what I'm going to do); how would you the not so moral people to talk him into it?

I meant that most likely Napoleon Jr. only gets to be King of Belgium if he abdicates from any claim on the French throne for himself and his descendants. At the very least, I can see some of his opponents insisting on it. Assuming he agrees and gets crowned as king of Belgium, his supporters will try to talk him into trying to seize power in France, regardless of abdicating from it. The man can claim that he gave the promise under pressure, meaning it is invalid or just say something along the lines of his duty to the French people being more important than his promises to foreign monarchs.

 

[The_Most_Happy]

I meant that most likely Napoleon Jr. only gets to be King of Belgium if he abdicates from any claim on the French throne for himself and his descendants. At the very least, I can see some of his opponents insisting on it. Assuming he agrees and gets crowned as king of Belgium, his supporters will try to talk him into trying to seize power in France, regardless of abdicating from it. The man can claim that he gave the promise under pressure, meaning it is invalid or just say something along the lines of his duty to the French people being more important than his promises to foreign monarchs.

Any idea how to get the other monarchs on board? Austria would probably back him from familial loyalty. The Bourbons continue in this timeline with Henri V of France and his mother Maria Carolina of the Two Sicilies as his regent - she is a cousin to Napoleon II but I don't see that helping much. I did like the previous idea of N2 marrying Clementine of Orleans, so maybe the Duke of Orleans could work on Maria Carolina to agree but it's a long shot. That still leaves Britain and Russia to get on board. Maybe he has to renounce his claims to France for himself, his descendants, and the Beuharnais / Bonaparte families for eternity and in perpetuity? And the other powers have an agreement to march in and curb stomp him if he tries to invade any other country?

 

[dmg86]

Or maybe he 's considered the better alternative then the french king or regent is, or maybe their is a second revolution that leads to a government similar to the terror and he's considered the lesser of 2 evils.

 

[The Zeppelin]

Any idea how to get the other monarchs on board? Austria would probably back him from familial loyalty. The Bourbons continue in this timeline with Henri V of France and his mother Maria Carolina of the Two Sicilies as his regent - she is a cousin to Napoleon II but I don't see that helping much. I did like the previous idea of N2 marrying Clementine of Orleans, so maybe the Duke of Orleans could work on Maria Carolina to agree but it's a long shot. That still leaves Britain and Russia to get on board. Maybe he has to renounce his claims to France for himself, his descendants, and the Beuharnais / Bonaparte families for eternity and in perpetuity? And the other powers have an agreement to march in and curb stomp him if he tries to invade any other country?

Having Junior marrying into the Orleans line doesn't really help - they will still see him as a threat, which he is, and he is supposed to keep the French power in check. Besides, it will harm his image among his supporters. Austria will be his major supporter and I can even see the Austrians remaining neutral or even supporting Eaglet financially if he tries to take over France. Russia and Austria had a pretty harmonious relationship at the time and I can see Austrian diplomats working their magic on the Russians. That leaves Britain, which will not go to war alone and MAY be satisfied with Napoleon II renouncing his claim. They will still be wary of the man, though. Just as Dutch will be. Bourbon France will be kicking and screaming, so to say, but they can't really do much about it in case Napoleon II falls in line with what foreign powers demand he does. At least, for a time.

You still need him to marry someone suitable, someone, who will help his aspirations and Imperial dreams. Means, not Austrian cousins (no need for Habsburg inbreeding), no one from Italy (because Sardinia has no one suitable and Naples is useless), no one from Spain (because the Spanish will likely hold a grudge and are too weak to be of use anyway) and no one from Scandinavia (because they won't help much).

I'd suggest Princess Louise of Prussia or someone from Bavaria - princess Ludovika Wilhelmine or Maximiliana Josepha Karoline (if you have her live longer than OTL). Maybe, in order to appease the Dutch, have him marry princess Marianne.

Like I said, TTL 1848 will be his best chance of winning. With the Bonapartes in power in Belgium, Imperial underground can get organized and become a viable threat, having Belgian support. If Bourbons are still in power odds are the French people are even angrier at them than at the Orleans dynasty OTL. 1848 kicks in, other foreign powers have to deal with their own rebellions and Napoleon II uses that as an opportunity to take over France. Preferrably, swiftly and with as little blood as possible. He can be even secretly allied to Austria and, depending on who he marries, have allies and/or sympathizers in Germany and Netherlands. Hence, it can be pulled off. I won't lie to you, this will require A LOT of luck, but Bonapartes have a history of pulling off some awesome feats rather unexpectedly, don't they?

 

[WillVictoria]

Pretty good division, instead.
Max and Albert will likely join the Church as OTL or receive either lands in Austria. One of them can get Milan (who was an Imperial fief) but Naples, Sicily and Sardinia are part of the Spanish inheritance so they will go to Ernest

Having Junior marrying into the Orleans line doesn't really help - they will still see him as a threat, which he is, and he is supposed to keep the French power in check. Besides, it will harm his image among his supporters. Austria will be his major supporter and I can even see the Austrians remaining neutral or even supporting Eaglet financially if he tries to take over France. Russia and Austria had a pretty harmonious relationship at the time and I can see Austrian diplomats working their magic on the Russians. That leaves Britain, which will not go to war alone and MAY be satisfied with Napoleon II renouncing his claim. They will still be wary of the man, though. Just as Dutch will be. Bourbon France will be kicking and screaming, so to say, but they can't really do much about it in case Napoleon II falls in line with what foreign powers demand he does. At least, for a time.

You still need him to marry someone suitable, someone, who will help his aspirations and Imperial dreams. Means, not Austrian cousins (no need for Habsburg inbreeding), no one from Italy (because Sardinia has no one suitable and Naples is useless), no one from Spain (because the Spanish will likely hold a grudge and are too weak to be of use anyway) and no one from Scandinavia (because they won't help much).

I'd suggest Princess Louise of Prussia or someone from Bavaria - princess Ludovika Wilhelmine or Maximiliana Josepha Karoline (if you have her live longer than OTL). Maybe, in order to appease the Dutch, have him marry princess Marianne.

Like I said, TTL 1848 will be his best chance of winning. With the Bonapartes in power in Belgium, Imperial underground can get organized and become a viable threat, having Belgian support. If Bourbons are still in power odds are the French people are even angrier at them than at the Orleans dynasty OTL. 1848 kicks in, other foreign powers have to deal with their own rebellions and Napoleon II uses that as an opportunity to take over France. Preferrably, swiftly and with as little blood as possible. He can be even secretly allied to Austria and, depending on who he marries, have allies and/or sympathizers in Germany and Netherlands. Hence, it can be pulled off. I won't lie to you, this will require A LOT of luck, but Bonapartes have a history of pulling off some awesome feats rather unexpectedly, don't they?

Ludovika of Bavaria would definitely be down for marrying Napoleon. Like Clementine, she was ambitious to get her kids crowns (in her case as consorts), supposedly because she felt slighted after her sisters married Kings and Archdukes while she got stuck with a virtual nobody. The only issue is IOTL by the time of the Belgian revolt she's already married to Maximilian and before then I don't know if her father will see a match with Napoleon advantageous (they already have an Austrian connection via Sophie's marriage to Franz Karl and a Napoleonic connection from Augusta's wedding to Leuchtenberg.

Maybe if Ludovika insists she wants at least an Archduke and ITTL Maximiliana survives as a reserve, their father lets Ludovika marry Napoleon & has Maximiliana take her big sister's place marrying the Duke in Bavaria. Ludovika would definitely encourage Napoleon to seize the day and take Belgium

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

Maybe, in order to appease the Dutch, have him marry princess Marianne.

While I'd go for any match for Marianne that isn't her OTL first husband, it's really a shame she wasn't allowed to marry the Swedish prince (Gustaf (V)) as both parties wanted. And that solely because the Swedes brought international pressure to bear on the Dutch IIRC.
I also think Marianne would be awkward since she's Protestant. Depending on how Belgium breaks away, there might be an insistence that the new queen be at least Catholic.

princess Ludovika Wilhelmine or Maximiliana Josepha Karoline

Maximiliane Josefa was betrothed to Duke Maximilian in Bavaria from infancy. Her death meant that her place was taken by Ludovika. Ludovika wanted to marry D. Miguel of Portugal, her parents refused, since he was a second-son and unlikely to amount to much. Plus, by 1830 Bavaria's got two matches with Vienna already, I can't see anyone wanting them to have a third.

Means, not Austrian cousins (no need for Habsburg inbreeding)

Actually, none of the archduchesses who would be able to marry in 1830 would be cousins. Second cousin once removed yes. But a very well-connected cousin.

The first one off the top of my head:
Maria Theresia of Teschen (OTL queen of Naples), her dad's the duke of Teschen, one time foster son of Mimi and Albrecht; the preferred Austrian candidate to get the Netherlands had the FRW not intervened, and married to a Dutch girl (Henriëtte of Nassau).
The Palatine of Hungary only has his daughter, Hermine (b.1817). OTL she remained unmarried due to health problems. But guess what, her mom is cousin to the duchess of Teschen and the king of the Netherlands (her maternal grandmother is Amalie of Nassau-Weilburg, daughter of Princess Carolina of Orange, sister to Willem V).
Ergo, both likely Austrian candidates are part Dutch, and as such might find backers from the Hague and London which make them more palatable. That they're not from the main imperial line likewise probably increases their odds - i.e. Metternich not being overly worried about a repeat of the Napoléon-Maria Ludovica disaster.

 

[Foadar]

Humbug,all of this. Respect the popular vote and see Belgium returned to rightful Dutch rule.

 

[The_Most_Happy]

Humbug,all of this. Respect the popular vote and see Belgium returned to rightful Dutch rule.

I appreciate and respect the popular vote, but as it's my timeline, I'm going to explore all options and ideas until I find one that I feel suits my timeline and it's direction. I am thankful for all votes and comments, and take them all seriously and into consideration.

 

[dmg86]

In my opinion I just can't see a Netherlands like that being that long lasting due to it's neighbors being likely take advantage of any weakness to split the country or otherwise stoke any disagreements to their benefit.

 

[Kerney]

I appreciate and respect the popular vote, but as it's my timeline, I'm going to explore all options and ideas until I find one that I feel suits my timeline and it's direction. I am thankful for all votes and comments, and take them all seriously and into consideration.

Since I'm evil and the Walloons are outnumbered 6-1, and the idea hasn't been delegitmized by otl behavior, why not just impoverish the French speakers by seizing all their stuff, take their kids to be raised in Dutch households and kill anyone who gives you too much lip while encouraging emigration. Give Belgian Luxembourg to Luxembourg to shut them up and do it in 1815 while France is a just recovering from Napoleon.

Basically turn the Dutch into proto fascists in the name of national security.

 

[funnyhat]

Since I'm evil and the Walloons are outnumbered 6-1, and the idea hasn't been delegitmized by otl behavior, why not just impoverish the French speakers by seizing all their stuff, take their kids to be raised in Dutch households and kill anyone who gives you too much lip while encouraging emigration. Give Belgian Luxembourg to Luxembourg to shut them up and do it in 1815 while France is a just recovering from Napoleon.

Basically turn the Dutch into proto fascists in the name of national security.

Putting aside that this would almost certainly provoke a reaction from France, keep in mind that a lot of those French speakers are aristocrats upon whom the king wants to draw support. The Flemish aristocracy spoke French ; Flemish was regarded as a peasant's language.

 

[Kerney]

Putting aside that this would almost certainly provoke a reaction from France, keep in mind that a lot of those French speakers are aristocrats upon whom the king wants to draw support. The Flemish aristocracy spoke French ; Flemish was regarded as a peasant's language.

That is what I wanted to hear.