What do you think would happen if the Southern Provinces successfully gained independence from the Netherlands?
What do you think would happen if the Southern Provinces successfully gained independence from the Netherlands?
The territories of the Southern Netherlands that rose up in 1830 were an odd fusion of a French- and a Dutch-speaking community. I don't see how that would have worked out - the state would probably have fallen apart in two, with the respective halves annexed by France and the Netherlands. So essentially, returning to the OTL borders, except that the Walloon minority is reunited with France. It would certainly have resulted in a Netherlands-screw as the Southern Provinces were and still are important to the Dutch economy.
I'd imagine that they end up being conquered by France or Germany at some point. I can't see them lasting too long as an independent state nor gaining any colonies. But, if they do manage to gain independence, the Netherlands probably won't be as active a player in African colonization.
No Free City of Brussels for one.....btw, would it still be the capital of the European Community, if such were to still exist?
'[OOC: How did Brussels end up a Free City in this ATL? After all, without Belgian revolution it would likely have remained Dutch speaking, which would have eliminated the need for a special status.]
But here, Brussels was divided between French and Dutch speakers, and since no other solution could be found, it was turned into a city-state a la Singapore.Which actually happened to a degree in 1874 IOTL, btw, after the Netherlands sided with the Germans during the Franco-German war and subsequently lost a good portion of Wallonia altogether(well, not all of it, of course: Namur and Liege are still part of the Dutch Republic today).
Why not? After all, even if all Southern provinces would join this 'Republic of Belgium' (which I highly doubt), it would only have a very small coastline. Most of the coastline would remain Dutch, which is kinda neat if you're in the whole colonialism thing.
I don't think Belgium would join the scramble for Africa, though, since it just wouldn't be able to compete with the major European powers. Wish is perhaps a pity, 'cause maybe I'm naive but I've always wondered if a colonisation of Africa by smaller countries such as the Scandinavian ones or in this case Belgium would be slightly gentler than in OTL - if only because they didn't have the manpower to invest in heavyhanded exploitation.
Anyways, just like other people, I can't see it last. The uprising just didn't have the necessary backbone: the majority of the people were rather apathic to the whole thing, and the majority of the country's elite was firmly Orangist. It's just a matter ot time before the whole thing crumbles. And even if it outlasts the first few revolutionary years, I predict it would be divided in the end. If this division happens early enough, either more or less randomly between France and the Netherlands, or, if later, more or less alongst linguistic lines. There just isn't room in Europe for multinational states, unfortunately - with the notably exception of Switzerland. (Although the linguistic border might not be exactly the same as it is now. Some towns near the present-day linguistic border - e.g. Maastricht - might be 'frenchified', considering their closeness to Wallonia and the possibility that French would continue to be the elite's language for a longer periode of time.)
And although the relations at the last decades of the 19th century rose,due to the imperial policies, the Netherlands remained out of the major conflicts betweent the real "Great Powers". It always manage to play the large nations in order to get what it want.
Internaly there were increasing tensions between the Catholics and Protenstants, regardless language, and whihc was fueled by the large migration streams of the poverised manly Protestant parts of the country to the former Cahtolic part of Walonia. Now these day this is not an issue any more but it is replaced by a, rather small language issue. Only two provincec are still manly French and in the other former Waloon provinces the French is replaced by Dutch due to the migration stream in the 19th century.
I know the rebellion used 'Belgium' as a monicker, but would that really make sense on a larger scale?
After all, the Netherlands had used Belgium as name (at least on official documents) for centuries. Much more likely a hypothetical succesful rebellion would call itself Wallonia eventually.
That said, I disagree with the posters suggesting the rebels would be so weak. Certainly, not as strong as the Netherlands historically, but the industrial core of the Netherlands was in the south. We can't predict the exact extent of a succesful rebellion, but much of the Dutch-netherlands industrial areas, in North Brabant and Limburg, might just as well have joined the former Habsburg Netherlands. This would make Walloon control extremely unstable, but leave the northern Netherlands little stronger than Denmark.
And, that means, Wallonia would be quite a strong player, possibly making a difference in a French-German conflict at some point.
OOC: Erm.....there was a Franco-German conflict.....in the 1870s. See my initial post.
Didn't stop them from collaborating with Germany on major military projects like Project Willem/Wilhelm and Project Habsburg, which gave them the excellent de Ruyter-class carriers and Fokker Komeet respectivly. Of course by that point they had all but given up on trying to match the Royal Navy in terms of firepower and just focused on spawning O-boots like no tommorow (I think at one point they had more submarines then the rest of the world combined, poor guy who had to name all of them.)IC: True, but this is mainly because they were so badly humiliated after losing the Franco-German War. Well, of course, that didn't stop them from eventually entering into the Great War on Germany's side(and losing yet again), but I digress...
Didn't stop them from collaborating with Germany on major military projects like Project Willem/Wilhelm and Project Habsburg, which gave them the excellent de Ruyter-class carriers and Fokker Komeet respectivly. Of course by that point they had all but given up on trying to match the Royal Navy in terms of firepower and just focused on spawning O-boots like no tommorow (I think at one point they had more submarines then the rest of the world combined, poor guy who had to name all of them.)
OOC: Erm.....there was a Franco-German conflict.....in the 1870s. See my initial post.