King Leopold of Belgium invades the Netherlands

Since his crowning of King of the Belgians King Leopold aquired considrable influence over Belgian politics.

In june 1855 the Belgium army crossed the border with the Netherlands in a suprise attck on its Northern neigbor.
The attack was conceived by Leopold long time ago when he was 19 years old and only crown prince.
The attack, preceded by carefull planning and inellengence was an all out succes.
The Dutch army no match for the larger and better organised Belgium army. The Belgium army advanced rapidlt through Brabant and crossed after encountering some resistance the river Waal. The Dutch army was in desarray and only small units of the field army gave fierce resistance, how ever they had to give way due to the larger opponents. The whole advance was so sudden and swift that the Dutch hardly had time to organised seriuos resistance.
Within 4 days the Belgian army occupied The Hague and offered terms of surrender at the Dutch Cabinet.
Despite the military victory, an Catholic uprising or simpathy, as anticipated by Leopold did not materialise. On the contrary, population, Protestant and Catholic was hostile towards the troops and on several places riots and open fighting broke out between Belgian soldiers and civilians.
The Great Powers were stuned by the move of Belgium and dissaproved the whole action, however the Dutch defence colapsed so swift that there was no time to organise any diplomatic or military support to the Dutch.
Great Brittain and Prusia offerd to mediate between the two countries monitored by France.
The Netherlands would cede the Provinces Brabant and Limburg and Zeeuws Vlanderen. This would shift the border to the river Maas
and provide the Belgians control of on bank of the river Schelde.
There were also demands for war reparations and the demand for Sumatra or Borneo but due to diplomatic presure of the Great powers this did not materialise.
The Grea Powers on their hand regarded the London treaty of 1839 as obsolete and did not reagrded Belguim neutral.

By 1869 Leopold was probed if he was interested in a secret defence agrement with Prusia, which he was.
When in 1870, at all a sudden France declared war to Prusia an it allies, the Belgium army made it self ready, for the record just to defend the country. When fighting was goiing on and the French were already in the defence, the Belgian field army crossed the French border and occupied the teritory up to the river Somme. When finaly hostilities ended Franche ceded to Belgium the departments Pas de Callais and Flandre du Nord. The were incorporated in the Belgium province Flandres and a new province Arras.

In the next years, Leopold still wanting to have a place under the sun, involved him self with the exploration of the Congo bassin, resulting at the Berlin conference with an enormous piece of real astate in the centre of the African continent.

At the end of his life he made Belgium double in size and made it an colonial power as well.

How ever the Belgian state even highly industrialised was forced to maintain a large amry and even a serious Navy to oppose any threats of the Great Powers, since it was considered in diplomatic circles as an unrilaible partner.
 
First of all, Belgium is bound by the Treaty of London of 1839 to be a neutral state. Secondly, Belgium has never been an absolute monarchy, so king Leopold II cannot just do as he pleases.
 
First of all, Belgium is bound by the Treaty of London of 1839 to be a neutral state. Secondly, Belgium has never been an absolute monarchy, so king Leopold II cannot just do as he pleases.

And yet he actually planned doing this, at least invading the Netherlands. Although I doubt he would be as successful as Parma sketches.
 
And yet he actually planned doing this, at least invading the Netherlands. Although I doubt he would be as successful as Parma sketches.

Well, I hadn't really heard of this, so I suppose I can't say much here then.:eek:
 
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Thanks to screwed diplomacy some blackmail and extorsion Leopold gain enough influence to make parlaiment do what he wants or follow suit after his desicions.

Leopold know the diplomatic consequences of this plan, and that the London treaty of 1839 would be obsolete.

I admit there could be some fierce and determened resistance in crossing the large rivers as Maas, Waal and Rhine. But the Dutch army was severly neglegted, in men, material, training organisation. This short commings were revealed in 1870 when the army was mobilised and which turned in to a long chaotic process.

The way he aquired the Congo free state is an example of his diplomatic skills and determination.

In OTL he asked permission to Napoleon III of France which hesitantly rejected the idea. Now Leopold does not aske any permission.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
I personal find this timeline interesting, the effect are going to rather big, Belgium are more or less placed in permanent German orbit as result of their acts. In the long term I think the Dutch are going to accept their losses, through they likely will stay rather hostile to Belgium, France on the other hand are likely quite angry, and won't accept the losses. Demographic it's very interesting by modern day the conquered areas in Netherlands have over 4 million inhabitants and Nord-Pas-de-Calais the around the same. Nord-Pas-de-Calais have today a Flemism minority of 0,5% mostly in the arrondissement of Dunkirk (where they make up around 6% of the population). At this time they made up the majority in the arrondissement, so they have likely been around 5% of the full population of Nord-Pas-de-Calais.

At 1870 The Dutch areas had around 0,9 million people and Nord-Pas-de-Calais a little over 2 million. This give Belgium around 1 million extra Dutch speaker and 2 million extra French speakers.

At the time (1870) Belgium had 5 million inhabitants, likely with a crude 40/60 split between French/Dutch. That gives us a 8 million with a crude 50/50 split after these gains.

A interesting element are the Dutch intelligensia which Belgium has just gained, they will likely be quite hostile to the Belgian state, which will likely give Belgium problems down the road, especially when their ideas spread to the Flemish. I don't know how the new French citizen will react, but I doubt they embrace a Belgian identity to fast.

All in all this BGelgium are stronger, more French, but also a lot less stable.
 
Would Britain, France and Prussia allow such a war to take place? I don't think so.
Why would they bother? A war between Belgium and the Netherland won't change the ballance of power between the great power.
My only objection is that the parliament wouldn't follow Leopold megalomania.
 
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