alternatehistory.com

Neutral Moresnet was a microstate created in 1816 on a mineral-rich territory, governed in co-dominium by Prussia and the Netherlands, for avoiding wars over that tiny piece of land. The state, even thanks to low taxes, was in good shape until 1885, when the local mine went exhausted. Several options for keeping the economy decent, including the opening of a casino, the birth of several gin distilleries, the developing of a stamp industry and even the adoption of Esperanto were suggested or actually made, but the opposition of the local powers and their successor states kept Moresnet in a stalemate until 1914, when Germany invaded Belgium and Moresnet. At the end of the war, the state was annexed to Belgium, but what if Brussels does not give a fuck about that useless area, who gets some small chunks of German territory and survives as an independent state, maybe as a Belgian enclave? Judging from the fact Moresnet actually opened a casino and distilleries, it would become to Belgium and Germany what Monaco is to France and Italy?
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