WI: Belgium doesn't become independent

Have the Dutch be part of Austrian Hapsburgs instead of Spanish ones. Then have the local officials keep a lit on public order, delaying the Dutch Revolt by 3 generations, enough for some peaceful integration to occur and killing the angry momentum. If the Hapsburgs are defeated in a war but not badly, they might be able to keep the hereditary Burgundian lands by giving it to a 2nd cousin of the Austrian line. He's doing to need to learn Dutch customs. The reformation is slowly rolled back with conversion pressure, but religious tolerance similar to the Holy Roman Empire, so it's not forced.. Viola, United Netherlands. French and Flemish will probably decline as languages, while English, German, and especially Dutch move southward.

OK, but you probably wanted a POD after a successful Dutch revolt right?

Well this gets harder. There were religious tensions in the area from the 1700s that never really went away. The French revolution would expose them and lay way for Belgian independence.
 
Wait a second; is Dutch and Flemish technically the same language, isn't it?

Oops, I forgot.

Let me rephrase, the Flemish accent will decrease, but since it's mutually intelligible with German-like Dutch (since they both are Dutch) not wither away entirely among the privliged city folk
 
Actually, i think the belgian revolt was easy to defeat and only carried on due to the incompetence of William I.
Simply allowing more political or even just cultural/linguistic autonomy to Wallonia would be enough. Thus, having William I die early and be replaced by a more competent king, or having him be more competent in the first place, would be enough to keep Belgium a part of the Netherlands, if a bit uppity. Give or take a few decades and it'll be like Occitania within France.
Either way, a still-united Netherlands has a lot of chances to become a power of reasonable note. Not in the level of Britain or France per se, but a good power nonetheless. Its southern regions would be rich in coal and useful for fueling ships, which would then be used for colonial expansion. I could see the kingdom having a larger colonial empire than OTL, and a friendly attitude to the boers.
Of course, there's still the question of Luxemburg, which is in PU with the Netherlands yet is a part of the German Confederation. If Prussia ends up as aggressive as OTL, or at least aggressive enough to try and carve a sphere of influence for itself within the GC, then it'll surely make threats to Amsterdam if Luxemburg is annexed by the orange kingdom. Imagine -- prussian troops moving succesfully until the dutch open/destroy their dams to flood the battlefield and cause havoc...
 
I agree. Growing up in Belgium, the way I was thought in history class was: For 200 years Flanders was a part of the Austrian empire, what is now Walonia and Luxembourg were a coalition of duchies in the Holy Roman Empire. Then came the revolution in France and with it a spirit of revolution going all over the country. The Prince-bishopric of Liege revolted against their prince-bishop who thought himself too much of an Italian style petty princeling and too little of a bishop. In Flanders, the Habsburg queen Maria Theresia died and was replaced by Joseph II nicknamed 'emperor deakon' because as an absolute monarch he spent his time micromanaging the churches in Flanders. Eventually he got kicked out by a revolution too. The next year Flanders, Liege and several other states either willingly or under threatmerged with revolutionary France or simply were invaded and annexed. Then came 20 years of Napoleontic rule and then afterwards at the congress in Vienna, the victors took all regions between France and Germany that neither alligned with any of the two and lumped them together with freshly liberated Netherlands into a buffer state, on the idea that just being a buffer between two superpowers would be enough to keep them all together.

Unfortunately they found no-one better to lead the new coalition country then Dutch king William, who within 15 years managed to bring everyone west of Amsterdam up against him. The Walloons for promoting Dutch on all levels, the Flemish elites by turning back on the progressive ideas they had been adhering to for the Las 30 years, the Flemish Catholics -like 95% of the population- by promoting protestant faith and values...and so on. So in 1830 there was another 'European Spring' of revolutions sweeping the continent. William made his final mistake by calling back his son, who actually did a decent job of holding the peace, from Brussels and replacing him with a hardliner military commander. May be he was right because just months ago the French revolution of 1930 happened and the following installation of king Louis Phillipe, the ' citizen king' also drove lots of disappointed French professional revolutionaries across the border, especially into Brussels. Some just wanted to lay low for a while and see how the situation in France evolved, but many more just wanted to continue the revolution and wouldn't mind starting it in Brussels before carrying it back home.

Anyway, in the summer of 1830, the situation got tense and when a group of party goers went to see a new Italian opera play that had very nationalist undertones, the city commander mistook them for rebels and ordered his troops out. It is still unclear whether there was actual protest going on, fueled by the opera play or whether he just mistook a group of unruly revelers for revolutionaries. Anyhow, wrong choice. By the end of the night, Brussels had its revolutionary army and it was giving the Dutch forces a good clobbering.

Within days the revolution spread through Flanders and Walonia and a ragtag independence army was raised to defend the new country against the Dutch reinforcements being mobilized in Holland. The first clashes were a pretty easy victory for the Dutch but even as the first battlefield was cleared, French king Louis Philippe declared he supported the rebel's cause and readied his army to allign with the rebels and meet the Dutch on full strength. Given the treaty of a new war in Europe a new congress was called together, this time in London and there it was agreed to split the former mega-bufferstate in two and give the rebels one independent state provided it would be a constitutional monarchy. They even agreed on a name: Belgium after the Gallic tribe of 'Belgae' that occupied the region in Caesar's time.

So how to prevent an independent Belgium?
The first possibility would be a different congress of Vienna. Either it would return to the situation before 1789 and keep the region an association of petty states instead of giving it to the Dutch. Otherwise, it could give the region to the Austrians.

The second POD would be a much wiser king William who would realize he had a multi-lingual multiethnic state and give the regions greater autonomy, therefore butterflying away the reason for the revolution

A third way would be for a much better caretaker government in Brussels that would understand the mood and try to defuse it instead of crying 'revolution' whenever there was a drunken mob spilling out of a theater.

On a tangent, call this scenario 3b, but a different revolution in France in the spring or no revolution at all would keep the people in future Belgium grumbling but would remove a good lot of the tinder that ignited the fighting in the first place.

Last scenario would be no support from France, or no support from the other European powers in London. With the official European respons being that there is no revolution but just some internal quarrel in Great Netherlands, this is how it would end. In an alternate scenario France supports the revolution but under pressure from the other powers does not intervene militarily. Instead it opens its borders to all Belgian refugees, providing a drain for the revolutionary spirit in the pacified new Netherland regions.
 
In my opinion the religious difference between Belgium and the Netherlands are greatly exaggerated. A large part of the Netherlands was (and is) Catholic. Dutch Brabant was and it never joined the Belgian revolution. The Flemish and the Dutch are pretty similar. Noone can convince me that the difference between the people from Limburg, Friesland and Amsterdam are smaller than the differences between the people from Belgian Limburg and Dutch Limburg or Dutch Brabant and Antwerp. If, for some reason just Flanders would have become part of the Netherlands, noone would see any differences between someone from Antwerp or Breda. Or even Nieuwpoort and Groningen. Actualy I would say that splitting Belgium at the Vianne congress between the Netherlands and France would have been better for the Dutch, the French and the Flemish (although i am certain the Belgians would disagree with me).

Anyway, that was not the question. The question was how to avoid an independent Belgium. As I said, splitting between France and the Netherlands is a good way, although I don't think Vienna would be a good time for it, or the Belgian revolution, since we are just before the age that people would look at linguistic barriers. Well I guess a modyfied Tallyrand plan could work, I guess (some parts of the plan would not work, in my opinion). Another one would be to divide Belgium just after the end of the Dutch Revolt. The Netherlands and France had a plan to give the Netherlands Ostend, Ghent, Bruges and everything north of it (including Antwerp), while France would gain everything south of it.

If you do not want a Belgium that remains part of the Netherlands after the Napoleonic wars, that's not that impoosible either. A smarter house of Orange (especialy future Willem II) would work. Someone better able to deal with the Belgian situation. Or else no French intervention, since the Netherlands was pretty good in beating the Belgians during the 10 day campaign. Or involvement of the Dutch allies of Prussia and Russia (who were distracted by Poland OTL).

Maybe a larger part of Belgium in Dutch hands during the Republican days. For example the Dutch conquer Antwerp during the 80-year revolt. Antwerp becomes a large important port and the Dutch decide to strengthen it by basicly gaining several protective towns (for exaple Bruge, Ostend and Ghent) in the wars later. When (ok if) the French revolution happens, afterwards those cities remain as loyal to the Dutch as Brabant, meaning the Dutch have a stronger base to reconquer Belgium and the Belgian revoltnfails.
 
In my opinion the religious difference between Belgium and the Netherlands are greatly exaggerated. A large part of the Netherlands was (and is) Catholic. Dutch Brabant was and it never joined the Belgian revolution. The Flemish and the Dutch are pretty similar. Noone can convince me that the difference between the people from Limburg, Friesland and Amsterdam are smaller than the differences between the people from Belgian Limburg and Dutch Limburg or Dutch Brabant and Antwerp. If, for some reason just Flanders would have become part of the Netherlands, noone would see any differences between someone from Antwerp or Breda. Or even Nieuwpoort and Groningen. Actualy I would say that splitting Belgium at the Vianne congress between the Netherlands and France would have been better for the Dutch, the French and the Flemish (although i am certain the Belgians would disagree with me).(1)

Anyway, that was not the question. The question was how to avoid an independent Belgium. As I said, splitting between France and the Netherlands is a good way, although I don't think Vienna would be a good time for it, or the Belgian revolution, since we are just before the age that people would look at linguistic barriers. Well I guess a modyfied Tallyrand plan could work, I guess (some parts of the plan would not work, in my opinion). Another one would be to divide Belgium just after the end of the Dutch Revolt. The Netherlands and France had a plan to give the Netherlands Ostend, Ghent, Bruges and everything north of it (including Antwerp), while France would gain everything south of it. (2)

If you do not want a Belgium that remains part of the Netherlands after the Napoleonic wars, that's not that impoosible either. A smarter house of Orange (especialy future Willem II) would work. Someone better able to deal with the Belgian situation. Or else no French intervention, since the Netherlands was pretty good in beating the Belgians during the 10 day campaign. Or involvement of the Dutch allies of Prussia and Russia (who were distracted by Poland OTL). (3)

Maybe a larger part of Belgium in Dutch hands during the Republican days. For example the Dutch conquer Antwerp during the 80-year revolt. Antwerp becomes a large important port and the Dutch decide to strengthen it by basicly gaining several protective towns (for exaple Bruge, Ostend and Ghent) in the wars later. When (ok if) the French revolution happens, afterwards those cities remain as loyal to the Dutch as Brabant, meaning the Dutch have a stronger base to reconquer Belgium and the Belgian revoltnfails.(4)

(1) I agree with this. For the matter of fact to this day the Netherlands has over 500 different dialects who might sound simular but still are different enough to call a different dialect. Flemish would have that statis as well.

(2) Maybe compesate for not getting the walloon provinces by granting Calais (who to this day have a dutch dialect) and some off the Dutch-German provinces. Both Prussia and France wanted Luxembourg. So it can not helped if a single Walloon province ends up in Dutch controle to connect the province. Even if that province revolts its way to small and would be over run by any force.

(3) Maybe have the States General have more power then the king? They control the army with advice from the king.

(4) If Antwerp stays part off the Netherlands it would have become the capital off the Nation. Meaning the chance that the Flemmish would leave becomes even smaller in the future
 
I agree. Growing up in Belgium, the way I was thought in history class was: For 200 years Flanders was a part of the Austrian empire, what is now Walonia and Luxembourg were a coalition of duchies in the Holy Roman Empire. Then came the revolution in France and with it a spirit of revolution going all over the country. The Prince-bishopric of Liege revolted against their prince-bishop who thought himself too much of an Italian style petty princeling and too little of a bishop. In Flanders, the Habsburg queen Maria Theresia died and was replaced by Joseph II nicknamed 'emperor deakon' because as an absolute monarch he spent his time micromanaging the churches in Flanders. Eventually he got kicked out by a revolution too. The next year Flanders, Liege and several other states either willingly or under threatmerged with revolutionary France or simply were invaded and annexed. Then came 20 years of Napoleontic rule and then afterwards at the congress in Vienna, the victors took all regions between France and Germany that neither alligned with any of the two and lumped them together with freshly liberated Netherlands into a buffer state, on the idea that just being a buffer between two superpowers would be enough to keep them all together.

Unfortunately they found no-one better to lead the new coalition country then Dutch king William, who within 15 years managed to bring everyone west of Amsterdam up against him. The Walloons for promoting Dutch on all levels, the Flemish elites by turning back on the progressive ideas they had been adhering to for the Las 30 years, the Flemish Catholics -like 95% of the population- by promoting protestant faith and values...and so on. So in 1830 there was another 'European Spring' of revolutions sweeping the continent. William made his final mistake by calling back his son, who actually did a decent job of holding the peace, from Brussels and replacing him with a hardliner military commander. May be he was right because just months ago the French revolution of 1930 happened and the following installation of king Louis Phillipe, the ' citizen king' also drove lots of disappointed French professional revolutionaries across the border, especially into Brussels. Some just wanted to lay low for a while and see how the situation in France evolved, but many more just wanted to continue the revolution and wouldn't mind starting it in Brussels before carrying it back home.

Anyway, in the summer of 1830, the situation got tense and when a group of party goers went to see a new Italian opera play that had very nationalist undertones, the city commander mistook them for rebels and ordered his troops out. It is still unclear whether there was actual protest going on, fueled by the opera play or whether he just mistook a group of unruly revelers for revolutionaries. Anyhow, wrong choice. By the end of the night, Brussels had its revolutionary army and it was giving the Dutch forces a good clobbering.

Within days the revolution spread through Flanders and Walonia and a ragtag independence army was raised to defend the new country against the Dutch reinforcements being mobilized in Holland. The first clashes were a pretty easy victory for the Dutch but even as the first battlefield was cleared, French king Louis Philippe declared he supported the rebel's cause and readied his army to allign with the rebels and meet the Dutch on full strength. Given the treaty of a new war in Europe a new congress was called together, this time in London and there it was agreed to split the former mega-bufferstate in two and give the rebels one independent state provided it would be a constitutional monarchy. They even agreed on a name: Belgium after the Gallic tribe of 'Belgae' that occupied the region in Caesar's time.

So how to prevent an independent Belgium?
The first possibility would be a different congress of Vienna. Either it would return to the situation before 1789 and keep the region an association of petty states instead of giving it to the Dutch. Otherwise, it could give the region to the Austrians.

Wait, what? Giving it to the Hapsburgs would have worked? Is it that simple?
 
Wait, what? Giving it to the Hapsburgs would have worked? Is it that simple?
Obviously not, considering that the Austrians did not want them (too far away, and too expensive to protect against France: stupid, I know, but what can you do?) and if the had kept them they would have been treated as a cash cow, same as it happened with Lombardy-Venetia.

There were also other reasons for the arrangement decided at Vienna: William I had to be reinstated, as it happened with all the kingdoms and dukedoms (the only ones which were not reinstated were former republics or prince-bishoprics), and he would have to receive some sort of compensation for the Cape province and Ceylon (which the British had no intention to return): giving him the former Austrian Netherlands was considered the most viable solution, since it would have created a medium-size state on the French Northern border (same as it happened with Savoy-Sardinia on the eastern one).

No one of the decision makers at the congress of Vienna lost a single night sleep over the fact that the inhabitants of the former Austrian Netherlands did not want to be joined to the Netherlands (and actually petitioned the congress for the Austrian administration to be reinstated).
 
It wouldn't be expensive to protect against France if GB guarantees Austrian Netherlands. The boarder They forced the Austrians to spend money on the forts, but they spent he bare minimum required Someone estimated a few renovations on 3 forts before the war of Austrian Succession would have saved them a lot of money by cancelling campaigns of reconquest, because they wouldn't lose land that needed to be taken back.. OK, so aside from the fact the Austrians don't want to pay for protection (which can be fixed with GB help), is there any reason people wouldn't want the Hapsburgs?
 
How can we avoid having an independent Belgium?

Option 1: Dutch king William I has to agree with the Liberal and Catholic demands. This means an earlier constitutional monarchy and equal amount of (Southern) representatives in the government. What the Netherlands gains is the second most industrial region of Europe. The bad side of this is a border with France who already desires those lands.

I am planning to make a timeline with this scenario and two others (Spain, Ottoman Empire).

Option 2: Have France annexing Belgium. Even after Napoleon the French dreamed of annexing Belgium as a part of France. The problem is, Britain nor Prussia is going to allow France to annex it. Prussia alone wrecked the French in 1871 in which the French abandoned their Belgian ambition and focussed on Germany.

Option 3: Sometime after the 1840s France and the Dutch agree to divide Belgium. The French gain Wallonia and the Dutch gain Flanders. Brussel gets tricky because the French will most likely demand that as well. And then you're still getting the same situation as option 2 with Britain and Prussia to keep France down.
 
My favorite PoD, assuming pre-Congress of Vienna PoDs are allowed, is simply for France to annex the Austrian Netherlands after the War of the Austrian Succession.

This thread just reminds me just how much Louis XV had a good deck and managed to blow it all.
 
(1) I agree with this. For the matter of fact to this day the Netherlands has over 500 different dialects who might sound simular but still are different enough to call a different dialect. Flemish would have that statis as well.

(2) Maybe compesate for not getting the walloon provinces by granting Calais (who to this day have a dutch dialect) and some off the Dutch-German provinces. Both Prussia and France wanted Luxembourg. So it can not helped if a single Walloon province ends up in Dutch controle to connect the province. Even if that province revolts its way to small and would be over run by any force.

(3) Maybe have the States General have more power then the king? They control the army with advice from the king.

(4) If Antwerp stays part off the Netherlands it would have become the capital off the Nation. Meaning the chance that the Flemmish would leave becomes even smaller in the future

The 4th part... Antwerp was already a part of the Netherlands between 1815 and 1830 and they didn't turn it into a capital. Even if it remains it wouldn't be. Amsterdam woud most likely remain the capital.

In the 19th century, anything far away from the French is a better option. Antwerp in the reach of the French army, whom already desired Belgium, isn't a good idea.
 
My favorite PoD, assuming pre-Congress of Vienna PoDs are allowed, is simply for France to annex the Austrian Netherlands after the War of the Austrian Succession.

This thread just reminds me just how much Louis XV had a good deck and managed to blow it all.

Wrong, he had to give it back to get Quebec back
 
Wrong, he had to give it back to get Quebec back

And this is the same monarch that, given a choice between New France and the Caribbean, chose the latter.

It's not that he screwed up once, but it was more of a series of relatively minor missteps that ultimately led to the fall of the Kingdom of France.
 
In my opinion the religious difference between Belgium and the Netherlands are greatly exaggerated. A large part of the Netherlands was (and is) Catholic. Dutch Brabant was and it never joined the Belgian revolution. The Flemish and the Dutch are pretty similar. Noone can convince me that the difference between the people from Limburg, Friesland and Amsterdam are smaller than the differences between the people from Belgian Limburg and Dutch Limburg or Dutch Brabant and Antwerp. If, for some reason just Flanders would have become part of the Netherlands, noone would see any differences between someone from Antwerp or Breda. Or even Nieuwpoort and Groningen. Actualy I would say that splitting Belgium at the Vianne congress between the Netherlands and France would have been better for the Dutch, the French and the Flemish (although i am certain the Belgians would disagree with me).

Anyway, that was not the question. The question was how to avoid an independent Belgium. As I said, splitting between France and the Netherlands is a good way, although I don't think Vienna would be a good time for it, or the Belgian revolution, since we are just before the age that people would look at linguistic barriers. Well I guess a modyfied Tallyrand plan could work, I guess (some parts of the plan would not work, in my opinion). Another one would be to divide Belgium just after the end of the Dutch Revolt. The Netherlands and France had a plan to give the Netherlands Ostend, Ghent, Bruges and everything north of it (including Antwerp), while France would gain everything south of it.

If you do not want a Belgium that remains part of the Netherlands after the Napoleonic wars, that's not that impoosible either. A smarter house of Orange (especialy future Willem II) would work. Someone better able to deal with the Belgian situation. Or else no French intervention, since the Netherlands was pretty good in beating the Belgians during the 10 day campaign. Or involvement of the Dutch allies of Prussia and Russia (who were distracted by Poland OTL).

Maybe a larger part of Belgium in Dutch hands during the Republican days. For example the Dutch conquer Antwerp during the 80-year revolt. Antwerp becomes a large important port and the Dutch decide to strengthen it by basicly gaining several protective towns (for exaple Bruge, Ostend and Ghent) in the wars later. When (ok if) the French revolution happens, afterwards those cities remain as loyal to the Dutch as Brabant, meaning the Dutch have a stronger base to reconquer Belgium and the Belgian revoltnfails.

The Catholic population was underrepresented by the government. The United Kingdom of the Netherlands had no less than 60% catholics and 21% as a part of the Dutch Reformed Church. This upset the Catholic population. The very reason why Catholics and Liberals were political allies in the 20s. About Limburg, When the Belgians revolted our Limburg was a part of the revolt as well. Only two cities were under controle of the Army: Maastricht and Roermond. After the independence got divided.

P.S. Are you Dutch my friend?
 
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