Flemish/Belgian military history

[Archayon]

i liked the detailed story about the (social and) political difficulties between France and Flanders in the 14th century.


For the ones interested at it ... some periods and highlights in "belgian" history. (it appears to be a HUGE reading )

i don't know all the names of the regions in english, but i'll do my best.
Someone, feel free to help/edit.

Antiquities
as mentioned before, the "Belgii" of which Caesar spoke were celts, living in "French-Flanders" (this translation of Frans-Vlaanderen really looks silly). It is the most north-western part of France, so a little south of Belgium.


High middle ages: separate regions becoming undependent

We should go back 'till the division of the kingdom (empire) of Charlemagne, Verdun, 832. The middle part of it, named after the grandson of Charlemagne, "Lotharius" (Lotharingen in dutch, in english? Lothar or something maybe?), was shortly afterwards divided betwen the west (which became France) and the east (which became HRE, or Germany). Divided is not the best word for it, because all the regions were fairly undependent. The counts/dukes/princebishops/... all were feudal dependent on the German emperor, and the count of Flanders was dependent on the king of France. Due to the invasions of (mostly) the Vikings, everyone was busy defending his own main territory. So the king of France and the German emperor couldn't provide their newly-achieved regions with troops. Therefore, the local rulers had to fight them off themselves. They succeeded, gaining experience and independence of their feudal lord. In the 11th century Flanders had become in fact independent of France, only on paper they had to obey their feudal lord, but he was ignored. The other regions, Brabant (with Louvain in it), Luik (don't know the english translation, liège in french), Holland-Zeeland and Utrecht in the north and many others (this were the most important ones) also gained independency in the same way as flanders did, but 1.5 centuries later. In theory, they still had to obey the German emperor, just like Flanders had to obey France. Those regions were all fighting each other, due to personal dynastical reasons. Sometimes, they became a personal union (like Holland and Zeeland, and for some decades Henegouwen, Hainout?, with it).

In the 13th century, all those regions became an economic union, while they were, politically, still fighting each other. Some of the reasons for this were the growing cities and wealth, especially in flanders (only northern italy was that full advanced in western europe that time), and the big rivers stimulating the growing trade (the Rhine, the Schelde, in english?).
By that time, Germany and France did their best to become centralised. Germany tried to conquer the regions (who were theoretically speaking still dependent on them!), but G. lost in 1288, the battle of Woeringen. France, being further centralised, was more successful: see the war between Flanders and France described above in dutch, or the war between Guy of Dampierre and Filips IV the Bold (? in english?). They did an effort in 1217, when the count of flanders was murdered (Charles the Good), to place their man on the throne, but it failed. G. of Dampierre was captured in 1297, and that was the starting of the war.

(little anekdote: that war had it origins in a economic conflict between 2 regions: the use of the Schelde between the cities of Flanders, containing Ghent and especially Bruges, and Floris V, the strongest ruler of Holland-Zeeland, and his growing capital: Amsterdam. France chose the side of H-Z, seeing a chance to re-establish their power in Flanders, and England chose the side of Flanders, but never gave some real important support. The conflict was finally fought between Flanders and France only, made bigger by a social conflict: the patricians in the cities fought with the French, the guilds supported the counts grandson, William of Jülich).



that for the high middle ages.



The Burgundians in the 14th century: political unification


In 1369, there was a marriage between the Duke of Burgundy, and the daughter of the Flemish Count. When that count died in 1384, the Burgundian Duke got Flanders (which gave him a huge prestige at the French court).

Due to some dynastic accidents (dying of counts without heirs, and marriages), and some military conquests, the whole region of the Low Countries (the Netherlands + Belgium), became burgundian.
By that time, having conquered almost all the regions, the Duke of Burgundy became the most powerful lord in the HRE. He forgot about France, and spilled his efforts trying to be chosen as the next emperor of the HRE. It's 1435 now (Luxembourg was added in the fourties, 1442 i think? maybe 1444, and Utrecht in the fifties, 1451? something like that).



The Habsburgs (english?), in the 15th century: institutional unification


1477, Charles the ... (Stoute in english?), died at Nancy, fighting the swiss in an attempt to make a corridor between the Burgundian Kreits (Low Countries) and Burgundy.
His daughter married Maximilian of Austria, grandfather of Charles the Emperor (english?), of Habsburg.
Those 2 people, made the biggest efforts to unificate the insitutions of the Low countries.
When the empire of Habsburg was split, the Low Countries became part of Spain (Filips II). In 1568, start of the 80y during war, the rich, urban west of the Low Countries fight some independence war against the Spanish. The agraric East didn't want to take up weapons, they felt comfortable with the Spanish. Things turned out differently: it was the NORTH going independent and the SOUTH staying part of Spain. Reasons: katholic Filips II against the protestant north, and the nobility being angry they were taken their priviliges.
The north did not choose a king, but lay the power in hands of one of the institutions, made by the Burgundians and formed under Charles the Emperor. The Republic (of the Netherlands) was born in 1585, but had to wait for recognition untill the treaties of Münster, 1648.


Occupation of the South, 1585-1814

We will leave the Republic north for a while. It became a small, but economic and political very strong nation, with its heights in the first half of the 17th century. After that, it had many invasions to fight from the French.

The South was occupied by the Spanish. Order was restored, absolutism was introduced (in fact: they became a spanish province).


1702, the Spanish king died, without heirs. Some pan-European war broke out. The French (Louis XIV) occupied "their" Low Countries in 1701, held it untill 1706. Then some coalition (British + Republic of the Neth) held it. In 1713, it was given with a treaty to Austria (Charles the VIth, i believe). His daughter, Mary-Theresia, and her sun, Joseph II, were the new absolutistic rulers.

1789: damn French again: the French Revolution.
1792: the French, who wanted to spread out their revolution, wanted to "liberate" the liberal voices in the South, and occupied it (some years earlier there was a revolution in the south too, 1789-1790, but it was rather a traditional than a liberal one). The French also supported the liberals in the north, and helped them achieve power there. 1799, Napoleon occupied the south, installed some younger brother as a king in the north, and some years later took the north himself.



Liberation and unifiation again

The French were kicked out of the north in 1813 (they were loosing much power by then, many lost skirmishes since 1812 for napoleon). One year later, the coalition troops liberated the south.
England decided to make some "neutral" country of the north. Questions from the north to unificate with the south again, were given a positive answer. A bigger buffer could be formed against the French. William I was chosen as a king, a constitution was made and signed. The United Kingdom of the Netherlands was born.

The north and the south independent, 1830 - now

Due to some problems (the catholic south, of wich the southern part spoke french, were not happy with a protestant king making everything dutch), the oppositional groups united, and declared a revolution in 1830. Accidently, all of the oppositional groups seemed to have their roots or center in the south.
Some skirmishes were fought, but in 1839 even William I considered the south lost.

The Netherlands (north) and Belgium (south) were born.
new constitutions were signed, some king was put on the throne in the south, parliaments were chosen, ...

The south, Belgium, still has a northern Dutch part (Flanders), and a southern French-speaking part (Wallony, english?). Some flemish nationalistic movements, at this moment unified with "racistic" rightists, want to be independent, or to become one again with the Netherlands, also speaking dutch. Tensions are becoming bigger, we speak now of a federalistic state, with 2 parts: Flanders and Wallony, being independent of each other, but not that much federal as the US. We live in an interesting time you know Future will learn what comes...



Something about "names":

"Belgium": the Low Countries, Nederlanden/ de Lage landen in Dutch, les Pays-Bas in French (all exact translations of regions laying rather low, without mountains), are names describing north + south. The french did not have a adjective of "Pays-Bas", instead they used "Belgique" (meaning: of the low countries), referring to Caesar (and referring wrong). When Belgium was formed in 1830 by French-speaking liberal and catholic elites, they made a new word out of the adjective "Belgique".
The Netherlands is a litteral translation of "Nederlanden", to make the distinction between the post-1830 country and the Low Countries, North+South.

Flanders: interesting one. There are 2 of it:

1) The medieval Flanders, being the most western part of belgium (provinces: west-flanders and east-flanders), and the north-western part of france (French-Flanders? odd name again), being half of it. This last part was recaptured by France, but they still speak some strange combination of Dutch and French there.
2) Flanders, the northern half of Belgium, containing the provinces West-Flanders and East-Flanders (both in the west, difficult i know), Antwerp (in the middle), Brabant (with Brussels and Louvain, south and east of Antwerp), and Limburg (most east, in a corner made by the Netherlands and Germany).


Funny thing actually: Flemish nationalists use historical battles (like the famous 1302, the only major battle in 14th century medieval Flanders did actually WIN against France) and stuff from the MEDIEVAL flanders to encourage the we-feeling in MODERN flanders... Funny because like 60 % of medieval flanders is now France, the other 40% is like 1/3th of Modern Flanders (the other 2/3 were neutral in the medieval French-Flemish conflict, or even against Flanders!). Frightening when extremistic populistic parties rape history to whip up people who don't even know their own history....




Feel enlightened...

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