Belgium is probably the only country in the world whose history is not taught in its own schools. We learn the French revolution, the US revolution, the kings of France, the discovery of America, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Romans, the bolshevik revolution, the rise of nationalism and the two world wars...but not a single word about our own history.
That's the contrary in France; they learn the history of the French kings, the French revolution, the French resistance...but nothing about Europe's (or other continent's) history.
Today, at
university, at a course of "History of Belgian Institutions" (2nd year) at least
TWO THIRDS of the students have
discovered that we had a revolution in 1789!!!!!!
So, I'll briefly explain it to you
Coat of arms of Keizer Karel
Up to the Emperor Keizer Karel (1500), what is now "Belgium" was a bunch of provinces (the county of Namur, , the county of Hainaut, the county of Flanders, the duchy of Brabant...) often at war with each other. Then, with weddings between the nobles ruling these provinces, they were more and more united and were called "
Burgundian Netherlands" when the Dukes of Burgundy ruled all of them. Then, when it united with the northern provinces (what is now the Netherlands) it was called the
XVII Provinces, and then the "
Habsburg Netherlands". This was a very prosperous period for us.
flag of the Low Countries in the XVth century
Then, there was a huge war when Protestantism spread in the Low Countries (what is now Belgium and the Netherlands), some Catholic rulers did not accept it, and the son of Keizer Karel (who was educated in Spain and did not really know the Low Countries, which used to have lots of civil liberties and be quite independant) tried to chase all of them: that was the 80-years war. The southern part (what is now Belgium) was re-conquered by Spanish and Italian armies, while many of its inhabitants (and most of its educated people) fled to the northern part (Amsterdam grew a lot: hundreds of thousands of "belgians" emigrated there and its population was multiplied by 10 in a few years) which became the
VII Provinces (Protestant) while the part that was re-conquered (catholic) was called
the Spanish Netherlands
We were under Spanish rule, but we did not feel "occupied". At that time we felt as Spanish as a guy from Madrid. And anyway we were ruled by local elite at the Provincial level.
Then after many successions, we became the "
Austrian Netherlands". But once more, we were not occupied, we were Austrian (several Austrian leaders, generals...of that time were "belgian")
flag of the Austrian Netherlands
But in 1787, our emperor Joseph II tried to change the local "provincial" mentality from the Middle-Ages, and "enlighten" us. He wanted to reform the justice (suppress the local tribunals, rationalize the justice) the religion (secularize the schools...) and suppress the
Blije Intrede (when there was a new prince, he used to make "joyous entries" in every city and negociate privileges with the local burgers). In a few words, he wanted to centralize the state and turn it into a modern state.
That was not accepted by the local elite. So we decided to kick out Joseph II. We created a confederation with a constitution inspired by the United States of America. That was a conservative revolution. We de-centralized the provinces again. The
United States of Belgium confederation had the powers of making international treaties, sending ambassadors abroad, and defend the country. Every other competence was done on the provincial level again.
Flag of the United States of Belgium
However there were 2 very differend groups of rebels, the Vonckists (more liberal, who wanted to imit the French revolution) and the Van der Nootists (more conservative, who wanted to re-organize the Provinces as they were before Joseph II). They were united against the Austrians, but once we had won, they fought against each other.
One year later, the Austrians came back and re-conquered the United States of Belgium.
One year later, the
French invaded the new
Austrian Netherlands.
(= we changed 3 our nationality 3 times in 2 years!)
And then in 1815 the XVII Provinces (Belgium + Netherlands) were united again, we became the
United Provinces. But it has not worked, we were catholic, they were protestant. We spoke French and Flemish, they spoke Dutch. We were industrial, they were traders. So in 1830 we made one more revolution and became modern
Belgium.
First Belgian flag
The United States of Belgium were an important part of our history: for the first time, a national feeling was created.
Re: United States of Belgium 
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