Internal Communications.—The internal communications of Belgium of every kind are excellent. The roads outside the province of Luxemburg and Namur are generally paved. In the provinces named, or in other words, in the region south of the Meuse, the roads are macadamized. The total length of roads is about 6000 m. When Belgium became a separate state in 1830 they were less than one-third of this total. There are about 2900 m. of railways, of which upwards of 2500 m. are state railways. It is of interest to note that the state railways derived a revenue of 249,355 francs (or nearly £10,000) from the penny tickets for the admission of non-travellers to railway stations. Besides the main railways there are numerous light railways (chemins de fer vicinaux), of a total length approaching 2500 m. There are also electric and steam tramways in all the principal cities. The total of navigable waterways is given as 1360 m. Posts, telegraphs and telephones are exclusively under state management and form a government department.
Banks and Money.—The principal banking institution is the Banque Nationale which issues the bank-notes in current use. In 1904 the average value of notes in circulation was 645,989,100 francs. The rate of discount was 3% throughout the whole of the year.
The mintage of Belgian money is carried out by a directeur de la fabrication who is nominated by and responsible to the government. The gold coins are for 10 and 20 francs, silver for half francs, francs, 2 francs and 5 francs. Nickel money is for 5, 10 and 20 centimes, and the copper coinage has been withdrawn from circulation.
Authorities.—Annuaire statistique de la Belgique (1905); Beltjens and Godenne, La Constitution belge (Brussels, 1880); La Belgique illustrée (Brussels, 1878-1882); Les Pandectes belges (Brussels, 1898); Annales du parlement belge for each year; Belgian Life in Town and Country, “Our Neighbours” Series (London, 1904). For geology see C. Dewalque, Prodrome d’une description géologique de la Belgique (Brussels, 1880); M. Mourlon, Géologie de la Belgique (Brussels, 1880-1881); F.L. Cornet and A. Briart, “Sur le relief du sol en Belgique après les temps paléozoques,” Ann. Soc. Géol. Belg. vol. iv., 1877, pp. 71-115, pls. v.-xi. (see also other papers by the same authors in the same journal); J. Gosselet, L’Ardenne (Paris, 1888); M. Bertrand, “Études sur le bassin houiller du nord et sur le Boulonnais,” Ann. des mines, ser. ix. vol. vi. (Mém.), pp. 569-635, 1894; C. Malaise, “État actuel de nos connaissances sur le silurien de la Belgique,” Ann. Soc. Géol. Belg. vol. xxv, 1900-1901, pp. 179-221; H. Forir, “Bibliographie des étages laekénien, lédien, wemmélien, asschien, tongrien, rupélien et boldérien et des dépêts tertiaires de la haute et moyenne Belgique,” ibid. pp. 223 seq.
(D. C. B.)
History[1]
The political severance of the northern and southern Netherlands may be conveniently dated from the opening of the year 1579. By the signing of the league of Arras (5th of January) the Walloon “Malcontents” declared their adherence to the cause of Catholicism and their loyalty to the Spanish king, and broke away definitely from the northern provinces, who bound themselves by the union of Utrecht (29th of January) to defend their rights and liberties, political and religious, against all Final separation of the northern and southern Netherlands. foreign potentates. Brabant and Flanders were still indeed under the control of the prince of Orange and through his influence accepted in 1582 the duke of Anjou as their sovereign. The French prince was actually inaugurated duke of Brabant at Antwerp (February 1582) and count of Flanders at Bruges (July), but his misconduct speedily led to his withdrawal from the Netherlands, and even before the assassination of Orange (July 1584) the authority of Philip had been practically restored throughout the two provinces. This had been achieved by the military skill and statesmanlike abilities of Alexander Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma, governor-general.
Successes of Parma. Farnese, prince of Parma, appointed governor-general on the death of Don John of Austria, on the 1st of October 1578. Farnese first won by promises and blandishments the confidence of the Walloons, always jealous of the predominance of the “Flemish” provinces, and then proceeded to make himself master of Brabant and Flanders by force of arms. In succession Ypres, Mechlin, Ghent, Brussels, and finally Antwerp (17th of August 1585) fell into his hands. Philip had in the southern Netherlands attained his object, and Belgium was henceforth Catholic and Spanish, but at the expense of its progress and prosperity. Thousands of its inhabitants, and those the most enterprising and intelligent, fled from the Inquisition, and made their homes in the Dutch republic or in England. All commerce and industry was at a standstill; grass grew in the streets of Bruges and Ghent; and the trade of Antwerp was transferred to Amsterdam. On Parma’s death (3rd of December 1592) the archduke Ernest of Austria was appointed governor-general, but he died after a short tenure of office (20th of February 1595) and was at the beginning of 1596 succeeded by his younger brother the cardinal archduke Albert. Philip was now nearing Albert and Isabel, sovereigns of the Netherlands. his end, and in 1598 he gave his eldest daughter Isabel in marriage to her cousin the archduke Albert, and erected the Netherlands into a sovereign state under their joint rule. The advent of the new sovereigns, officially known as “the archdukes,” though greeted with enthusiasm in the Belgic provinces, was looked upon with suspicion by the Dutch, who were as firmly resolved as ever to uphold their independence. The chief military event of the early years of their reign was the battle of Nieuport The twelve years’ truce.
The rule of the archdukes. (2nd of July 1600), in which Maurice of Nassau defeated the archduke Albert, and the siege of Ostend, which after a three years’ heroic defence was surrendered (20th of September 1604) to the archduke’s general, Spinola. The Dutch, however, being masters of the sea, kept the coast closely blockaded, and through sheer exhaustion the king of Spain and the archdukes were compelled to agree to a truce for twelve years (9th of April 1609) with the United Provinces “in the capacity of free states over which Albert and Isabel made no pretensions.” During the period of the truce the archdukes, who were wise and statesmanlike rulers, did their utmost to restore Reversion of the southern Netherlands to Spain, 1633. prosperity to their country and to improve its internal condition. Unfortunately they were childless, and the instrument of cession of 1598 provided that in case they should die without issue, the Netherlands should revert to the crown of Spain. This reversion actually took place. Albert died in 1621, just before the renewal of the war with the Dutch, and Isabel in 1633. The Belgic provinces therefore passed under the rule of Philip IV., and were henceforth known as the Spanish Netherlands.
This connexion with the declining fortunes of Spain was disastrous to the well-being of the Belgian people, for during many years a close alliance bound together France and the United Provinces, and the Southern Netherlands were exposed Peace of Münster. to attack from both sides, and constantly suffered from the ravages of hostile armies. The cardinal archduke Ferdinand, governor-general from 1634-1641, was a capable ruler, and by his military skill prevented in a succession of campaigns the forces of the enemy from overrunning the country. On the 30th of January 1648, Spain concluded a separate peace at Münster with the Dutch, by which Philip IV. Ruinous consequences of the closing of the Scheldt. finally renounced all his claims and rights over the United Provinces, and made many concessions to them. Among these was the closing of the Scheldt to all ships, a clause which was ruinous to the commerce of the Belgic provinces, by cutting them off from their only access to the ocean. Thus they remained for a long course of years without a sea-port, and in the many wars that broke out between Spain and France were constantly exposed, as an outlying Spanish dependency, to the first attack, and peace when it came was usually purchased at the cost of some part of Belgian territory. By the treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) Artois Successive cession of Belgian territory to France. (except St Omer and Aire) and a number of towns in Flanders, Hainaut, and Luxemburg were ceded to France. Subsequent French conquests, confirmed by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668), took away Lille, Douai, Charleroi, Oudenarde, Coutrai and Tournai. These were, indeed, partly restored to Belgium by the peace of Nijmwegen (1679); but on the other hand it lost Valenciennes, Nieuport, St Omer, Ypres and Charlemont, which were only in part recovered by the peace of Ryswick (1697).
The internal history of the Belgic provinces has little to record during this long period in which the ambition of Louis XIV. to possess himself of the Netherlands, in right of his wife the infanta Maria Theresa (see [Spanish Succession]), led to a series of invasions and desolating wars. The French king managed to incorporate a large slice of territory upon his northern frontier, but his main object was baffled by the steady resistance and able statesmanship of William III. of England and Holland. Meanwhile from 1692 onwards brighter prospects were opened out to the unfortunate Belgians by the nomination by the Spanish king of Maximilian Emanuel, elector of Bavaria, to be governor-general with well-nigh sovereign powers. The elector had himself a claim to the inheritance as the husband of an Austrian archduchess, whose mother, the infanta Margaret, was the younger sister of the French queen. Maximilian Emanuel was an able man, who did his utmost to improve the condition of the country. Efforts of the elector of Bavaria to promote trade. He attempted to promote trade and restore prosperity to the impoverished land by the introduction of new customs laws and other measures, and particularly by the construction of canals to counteract the damage done to Belgian commerce by the closing of the Scheldt. The position of the elector was greatly strengthened by the partition treaty of the 19th of August 1698. Under this instrument the signatory powers—England, France and Holland—agreed that on the demise of Charles II. the crown prince of Bavaria under his father’s guardianship should be sovereign of Spain, Belgium and Spanish America. Charles II. himself The Spanish succession. shortly afterwards by will appointed the Bavarian prince heir to all his dominions. The death of the infant heir a few months later (6th of February 1699) unfortunately destroyed any prospects of a peaceable settlement of the Spanish Succession. Charles II. was persuaded to name as his sole successor, Philip duke of Anjou, the second son of the dauphin, and on his death (on the 1st November 1700) Louis XIV. took immediate steps to support his grandson’s claims, in spite of his formal renunciation of such claims under The Grand Alliance. the treaty of the Pyrenees. England and Holland were determined to prevent, however, at all costs the acquisition of Belgium by a French prince, and a coalition, known as the Grand Alliance, was formed between these two powers and the empire to uphold the claims of the archduke Charles, second son of the emperor.
One of the first steps of Louis was to take possession of the Netherlands. The hereditary feud between the houses of Austria and Bavaria induced the elector to take the Marlborough’s successes. side of France, and he was nominated by Philip V. vicar-general of the Netherlands. The unhappy Belgic provinces were again doomed for a number of years to be the battle-ground of the contending forces, and it was on Belgic soil that Marlborough won the great victories of Ramillies (1706) and of Oudenarde (1708), by which he was enabled to drive the French armies out of the Netherlands and to carry the war into French territory. At the general peace concluded at Utrecht (11th of April 1713) the long connexion between Belgium Peace of Utrecht.
The Austrian Netherlands. and Spain was severed, and this portion of the Burgundian inheritance of Charles V. placed under the sovereignty of the Habsburg claimant, who had, by the death of his brother, become the emperor Charles VI. The Belgic provinces now came for a full century to be known as the Austrian Netherlands. Yet such was the dread of France and the enfeebled state of the country that Holland retained the privilege, which had been conceded to her during the war, of garrisoning the principal fortresses or Barrier towns, on the French frontier, and her right to close the navigation on the Scheldt was again ratified by a European treaty. The beginnings of Austrian sovereignty were marked by many collisions between the representatives of the new rulers and the States General, and provincial “states.” Marquis de Prié in Belgium. Despite their troubled history and long subjection, the Belgic provinces still retained to an unusual degree their local liberties and privileges, and more especially the right of not being taxed, except by the express consent of the states. The marquis de Prié, who (as deputy for Prince Eugene) was the imperial governor from 1719 to 1726, encountered on the part of local authorities and town gilds vigorous resistance to his attempt to rule the Netherlands as an Austrian dependency, and he was driven to take strong Execution of Francis Anneesens. measures to assert his authority. He selected as his victim a powerful popular leader at Brussels, Francis Anneesens, syndic of the gild of St Nicholas, who was beheaded on the 19th of September 1719. His name is remembered in Belgian annals as a patriot martyr to the cause of liberty. The administration of de Prié was not, however, without its redeeming features. He endeavoured to create at Ostend a seaport, capable in some measure to take the place of Antwerp, and in 1722 a Chartered Company of Ostend Chartered Company of Ostend. was erected for the purpose of trading in the East and West Indies (see [Ostend]). The determined hostility of the Dutch rendered the promising scheme futile, and after a precarious struggle for existence, Charles VI., in order to gain the assent of the United Provinces and Great Britain to the Pragmatic Sanction (q.v.), suppressed the Company in 1731.