The United States Of Belgium: The Story Of The First Belgian Revolution

311 Pages·2018·22.193 MB·English

by  Jane C. Judge

The United States of Belgium

The United States of Belgium
The Story of the First Belgian Revolution
Jane C. Judge
Leuven University Press
© 2018 by Leuven University Press / Presses Universitaires de Louvain / Universitaire
Pers Leuven Minderbroedersstraat 4, B-3000 Leuven (Belgium)
All rights reserved. Except in those cases expressly determined by law, no part of this
publication may be multiplied, saved in an automated data file or made public in any
way whatsoever without the express prior written consent of the publishers.
ISBN 978 94 6270 157 1
eISBN 978 94 6166 263 7
D/2018/1869/39
NUR: 688
Typesetting: Jurgen Leemans
Cover design: Friedemann Vervoort
Cover illustration: The Belgian Lion sweeps Imperial troops from Brussels’ Grand-Place.
“The Square Sweeper,” Anonymous, c. 1789-1790, Rijksstudio, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
This book is dedicated to my parents, Peter and Christina,
and my brother, Patrick. Like myself, it would not be here
without the three of you.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD 9
by Prof. dr. Johan Verberckmoes
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 11
THE FIRST BELGIAN REVOLUTION 15
Belgian History 19
The Story in an “Age of (National) Revolution” 27
SETTING THE STAGE: THE CONTEXT OF THE BELGIAN PROVINCES
AND JOSEPH II’S REFORMS 37
The Habsburg Empire and the Belgian Provinces 41
Joseph’s Motives and His Reforms 50
FIRST STIRRINGS OF REVOLUTION: RESISTANCE TO JOSEPH II’S REFORMS 65
The General Seminary 68
Codifying Resistance 77
Provincial Unity: The Vienna Delegation and an Increase in Violence 97
FOR HEARTH AND HOME: FOMENTING REVOLT IN THE BELGIAN
PROVINCES 113
The Breda Committee 115
8 Table of contents
Pro Aris et Focis 119
Melding the Committees 129
VIVE LES PATRIOTES: THE FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE 135
Armed Conflict 136
A “National” Triumph 152
“THE FORMER DUKE”: DECLARING INDEPENDENCE 159
Declaring Independence in the Eighteenth Century 160
Belgians Declare Independence 164
CREATING A STATE: STRENGTH IN UNION OR THE
BEGINNING OF THE END? 177
The Creation of the United States of Belgium 179
Troubles From Within 196
REVOLUTIONARY DISSENT: DEBATING A BELGIAN NATION 205
“ESPERANCES FALLACIEUSES:” THE END OF THE UNITED STATES
OF BELGIUM 231
Austrian Rhetoric and Generosity 232
European Diplomacy 239
Belgian Reactions: Inaction, Obstinacy, and Defeat 242
EPILOGUE 255
NOTES 263
BIBLIOGRAPHY 293
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS 305
INDEX 309
FOREWORD
by Prof. dr. Johan Verberckmoes
Dr Jane Judge stands in the great American tradition of intellectual his-
tory. That encompasses the history of political ideas as well as the trajec-
tories ideas make when bumping into blurred social realities. No single
other idea has been more powerful in history than liberty for the people.
Dr Judge sensed that something of the sort happened when Hainaut,
Brabant, and Flemish revolutionaries in the 1780s joined hands to stand
up against impetuous reforms of the Austrian emperor Joseph II in his
Austrian Netherlands. Liberty had been enshrined in discussions about
urban, provincial and supra-provincial states and government meetings
in the Low Countries since the late Middle Ages. In the Habsburg Neth-
erlands in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, every centralized
state official from Madrid or Vienna landing in Brussels had negotiated
willy-nilly with all powerful provincial states representatives. Sovereignty
of the people in coded law was the guarantee of loyal society. When Jo-
seph II’s enlightened reforms refreshingly shook up sovereignty, liberty,
and loyalty to become modern, the provincial states resorted to a battle
of ideas to remind the emperor of the rights and customs of his people
and confront his contradictions. In her book Dr Judge has entered into
the mind of the revolutionaries. In her nuanced assessment, the coming
together of the discussants prompted these to reflect on a compromise
– a Belgian settlement to safeguard institutionalized liberties in the new
age of patriotic endeavor. For an all too brief period provincial leaders, in
their struggle against the presumed despotic monarch, emphasized what