United States Of Belgium

The United States of Belgium  was a Confederation of theSouthern Netherlands which existed from January to december 1790, during a short-lived revolt against the Habsburg Emperor Joseph II. The nine founding members of this Confederation were Brabant, Hainaut, Flanders, West Flanders, Namur, Mechelen, "Belgian" Gelre, Tournai.

Political situation in the year 1790

Content
[hide] *Response 1  ==Following[ Edit] == This independence statements originated from the discontent of the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium Austriaum) about the renewal politics of Emperor Joseph II (also known as the Emperor-Koster called), which are more efficient and more modern Habsburg empire wanted to organize. It came to open conflict, and eventually rupture, with the representatives of the States of Brabant and Hainaut, which maintained their old freedoms. The emperor was convinced that prosperity and well-being the power of the State formed; the southern Netherlands were to contribute-as all Habsburg possessions.
 * 2 Causes
 * Imposed reforms 3
 * 4 Opposition
 * 5 Brabant in rebellion
 * Independence statements 6
 * 7 reconquest
 * 8 Meaning
 * 9 see also
 * 10 external links

His Government had there a few years strived on the basis of censuses, statistics and reports to gain an insight into the situation. ==Causes[ Edit] == The society in the Austrian Netherlands was still governed by the traditional and seemingly firmly established powers of nobility, clergy and guilds. The social and economicpower of the nobility was especially predominant in Brabant and Hainaut; the nobility had there over more capital than any other class. By rise in agricultural yields took the Fortune yet. In Flanders was the kleingrondbezit of independent farmers typical of the economic and social spheres of life, but also there dominated the nobility and pursued the emerging class of the industrial bourgeoisie to admission to the old aristocratic circle.

The clergy was likewise influential in economic, social and cultural terms. Of the estimated 2.2 million inhabitants of the Austrian Netherlands were more than 17,000 men and women, in one form or another, a member of the clergy. According to contemporaries would the clergy more than half of the total land ownership have. By lifting lowleases by the monastic orders arose success on the countryside and fidelity because of the economically strongest groups within the rural population.

The third estate was organized in a complicated guild system that over the centuries from the cities had grown and premium was going to do in the industry. These guilds were now governed by the patrons and formed a barrier to the growth of the economy. They fought each other for the sake of competences in endless processes, where capital and energy in sat down. Partly because of this they were unpopular in the Government and public opinion, which demanded their removal and remediation.

Economy of the southern Netherlands developed as those in France: within the traditional frameworks. By new reclamation, better methods and fertilizers, agricultural production reached a remarkable level. The population growth rate was also the strongest in the countryside, and was, as elsewhere in Europe, significantly larger than in the cities. There was also an increase in the number of low-income citizens, which could not be taken care of by theagrarian society where lack of employment, inadequate training and a lack of care for the poor.

The striking economic growth of industry and trade still remained very limited, surrounded by neighbouring countries and protectionist with a lack of experience in shipping and overseas trade. The dependence of the weakened commercial Empire, the Republic of the United Netherlands, was reduced by innovations in the textile industry, which the one-sidedness somewhat broke, and the development of Ostend as port, that no obstacle encountered by the closure of the Scheldt.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The development of industrial companies was hampered by lack of capital, unwillingness of the nobility and the clergy to invest and lack of a developed bankingand bank. Yet emerged in some cities, a group of wealthy entrepreneurswho had interest for technical developments, not in the guild system was included in the South and the possibility to implement an industrial revolution . ==Reforms imposed<span class="mw-editsection" len="357" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">From 1784 the impatient Emperor-Koster did not consider the time has come for radical reforms in the Austrian Netherlands. There were already some time plans for Church reforms ready: reorganize monastic orders to detach them from their superiors abroad (read: in Rome), issuing restrictiveregulations on ecclesiastical events and fraternities, fend off influences from the ultramontaanse theological education fairs across the country, on the same day, cemeteries outside the built-up area building. Outside the Austrian Netherlands were in his entire Empire by Joseph II the contemplative monastic orders lifted. In addition, a large part of the common and church property confiscated.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Already in 1781 the Emperor had personally overseen the introduction of the civil tolerance, which Protestants and a bit later also the Jews full civil rights and a still-limited- religious freedom allowed. This set the tone. During his incognito visit that year to the Austrian Netherlands woke the Emperor unrest at local authority figures. Also the Archbishop of Mechelen explained to the emperor for his objections, but the Emperor did not see why he would make exceptions for his Dutch nationals for measures that were successfully continued elsewhere in his empire.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The bishops were unanimous in the rifle against the edict of 1784, which entered a secular marriage legislation and-until then almost exclusive-role of the Church strongly limited. The Catholic Church came in 1786 in revolt after the abolition of the existing forms of priesthood and the creation of a State-led Seminar-General in Leuven and a branch office in Luxembourg, by Joseph II, meant to be a lit and Government-friendly priest file to train. The seminarians rioted and there appeared a flood of pamphlets that attacked or defended the controversial Imperial politics.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">From 1787 there were decreed reforms on judicial and administrative rights, leaving centralization and uniformity came instead of the numerous ancient privileges for jurisdictions and courts. That brought the imperial government in the closely, because the religious understanding displeasure of other social groups that are already met equally felt threatened. Numerous officials lost by these decrees, after all, their function, their social status and their power base. ==Opposition<span class="mw-editsection" len="344" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The traditional authority figures in the southern low countries saw these refresh attempts as a form of centralism of the Board, they did not want to accept. They regarded them as interference and degradation of relative independence which the principalities had enjoyed for centuries.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The resistance was reflected in the provincial Council, first in Hainaut, then in Brabant and also in Flanders. After massive protest by numerous institutions and administrations in many places riots broke out, which gave rise to the creation of urban vigilantes for maintaining order. In fact, the Freedom Corps, as previously with the Patriots in the northern Netherlands.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The Governors Maria Christina and Prince Albert Casimir of Saxe-Teschen gobble down the protest and tried in 1787 to reverse certain measures, but Joseph II held firm, and his Government lost on it more and more grip on the events. The emperor was willing to withdraw certain judicial and administrative reforms, provided that the Church would remain in force. In 1788, however, Antwerp fell dozens of deaths among the citizens of armed aggression during clearing the Episcopal Seminary. When the Hainaut and Brabant privileges were revoked in 1789 ("abrogés, cassés et annulés") and the Archbishop protested and intervention against the governmental education in the seminary-General, got the opposition plenty of wind in the sails. ==Brabant in rebellion<span class="mw-editsection" len="353" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == Flag of independent Brabant<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The Brabant States had in 1787 to defend their interests requested Hendrik van der Noot, a successful lawyer. He came from the environment of the Guilds of Brussels, the centuries-old patriciate, where the core of the resistance lay. Van der Noot, a member of the Masonic Lodges l'Union Bruxelles and Les Vrais Amis de l'Union Bruxelles, since1757 was admitted to the genus Sweerts, one of the seven genera of Brussels, the ancient formal oligarchy of the capital.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">This joyous entry to the patricians and the approved system of Brabant and privileges regarded as basis of the political system, and Joseph II, that when he had sworn to respect this, as meinedig and even heretics. In August 1788 Van der Noot had to flee abroad, where he sought support for expelling the Austrians. He was Union with the United Provinces for, but his plans were in the Protestant North on polite suspicion welcome.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Members of the liberal professions and of the urban bourgeoisie, often influenced by ideas from the Lighting, initially had some sympathy for the Liberal Imperial reforms, but were averse to the tyrannical actions of the Austrian Government, that even blood did flow. There were political discussion clubs, there appeared clandestine pamphlets, and there, plans were forged. It is In this context that the creation be seen by Pro Aris et Focis the secret society ("For Outer and Heerd-For altar and Hearth") in april 1789, led by Jan Frans Vonck the Brussels lawyers and Jan-Baptist Verlooy, that an armed rebellion to dislodge the Austrians prepared. Retired officer Jan Andries Viswanathan were contracted to take the lead of a rebel army, for which funds were touted by clergy.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">When Vonck about this-on two occasions-contacted Van der Noot responded the last dismissive. The statisten continued to hope for a foreign intervention, possibly a world war other then superpowers England andPrussia, against the Republic of Austria. Pro Aris et Focis members wanted to support on their own. By them came an exodus of able-bodied men on corridor, to the prince-bishopric of Liège, but above all to State-Brabant (present North Brabant) where-with mediation of runaway Catholic clergy-a Committee of national liberation (Comité van Breda) was formed that United the two currents.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">On 24 October fell an army of 2800 man the Kempen inside. From the Town Hall of Hoogstraten, the first place which was conquered, was the Manifesto of the Brabant People proclaimed. This manifesto was sometimes literally based on the Placard of Verlatinge with which two centuries earlier, in 1581, with King Philip II of Spain as Danvers of the Netherlands was broken, the applicable regional privileges were declared untouchable and in practice the Dutch Declaration of independence was proclaimed. So was Joseph II as Duke of Brabant dilapidated stated of his throne.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Getting started on 27 October was delivered in Turnhout, where the Austrians a shameful defeat members, partly due to intervention of the population. Ghentfell on 16 november, after which the actual liberation struggle was deployed. On 12 december was conquered the capital, after which the Austrian troops and officials withdrew to the East. Against were all provinces, on december 22, after Luxembourg, released. ==Declarations Of Independence<span class="mw-editsection" len="365" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">In the wake of Brabant also stated other southern Netherlands themselves independently. The important States of the County of Flanders issued on 4 January 1790 from their manifesto of the County Flanders . Only the States of the Duchy of Luxembourg held themselves aloof. On January 11, 1790 in the United States, announced a States General the deed of Association of the independent United States of Belgium off. They kept one eye on the United States Declaration of independence and the other on the independence of the United Provinces. There was a Confederation under the name of the Foundation meeting, the United States of Belgium.In the Principality of Liège Liege revolution took place, but the radical insurgents leaders there locks do not comply with the more conservative political Union of the United States of Belgium.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The United States gave in 1790tokens from their own propaganda, which the Dutch lion the liberty Hat on a stick up, the same symbol that in 1570 on commemorative of the revolt against Spain had been. Ironically started many southerners to walk around with Orange cockades, those in the North were a symbol of the response, but in the South a symbol of loyalty to the regional privileges that led in the Orange revolt againstPhilip II were defended.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Important in the lead in the southern Netherlands was the role and the work of Canon Petrus Johannes Simon of Eupen (1744-1804). He was an influential spiritual ultramontaanse from the Diocese of Antwerp, who for years fight against the reforms of Joseph II. Eupen was Advisor of Hendrik van der Noot, leading member of the Committee of Breda, with an active role in the emergence of the United States of Belgium. In addition, it was Secretary of StateOf Eupen, with Minister Van der Noot, Chief of the governance of the Republic. They opposed any proposal to tinker with the States-life regime, in the belief that everything could go sliding andFrench-revolutionary situations could arise. That could be the position of the Church in jeopardy.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">This brought them into conflict with Vonck and other Democrats, which the urban middle class and even the rural population wanted to give a voice in the country's administration. The vonckisten were given not only the nobility, the clergy and the farmers faced, but also the Brussels guilds. On mass gatherings to Guild members and armed farmers ran hoping against the Enlightenment, the tolerance and the vonckisten. The press sparked the aversion as anti-religious philosophy of this century described further on.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">In March 1790, this led to attacks and looting, after a campaign against the vonckisten, which also includes the bishops themselves lent. It brought some in the prison and chased others on the flight to France the revolutionary and liberal. ==Reconquest<span class="mw-editsection" len="345" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The new State received little international support. Prussia, that more and more in the politics of the low countries became involved, not only expressed support for the new Republic, but also sent troops to support, after consultation with the orangist regime in the North.

<p lang="en" len="1247" style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Because the States General cannot ensure an adequate cooperation and financial contributions to be paid by the provincial States got, there were major financial difficulties, and the internal tensions betweenconservative statists and democratic vonckisten had almost led to a civil war .

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Emperor Joseph II died on 20 February 1790. He was succeeded by his brother Emperor Leopold II. With the Convention of Reichenbach of 27 July 1790, the Prussian support for the young Republic. On 10 september1790, representatives of the Emperor, Prussia, Great Britain and the United Provinces a Convention in the Hague that the conditions laid down for the recovery of the imperial authority, provided that almost all the reforms on religious, administrative and judicial area were to be repealed.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">On 24 november was Names by Austrian troops occupied, and the States by obligatory its authority to recognize Names supplied themselves. Two days later subjected the States meeting of West Flanders itself. The rest of the country was recaptured without much violence and conductor Van der Noot and his counsel Of Eupen fled to the United provinces. The new emperor applied the reforms milder than its predecessor, but was never really quiet. ==Meaning<span class="mw-editsection" len="344" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The South Dutch Republic emerged at a decisive moment in the history of Europe and of the low countries and had far-reaching implications. They showed that the political, religious and cultural divide between North and South in the 18th and at the turn of the 19th century hardly could have been wider.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The political conservatism and Catholic piety in the new Republic surprised Europe. The insurgents had the unwavering belief to be different from, and even to be opposites of both the revolutionary movement in France as the Patriots in the northern Netherlands. They pointed the Lighting and the enlightened absolutism off, though it should be added that the vonckisten some more support in Flanders and the French-speaking provinces than in Brabant.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The United States of Belgium in the Belgian historiography often considered as Harbinger of the Belgian revolution in 1830. On the one hand, this is correct: in both cases, there was a quest for independence, against aforeign ruler in the area that later will be called Belgium . The Brabant insurgents of 1789 were the first political ideologues that the joint Dutch-and French-speaking population of the South ' the Belgians '-' les belges '-called.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">On the other hand, this view of history too scary, because it in 1790 was a-mostly-conservative rebellion against the centralistic policy of an enlightened despot as Joseph II, and also because there were overtures between the northern and Southern Netherlands. The revolution of 1830 had just the Belgian secession from the North on the eye: the Belgian Revolt was also a liberal revolution where conservative Catholic forces to co-operate (unionism), against the Protestant William I, who are increasingly ruled as an absolute monarch.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Finally there was no Belgian people in 1790 that the claimed sovereignty, but of the traditional elite within the Flemish, Brabant, Hainaut, Namur, etc. States, which considered itself no longer bound to the Habsburg Emperor. The Confederal nature of the southern Netherlands under Joseph II and erna in the United States of Belgium should not be underestimated. The United Kingdom of the Netherlands and unitary unitary Belgiumlater are clearly a development that were caused by the French Revolution .

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">However, the later King William I recognize, that it is under the influence of the demand of Hendrik van der Noot to reunification was with him, that the idea of a United Kingdom of the Netherlands was formed.<sup class="noprint nopopups" len="311" style="line-height:1;">