A Brief History of Belgium

• Belgium is known as the 'Cockpit of Europe', or Europe's ultimate battleground, because its flat geography and strategic location make it the easiest, most direct highway for rival empires to march through and fight their wars.
• Belgium has only existed as a sovereign nation for just under 200 years. It is officially a kingdom.
• The name ‘Belgium’ comes from the Romans, who called their province (conquered by Julius Caesar) in the north of Gaul Gallia Belgica, after its previous inhabitants the Celtic and German Belgae. The province eventually became the country.
• Charlemagne built the Carolingian Empire around 800 A.D., placing the current Belgian territory inside the broader Frankish world. The Burgundian dukes began consolidating control over the prosperous trading cities of the Low Countries, in 1363. The Spanish Habsburg dynasty took absolute control, in 1556, leading to fierce religious wars and the separation of the Protestant north. Control shifted to the Austrian Habsburgs, under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.
• Revolutionary France invaded and annexed the territory, in 1795, a conquest consolidated under Napoleon Bonaparte, who incorporated the region into the French Empire, introduced the Napoleonic Code, and modernised the administrative systems. The historic Battle of Waterloo took place near Brussels, in 1815, with British, Dutch, and Prussian forces decisively defeating Napoleon Bonaparte and ending the Napoleonic Wars.
• After Napoleon was defeated, Belgium was given to the United Kingdom of Netherlands in treaty negotiations. The Belgians soon staged a revolution and gained their independence in 1830, choosing a constitutional monarchy as the form of government.

• In 1831, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was designated as King of the Belgians by the National Congress, after two other nominees refused the role. Belgium is now on its seventh king - Phillippe. His father abdicated.
• The major European powers signed the Treaty of London, in 1839, legally binding them to guarantee Belgium's independence, while forcing Belgium to remain strictly neutral in all future conflicts.
• King Leopold II established the Congo Free State, in Africa, in 1885, securing the massive territory not as a colony of the nation of Belgium, but as his own private, corporate real estate, which he ruled as an absolute dictator from Brussels. He
  operated the Congo as a brutal forced-labour plantation, extracting lucrative wild rubber to meet global demand and using a private mercenary army to enforce almost impossible quotas, through systemic torture and mass killings. The global outcry resulted in the world's first modern human rights campaign and, in 1908, the Belgian Parliament was forced to step in and annex the territory, in 1908, stripping it from the King's personal control and turning it into the state-run colony of the Belgian Congo.

• In 1914, Imperial Germany ignored the 1839 contract and invaded, which legally forced Great Britain - as a signatory of that treaty - to honor its promise to protect Belgian neutrality and declare war on Germany, drawing the British Empire into World War I. The Ypres sector - a strategically vital, horseshoe-shaped frontline surrounding the city of Ypres, which served as the final roadblock protecting the English Channel ports - became a bloody, static slaughterhouse where the Allies and Germany fought five distinct, massive battles between 1914 and 1918, enduring four continuous years of mud-filled trench warfare that cost over a million casualties and saw the first mass use of chemical weapons like mustard gas.

• Nazi Germany launched a swift blitzkrieg invasion in 1940, during World War II, prompting King Leopold III to unilaterally order the unconditional surrender of the Belgian army, without consulting his government, breaking ties with his cabinet who fled to London to continue the war. The country suffered four years of harsh German occupation between 1940 and 1944, during which King Leopold III remained in Belgium under house arrest, personally travelled to Germany to hold a private meeting with Adolf Hitler, and held a celebratory private wedding to a commoner, Lilian Baels, which deeply angered a starving public whose soldiers were trapped in POW camps.Allied forces liberated most of the country in 1944, but Nazi forces launched a massive surprise winter counter-offensive known as the Battle of the Bulge, through the heavily forested Ardennes region, from December 1944 to January 1945.
• The public fury over his wartime behaviour created a massive political crisis called the 'Royal Question,' forcing King Leopold III to abdicate the throne, in 1951
• King Baudouin succeeded his father and ruled until his death in 1993, a period that saw Belgium join as a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957, cement Brussels as a primary international hub, and pass major constitutional reforms transforming the country into a federal state divided into distinct linguistic regions.
• King Philippe ascended the throne, in 2013, after the abdication of his father, Albert, holding a primarily ceremonial role, as a constitutional head of state.

Belgium - Facts and Factoids

• Belgium has distinctive regions, including Dutch-speaking Flanders to the north (60%), French-speaking Wallonia to the south (40%) and a very small German-speaking community in the eastern regions of the province of Liege (1%). The capital, Brussels, is bilingual. N.B. there is no such language as Belgian!
• Belgium is known as 'The Flat Country', for a reason. It's mainly coastal plains and gentle hills There's even a song ,by Jacques, Brel which says “cathedrals are the only mountains my country has”.
• Antwerp is the diamond capital of the world. 84% of the world’s rough diamonds pass through Antwerp to be polished and shaped before reaching the shops.
• Belgium holds the world record for the country that has gone the longest without having an official government - 541 days - after the federal elections of June 13, 2010 were inconclusive.
• Comics are an integral part of Belgian culture. Belgium has more comic strip artists per square kilometre than anywhere in the world. Think Tin Tin and The Smurfs.
• Chocolate and waffles are key foods - both are claimed to be the best in the world. Belgium also claims to have invented moules frites and Belgian fries are touted as being better than French ones.
• In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams used 'Belgium' as the galaxy's most offensive swear word because his American publishers objected to the actual profanity 'fuck' in the original British text. Adams substituted it with Belgium, as a bizarre, utterly harmless alternative, which somehow became the ultimate cosmic obscenity.

Is Belgium a Poor Country?

• Belgium, like many Western European nations, enjoys a high standard of living and a high per capita income. It ranks highly on the human development index
• However, there are extremes of wealth and poverty in Belgium, and Brussels in particular, struggles with the proportion of people living below the poverty line.

Is Belgium in the EU?

• With Luxembourg, The Netherlands, France, Italy and West Germany, Belgium signed the Treaty of Paris in 1951, creating the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and thus eventually, the European Union. So, Belgium is a foundation member of the EU.
• Brussels is the de facto capital of the EU.

What is There to See and Do in Belgium?

• Belgium has a perhaps undeserved reputation for being boring. This is a highly urbanised country - 98 %of the population live in urban areas and cities. However, closer inspection reveals medieval towns, Renaissance architecture and some delightful Art Nouveau. Ghent and Antwerp are noteworthy and touristy. Bruges is chocolate box pretty, literally. Every other shop sells Belgian chocolate.
• Brussels is home to the European headquarters of more than 2,000 multi-national organisations, plus the headquarters of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). The Law Courts of Brussels is the world’s largest court of justice. This may or may not add to its interest….
• The longest tram line in the world is the Belgian Coast Tram, The Kusttram. This travels the full 68 kilometres of Belgian coast between the French and Dutch borders.
• See what I did when I visited - Belgium - Is it Boring?