BelgiumandAND⤬THE JUNCTION
6 SHARED EVENTSFrance

Entangled histories

6 events in which either nation’s sourced chronicle names the other — including under earlier names of the same state. Each is the same record, with the same sources, as on its own chronicle; nothing here was written for this page.

ONE SPINE OF YEARS · TWO WALLS OF EVENTS · BEL LEFT · FRA RIGHT

1. 11 Jul 1302

   Battle of the Golden Spurs

   A Flemish town militia, mostly craft guildsmen, destroyed a French army of knights near Courtrai, collecting the golden spurs of the slain nobles and asserting the independence of the Flemish towns.

   War & Rupture · from the Belgium chronicle · The Medieval Low Countries: Flanders, Brabant and the Cloth Towns · REFS 2 — Battle of the Golden Spurs, Belgium: History

2. 1795

   French annexation of the southern Netherlands

   Revolutionary France annexed the Austrian Netherlands and the prince-bishopric of Liège, ending Habsburg rule and governing the region directly from Paris for twenty years.

   War & Rupture · from the Belgium chronicle · Revolution, Independence and the Guaranteed Neutral Kingdom · REFS 1 — Belgium: History

3. 1815

   Union with the Netherlands

   After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo on Belgian soil, the Congress of Vienna merged the southern provinces with the Dutch into the United Kingdom of the Netherlands under William I, as a buffer against France.

   Politics & Power · from the Belgium chronicle · Revolution, Independence and the Guaranteed Neutral Kingdom · REFS 2 — Belgium: History, The Treaty of London, 1839 (primary text)

4. 19 Apr 1839

   Treaty of London guarantees Belgian neutrality

   Austria, Britain, France, Prussia, Russia and the Netherlands recognised Belgium as an independent and perpetually neutral state and guaranteed its neutrality, the treaty later cited by Britain to enter the First World War.

   Independence · from the Belgium chronicle · Revolution, Independence and the Guaranteed Neutral Kingdom · REFS 2 — The Treaty of London, 1839 (primary text), Belgium: History

5. 10 May 1940

   Second German invasion

   Germany again invaded neutral Belgium on 10 May 1940, this time thrusting through the Ardennes, and rapidly overwhelmed the defending Belgian, French and British forces.

   War & Rupture · from the Belgium chronicle · The Two World Wars and the Gains of Versailles · REFS 2 — German Invasion of Western Europe, May 1940, Belgium: History

6. 1962–1963

   The linguistic frontier fixed

   Language laws drew a fixed border between Dutch-, French- and German-speaking areas and created four language regions, entrenching the divide between Belgium's communities.

   Politics & Power · from the Belgium chronicle · A Federal Kingdom at the Heart of Europe · REFS 1 — Belgium: History