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Austrian Netherlands | |||||||||||
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1714–1797 | |||||||||||
Status | Personal union of Imperial fiefs within Empire | ||||||||||
Capital | Brussels | ||||||||||
Common languages |
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Religion | Roman Catholic | ||||||||||
Government | Governorate | ||||||||||
Governor | |||||||||||
• 1716–1724 (first) | Eugene Francis | ||||||||||
• 1793–1794 (last) | Charles Louis | ||||||||||
Plenipotentiary | |||||||||||
• 1714–1716 (first) | Lothar Dominik | ||||||||||
• 1793–1794 (last) | Franz Karl | ||||||||||
Habsburg | |||||||||||
Bourbon | |||||||||||
Historical era | Early modern | ||||||||||
7 March 1714 | |||||||||||
8 November 1785 | |||||||||||
1789–1790 | |||||||||||
18 September 1794 | |||||||||||
17 October 1797 | |||||||||||
Currency | Kronenthaler | ||||||||||
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Today part of |
History of Belgium |
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Timeline • Military • Jewish history • LGBT Belgiumportal |
The Austrian Netherlands [nb 1] was the territory of the Burgundian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire between 1714 and 1797. The period began with the acquisition by the Austrian Habsburg monarchy of the former Spanish Netherlands under the Treaty of Rastatt in 1714. It lasted until Revolutionary France annexed the territory after the Battle of Sprimont in 1794 and the Peace of Basel in 1795. Austria relinquished its claim on the province in 1797 through the Treaty of Campo Formio.
The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) later led to a division of the Low Countries between the Dutch Republic in the north and the Southern Netherlands, which later became Belgium and Luxembourg. The area had been held by the Habsburgs, but was briefly under Bourbon control in the War of the Spanish Succession. Under the Treaty of Rastatt (1714) which ended that war, the remainder of the Spanish Netherlands was ceded to Austria. Administratively, the country was divided into four traditional duchies, three counties and various lordships.
In the 1780s, opposition emerged to the liberal reforms of Emperor Joseph II, which were perceived as an attack on the Catholic Church and the traditional institutions of the Austrian Netherlands. Resistance grew, focused in the autonomous and wealthy Duchy of Brabant and County of Flanders. In the aftermath of rioting and disruption in 1787 known as the Small Revolution, many opponents took refuge in the neighboring Dutch Republic where they formed a rebel army. Soon after the outbreak of the French and Liège revolutions, the émigré army crossed into the Austrian Netherlands and decisively defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Turnhout on 27 October 1789. The rebels, supported by uprisings across the territory, soon took control over much of the territory and proclaimed independence. Despite the tacit support of Prussia, the independent United Belgian States, established in January 1790, received no foreign recognition and soon became divided along ideological lines. The Vonckists led by Jan Frans Vonck advocated progressive and liberal government, whereas the Statists, led by Hendrik Van der Noot, were staunchly conservative and supported by the Church. The Statists, who had a wider base of support, drove the Vonckists into exile through terror. [1]
By mid-1790, Habsburg Austria ended its war with the Ottoman Empire and prepared to suppress the rebels. The new Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold II, was also a liberal and proposed an amnesty for the rebels. After defeating a Statist army at the Battle of Falmagne (22 September 1790), the territory was soon overrun and the revolution was defeated by December. The Austrian reestablishment was short-lived and the territory was overrun by the French in 1794 (during the War of the First Coalition) after the Battle of Fleurus.
The Council of State acted as government, and formed the council by imperial consent: [2]
1794 was the third year of the War of the First Coalition. The Austrians gave up on contesting the Low Countries after the Battle of Fleurus (26 June), and left them to the French. After three months of military occupation, on 15 October a Central High Administration of Belgium was installed. On 1 October 1795 the departments were activated and the definitive annexation started, liquidating the Belgian Governing Council, which ceased on 22 November. France annexed the Austrian Netherlands from the Holy Roman Empire and integrated them into the French Republic. The commissioner of the Directory, Louis Ghislain de Bouteville du Metz , finished his work on January 20, 1797, after which no common Belgian authority remained.
The War of the First Coalition was a set of wars that several European powers fought between 1792 and 1797, initially against the constitutional Kingdom of France and then the French Republic that succeeded it. They were only loosely allied and fought without much apparent coordination or agreement; each power had its eye on a different part of France it wanted to appropriate after a French defeat, which never occurred.
The Southern Netherlands, also called the Catholic Netherlands, were the parts of the Low Countries belonging to the Holy Roman Empire which were at first largely controlled by Habsburg Spain and later by the Austrian Habsburgs until occupied and annexed by Revolutionary France (1794–1815).
Belgian nationalism, sometimes pejoratively referred to as Belgicism, is a nationalist ideology. In its modern form it favours the reversal of federalism and the creation of a unitary state in Belgium. The ideology advocates reduced or no autonomy for the Flemish Community who constitute Flanders, the French Community of Belgium and the German-speaking Community of Belgium who constitute Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region which is inhabited by both Walloons and Flemings, and the dissolution of the regional counterparts of each ethnic group within Belgium.
The Spanish Netherlands was the Habsburg Netherlands ruled by the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs from 1556 to 1714. They were a collection of States of the Holy Roman Empire in the Low Countries held in personal union by the Spanish Crown. This region comprised most of the modern states of Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as parts of northern France, the southern Netherlands, and western Germany, with the capital being Brussels. The Army of Flanders was given the task of defending the territory.
The United Belgian States, also known as the United States of Belgium, was a short-lived confederal republic in the Southern Netherlands established under the Brabant Revolution. It existed from January to December 1790 as part of the unsuccessful revolt against the Habsburg Emperor, Joseph II.
The Treaty of Rastatt was a peace treaty between France and Austria that was concluded on 7 March 1714 in the Baden city of Rastatt to end the War of the Spanish Succession between both countries. The treaty followed the Treaty of Utrecht of 11 April 1713, which had ended hostilities between France and Spain, on the one hand, and Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, on the other. A third treaty at Baden, Switzerland, was required to end the hostilities between France and the Holy Roman Empire.
The Army of Sambre and Meuse was a field army of the French Revolutionary Army. It was formed on 29 June 1794 by combining the Army of the Ardennes, the left wing of the Army of the Moselle and the right wing of the Army of the North. Its maximum paper strength was approximately 120,000.
The Brabant Revolution or Brabantine Revolution, sometimes referred to as the Belgian Revolution of 1789–1790 in older writing, was an armed insurrection that occurred in the Austrian Netherlands between October 1789 and December 1790. The revolution, which occurred at the same time as revolutions in France and Liège, led to the brief overthrow of Habsburg rule and the proclamation of a short-lived polity, the United Belgian States.
The Kettle War was a military confrontation between the troops of the Holy Roman Empire and the Republic of the Seven Netherlands on 8 October 1784. It was named the Kettle War because the only shot fired hit a soup kettle.
Habsburg Netherlands refers to those parts of the Low Countries that were ruled by sovereigns of the Holy Roman Empire's House of Habsburg. This rule began in 1482 and ended for the Northern Netherlands in 1581 and for the Southern Netherlands in 1797. The rule began with the death in 1482 of Mary of Burgundy of the House of Valois-Burgundy who was the ruler of the Low Countries and the wife of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I of Austria. Their grandson, Emperor Charles V, was born in the Habsburg Netherlands and made Brussels one of the capitals in the Spanish Empire.
Henri van der Noot, in Dutch Hendrik van der Noot, and popularly called Heintje van der Noot or Vader Heintje, was a jurist, lawyer and politician from Brabant. He was one of the main figures of the Brabant Revolution (1789–1790) against the Imperial rule of Joseph II. This revolution led to the short-lived existence of the United States of Belgium with himself as President of the National Congress.
Foreign relations exist between Austria and France. Both countries have had diplomatic relations with each other since the Middle Ages. Both countries are full members of the Council of Europe and the European Union.
The Low Countries theatre of the War of the First Coalition, also known as the Flanders campaign, was a series of campaigns in the Low Countries conducted from 20 April 1792 to 7 June 1795 during the first years of the War of the First Coalition. As the French Revolution radicalised, the revolutionary National Convention and its predecessors broke the Catholic Church's power (1790), abolished the monarchy (1792) and even executed the deposed king Louis XVI of France (1793), vying to spread the Revolution beyond the new French Republic's borders, by violent means if necessary. The First Coalition, an alliance of reactionary states representing the Ancien Régime in Central and Western Europe – Habsburg Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Hanover and Hesse-Kassel – mobilised military forces along all the French frontiers, threatening to invade Revolutionary France and violently restore the monarchy. The subsequent combat operations along the French borders with the Low Countries and Germany became the primary theatre of the War of the First Coalition until March 1796, when Napoleon took over French command on the Italian front.
Johann Peter de Beaulieu, also Jean Pierre de Beaulieu, was a Walloon military officer. He joined the Habsburg army and fought against the Prussians during the Seven Years' War. A cultured man, he later battled Belgian rebels and earned promotion to general officer. During the French Revolutionary Wars he fought against the First French Republic and attained high command. In 1796, a young Napoleon Bonaparte won some of his first victories against an army led by Beaulieu. He retired and was the Proprietor (Inhaber) of an Austrian infantry regiment until his death.
The Vonckists or democrats were a progressive political faction active in the Austrian Netherlands and later the United Belgian States during the Brabant Revolution (1789–1790). They were led by Jan Frans Vonck and were opposed to the more conservative "Statists", although they did initially ally with them for the sake of liberating the Southern Netherlands.
The Statists or aristocrats were a conservative political faction active in the Austrian Netherlands and later the United Belgian States during the Brabant Revolution (1789–1790). They were led by Henri Van der Noot and fiercely opposed to the more radical "Vonckist" faction, led by Jan Frans Vonck, although they did initially ally with them for the sake of liberating Belgium.
The Committee of United Belgians and Liégeois or United Committee of Both Nations was a political committee in Revolutionary France which brought together leaders of the failed Brabant and Liège Revolutions (1789–1791) who sought to create an independent republic in Belgium.
This is a timeline of the 18th century.