For the story of the primitive inhabitants of Belgium, we must consult
the chronicles of the Belgae, a Gallic race extolled for their bravery
by Julius Caesar, half a century before the birth of Christ. Long
before the Romans came, the fair land bounded by the Atlantic, the
Rhine, the Alps, the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees was occupied by the
Gauls, who were called in their own language, “Celts.” Gaul, divided
into three parts, was inhabited in the north by the Belgae; in the
middle region by the Celts, or Gauls proper; and in the south by the
Aquitani. This ancient race remained under the Roman yoke for more
than five centuries. Meantime, a Frankish tribe came from across the
Rhine to occupy what we know as the Flemish Plain. The western part of
what was called Belgium in that day (and included the land known to us
as Holland) was ceded to France; eastern provinces fell to Germany,
and for three hundred years comprised the duchy of Lower Alsace. The
Province of Liège, on the eastern border, existed for nearly a thousand
years as a possession of the bishop-princes of the Holy Roman (or
German-Roman) Empire, which began with Charlemagne in the year 800.
The hereditary principalities of Flanders, Hainaut, Artois, Namur,
Brabant, Limburg, Antwerp and Malines were established in the Middle
Ages. The geographical divisions of these feudal states, with the
Prince-Bishopric of Liège, were subjected to little change throughout
succeeding centuries, and form the framework of the present-day kingdom
of Belgium. When we read the romantic story of the Belgian countships,
duchies and baronies, we discover how large a part their knights played
in the chivalrous enterprises of Europe. The “Low Countries,” of which
Belgium was the most important, were represented in the Crusades by
such zealous warriors as Godfrey of Bouillon, Marquis of Antwerp, and
that Count of Flanders who became the first King of Jerusalem. Another
Count of Flanders, Baldwin IX, was crowned Emperor of the East when the
Crusaders entered Constantinople in 1204.
The rise of Belgian cities dates from the founding of the cloth
markets in the tenth century. From the thirteenth to the sixteenth
centuries, hundreds of trading vessels entered Flemish ports, carrying
away carpets, tapestries, cannon, lace, silks, linens, embroideries
and metal-ware. Charles the Fifth, who was very vain of his Belgian
possessions, boasted to Francis the First, of France, that he “could
put Paris inside his Ghent.” The French word for glove is _gant_: the
pun is obvious. In the sixteenth century Ghent surpassed London in
population and trade. Belgian cities were supreme in Europe. Belgian
provinces were at the zenith of their prosperity.
Chroniclers of Belgian history divide the period between 1555 and 1830
into six sections: the devastating reign of Philip Second of Spain;
the more beneficent and independent reign of Philip’s daughter and her
husband, Archduke Albert; the renewal of direct Spanish rule; Austrian
rule; French rule; and Dutch rule. For more than a century most of
Europe’s battles were fought on Belgian soil. “The Netherlands,” a
writer declared in 1642, “have been for many years the very cock-pit of
Christendom, the school of arms and rendezvous of adventurous spirits.”
The battledore of war drove Belgium, the shuttlecock, to Spain, then
to Austria, to France, and back to Austria again. At the end of the
French Revolution all the provinces, including Liège, became part of
France. Under the Republic and during the reign of Napoleon I., Belgium
enjoyed a period of comparative peace. In 1814, against the will of the
people, their land was ceded to the Dutch by the Congress of Vienna. By
the Revolution of 1830, Belgium became an independent nation. Prince
Leopold of Saxe-Coburg was elected the first King. The perpetual
neutrality of Belgium was insured by the leading powers of Europe,
though the people would have resisted this agreement if the will of
England and Prussia had not prevailed to make the war-torn territory a
bulwark against France.
Leopold I. was succeeded in 1865 by Leopold II., who advanced the
industrial status of the country, and brought about the annexation of
the Congo Free State, in Africa. Albert, son of this monarch’s brother,
came to the throne in 1909.
Though its foundations as an independent nation were several times
threatened, the neutrality of the kingdom was preserved until the
momentous year 1914, when the treaty executed eighty-three years before
was contemptuously regarded by the Germans as but “a scrap of paper.”
Once more, Belgium became the “cock-pit of Europe,” and for four years
suffered the ravages of the most ruthless war in history. The King and
Queen, driven out of Brussels by the invasion of the Teutonic hordes,
took refuge in La Panne, a village just north of the French boundary.
By the treaty of Versailles the Belgian frontiers were again restored.
The inhabitants of a country proverbially industrious are now making
commercial and agricultural history, undoing as far as possible the
work of the Hun.
WRITTEN FOR THE MENTOR BY RUTH KEDZIE WOOD
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 8, No. 3, SERIAL No. 199
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.
[Illustration: THE PALACE OF JUSTICE, BRUSSELS]
_BELGIUM_
_Government and Institutions_