But the very advantages that contributed to the material advancement of
Belgium were responsible for the invasions that times without number
reddened her soil and enslaved her people. The territory occupied by
the Netherlanders (“the people of the low lands,”--the Belgians and
the Dutch) lay in the track of all the envious and ambitious nations
of Europe. One war succeeded another until, in the year 1830, the
Belgians freed themselves of their final and most irritating yoke by
successfully employing arms against Holland. At last the Belgians’
country was their own. And now a new Belgium came into being. “Only one
common trait,” says a student of Belgian history, “connected the men of
the two epochs--the capacity for work.” The exploitation of the coal
mines of Seraing (se-ran) and Hainaut (hay-no), the discovery of iron
mines, the establishment of great foundries and manufactories, followed
the consummation of national independence. A system of railways was
organized that had no superior in Europe. The internal waterways of
the country--the rivers, canalized rivers and canals--aided in the
transportation of manufactures, land products and imports to the extent
of millions of tons a year.
[Illustration: HEYST
A fishing village and summer resort on the North Sea coast, near
Ostend. At low tide the beach is a moorage for trawlers of the fishing
fleet]
[Illustration: THE CITY OF LIÈGE