BELGIUM UNDER FRENCH DOMINATION
(1792-1814)
The French revolutionary clubs had exerted a powerful influence
on Vonck. The effect of their teachings had also been felt in the
independent principality of Liège and had provoked a rising of the
people against the bishop-prince. But the revolt of Liège, which
occurred at the same time as the revolt in Belgium against Joseph II
(1789), was quickly suppressed.
When France itself fell a victim to the revolutionary leaders, the
great Revolution broke loose. The French soon found themselves
confronted by a European coalition and were forced into war. Since
Austria was inimical to the Revolution, the French troops invaded the
Belgian possessions of the Hapsburgs in 1792 under the leadership of
General Dumouriez. They found not a few sympathizers in the country.
The partisans of Van der Noot looked to the French to deliver them from
the Austrian yoke; the partisans of Vonck had always been agents of
the French revolutionary leaders, and desired the annexation of their
country to France. After the victory of Jemappes (1792), the French
entered Belgium, loudly proclaiming that they came as liberators of the
people and desired only the destruction of Austrian tyranny. Although
the excesses of their troops seemed to contradict this statement,
the people believed them. Then came the second and final defeat of
the Austrians at the battle of Fleurus (1794). Both Belgium and the
principality of Liège were occupied by the victors.
A period of terrible excesses followed. The French National Convention
entirely abolished all the ancient institutions; a provisional
administration was established, and “clubs” with political aims were
introduced into all the cities. Taxes, requisitions, systematic
pillage, outrages on religious convictions rained upon the unhappy
inhabitants. General elections were forced upon the Belgians and
manipulated by the “Sans-culottes” and political agents so as to give
the impression of a referendum, through which the people should express
their desire to be annexed to France. This plan encountered general
hostility throughout the country. Thereupon the National Convention,
by a law voted and applied on October 1, 1795, simply annexed Belgium
and the principality of Liège. As Austria was too weak to defend her
possessions, it formally ceded the Austrian Netherlands to France and
recognized the annexation by the Treaty of Campo Formio (1797).
The French now treated the conquered territory with great harshness.
The followers of the Catholic religion were severely persecuted, the
churches were closed, the priests were sentenced to death or deported
to French Guiana and to the islands of Ré and Oléron, the Catholic
worship was suppressed and replaced by that of the “Goddess of Reason.”
For the first time in Belgian history military conscription was forced
upon the inhabitants, and the youth of the country was compelled to
shed its blood on foreign battlefields for a régime it abhorred.
This naturally stirred up bitter resentment; and, even as they had
risen against Joseph II, so a part at least of the Belgians rose
against the French. This revolt is known as the War of the Peasants
(1798-99), because it was mainly the people of the countryside in
Flanders, Campine, and Luxemburg who fought in defense of their hearths
and their religion. They fought heroically with old weapons, scythes,
pikes, and guns of old pattern, under the leadership of a few nobles
and burgesses. There is a close resemblance between their struggle
and that of the French peasants in the Vendée. But what could they
accomplish against the well-equipped armies of the Republic? The
egotism of the educated classes, which gave them no support at all,
and their lack of training and experience, soon brought their valiant
resistance to an inglorious end. One after another their bands were
exterminated, and those who did not fall on the battlefield died
against a wall by the bullets of a firing squad.
Their gallantry did not save the country. Belgium remained fifteen
years longer under French domination. The Concordat concluded in 1801
between Pope Pius VII and Napoleon Bonaparte brought the religious
persecution to an end, and the Catholic worship was restored. When
Bonaparte had become Emperor Napoleon I, the glory which surrounded
his name made a profound impression on the Belgians, and the great
Emperor became very popular among them. Antwerp attracted all his
attention; and it is due to him that the Scheldt, after a century and
a half of being closed, was again opened to trade and was freed from
the tyrannous control of the Dutch. As military conscription still
prevailed, the Belgians filled the ranks of the imperial army, and
their blood was shed for the fame and the power of Napoleon all over
Europe. The conqueror left on the country, however, the impress of his
spirit of organization in the famous _Code Napoléon_, that monument
of civil law that still forms the basis of Belgian jurisprudence. The
spell of his name appeared from the fact that after the defeat of his
armies at Leipzig in 1813 there was no revolt against him in Belgium as
there was in Holland.
The fall of Napoleon ended the French domination of the Belgians
(1814). However, the diplomats who rearranged the map of Europe, while
the once mighty Emperor was sent to St. Helena, had determined that the
country was not to be restored to its former political status.