1815
After Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo and the Second Peace
of Paris, the Vienna Congress drew the new borders of Europe. Prince William had
by now proclaimed himself King of the United Netherlands, as if he preconceived
the addition of the Belgian territories he had administered on behalf of the
Allies into his Kingdom. The newly United Netherlands had been separated for too
long to be welded into one nation easily. Their spell of "unity" in the
Sixteenth century had been very short indeed and it had always been at best a
very loose personal union between the separate provinces. Many provinces had
always been French-speaking. Even the linguistic kinship between Holland and
Northern Belgium (Flanders) did not ensure a bond between those two parts of the
Kingdom. The South had always relied heavily upon manufacture and industry, and
was indeed the first part of Continental Europe to become industrialized,
because coal and iron were found there. Holland (a shorthand though technically
inaccurate name for the Old North) was traditionally a merchant nation and now
in decline. King William I, who ruled as an enlightened despot was called "the
merchant King". The emphasis of his regime was thus clear. The Orange rule was
mainly rooted in the North, which had always known a very conservative
constitution under Orange rule. The Belgians had more experience with
enlightened rule and indeed Liberalism, that had more roots there than in
Holland. Belgium had been an integral part of revolutionary France from 1794 to
1813.
