Why did Belgium try to Annex part of the Netherlands After World War 1?

Ajouté : 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]In 1914, Europe and much of the world was plunged into four years of violence and chaos in the First World War. In Western Europe, this started with a German invasion of its neighbor, Belgium, which soon dragged in the British and the French for 4 years of trench warfare and stalemate. And by the end of it, because it had been invaded, Belgium was there in 1918 when the German army collapsed and surrendered.

[00:00:28]And so Belgium could sit at the negotiating table and make demands of the Netherlands, the neutral Netherlands. What now? In 1914, both the Netherlands and Belgium had not been aligned to the two great power blocks that emerged and kicked off the war, but were instead neutral. Of course, Belgium's neutrality was violated by the Germans, which drove them into the arms of the Anton powers with whom they would fight side by side for the next four years. However, the Netherlands was never attacked, and so the Netherlands remained neutral throughout the war. And in fact, this goes back to a much older policy of the Netherlands since about 1830 to remain neutral in larger conflicts. This was of course because the Netherlands in 1830 lost its southern possession of Belgium during the Belgian Revolution and after this time period following a an abortive attempt to regain control over the Netherlands, the Dutch had been receding from international and European politics since their high point in the 17th century, the Dutch Golden Age. Now, in 1830, we can describe a little bit about why the Belgians in 1918 felt they had unfinished business with their northern neighbors.

[00:01:54]>> There are only two things I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch vote.

[00:02:03]>> And this is because the Belgian revolution for some in Belgium was actually still ongoing that it was unfinished. And this is because certain areas that had actually perhaps wished to be part of this new state, this Belgian state, were still under Dutch rule. Now, in 1831, the Netherlands invaded the newly independent country of Belgium in order to bring it back under their control. However, with French help and the invasion of the French army, the Dutch forces were pushed back until they were only able to hold on to the citadel of the important city of Antver. And in 1832, following a long siege involving the French army, it was captured and brought back to the country of Belgium.

[00:02:47]However, it was a complicated situation because the important city along which was built was the river or Shelt and this river was the main artery for importing into Belgium from the North Sea. However, there was a problem here.

[00:03:04]And as I mentioned in a previous video, there is a part of Flanders which today is in France. But there is also a part of Flanders which today is in the Netherlands. And this is called Z Flanderan or Zeandic Flanders. And as you can see highlighted here in orange, this is actually where the scel meets the sea. And it's controlled by the Netherlands, not by Belgium. So if the Netherlands wanted to it could cut off all trade that reaches onto and of course in a war this meant that if they wanted to get supplied by let's say the British the Belgian allies then the British would not be allowed to sail through Dutch territory Dutch zon zlandan in order to do so. So this put them at a significant military weakness in terms of and its supply given that Dutch Zalons blocked its access to the sea. Now Flanders wasn't the only historic county that was divided by the Belgian revolution. Limber was another one with parts of northern limber going to the Netherlands including the key city of Mastri and its coal fields while areas of southern Lmber went to Belgium.

[00:04:20]this being based on a medieval entity and this again was because Dutch troops had been able to hold on and unlike in Antipan French forces never helped to gain these areas for the Belgian revolution and so Mastri and its area around it remained in Dutch hands. A final territory that the Belgians would go on to claim was Luxmbourg. And Luxmbourg part of it was around half became part of Belgium, but the eastern half actually became a grand duchy of Luxembourg, which had a very complicated relationship with both the Netherlands, Belgium, and with the Northger Confederation of States at that time.

[00:05:01]And this was all agreed in 1839 when the Dutch, British, Belgians, and these North German states all agreed to the lay of the land. However, in 1866 with the Austroprussian War, which the Prussians would go on to win and incorporate this North German Confederation, there was some confusion about, well, what now is the state of Luxembourg? And in 1890, Luxembourg essentially became fully independent from the Netherlands, no longer recognizing its monarch and giving us the layout of the modern Benelux as we know it today. And that had been the agreement between Belgium, the Netherlands, and the new German Empire, of course, until 1914 when the Germans violated Belgian neutrality and invaded through its territory. So why then were the Belgians demanding territory from the Netherlands after a war in which they had been neutral? Well, we need to understand a little bit that in of course 1914, the Germans had invaded Belgium. And so Belgium was feeling that its borders were not very well secured for part of the reasons we've already explained. And if it were the Germans one day, then perhaps in another war, if the Dutch were on the wrong side, they might invade from the north as well. As mentioned, there was a strategic weakness with the access river to Antveren going through neutral territory. And indeed, Antveren fell to the Germans early on in the first world war. So by controlling this area of uh Zus Flanderan, they felt that their borders would be much more secure by controlling the river mouth. And the same argument is made for controlling northern Limber because they would then also control the important stretch of the river MS which also flows through Belgium. Finally, they also demanded that Luxembourg, the part that had not gone to Belgium, would also become part of their country again because they would then have better access to areas of the river MS and the river Mosil. And they also demanded to get certain areas of western Germany. In 1919, they actually managed to receive this from the Germans at the Treaty of Versailles and it was called and Malmmedi. And this is today part of Belgium that had been part of Germany. And it's why today in Belgium there is also a Germanspeaking part of Belgium alongside the much larger Flemish speakaking part and French-speaking part too. The Belgians also claimed that the Netherlands owed this to them despite being neutral because they claimed that the Dutch had allowed German forces to march through its territory in order to attack Belgium. This is almost certainly untrue, especially given that many troops from both the Anton and the Germans were in turned in Dutch prisoner of war camps as they guarded their neutrality with armed force and mobilized their own army in order to stop it. Now what is true is that the Netherlands gave refuge to the abdicated German Kaiser Vilhelm II following the end of the war. But this is in no way the same as being Tacit supporters of the Germans and allowing them to attack Belgium. What is true as well is that the Dutch were able to give refuge to over a 100,000 Belgian refugees during the war. And so what these Belgian claims on Dutch territory ended up doing was severely poisoning the well between the two nations. Especially given that throughout the economic hardship that the war around the Netherlands uh had created, many Dutch people had taken in Belgian refugees and taxpayer money was used to support these refugees and they felt that they had just been slapped in the face by the new Belgian government who instead of thanking them was demanding that the Netherlands give them territory. This was also the way that the big four, the prime ministers of the British, of the Americans, the Italians and the French also viewed the situation. And it's unsurprising that they didn't take these Belgian demands too seriously. People in Zos Fland, so this area that Belgium demanded at the mouth of the were also incensed by the idea that they might soon be forced to join Belgium. And they created various strike groups and protested against this idea. And funnily enough, this is actually where the anthem of this region comes from, the Zeos flams folks or the anthem of Zeos Flander, which is about them being Zealanders, but also very connected to the Netherlands. The public opinion there was not that they wanted to become part of Belgium. And the same is very true for Luxembourg which had enjoyed its independence for some time at this point and which also did not want to become a part of Belgium.

[00:09:52]Another tricky thing for Belgium politicians was that they didn't want to pursue this all too hard because they also wanted to get reparations in the form of monetary reparations from the Germans to pay for the colossal loss of life and damage to the country that four years of fighting had cost. And so they didn't want to anger the delegation by being too obnoxious with these demands against the neutral Netherlands. And so they never really pushed for it too hard. In fact, later on in 1923, Belgian and French forces would invade part of Germany in order to claim monetary reparations. The Ruer area. This is something I made a video about, I think maybe six or seven years ago. So that's kind of interesting. Okay, so you might say, well, nothing really came of this then. So why does it matter? Well, it matters because these discussions in 1919 had an impact on 1940. And this of course was when the Germans once again invaded their neighbors and in 1940 they also invaded the Netherlands as well as Belgium and Luxembourg. These Belgian demands seriously served to ruin the relationship between themselves and their northern neighbors. Meaning that in 1940 when the Germans attacked, there was no serious cooperation between the Netherlands and Belgium, no joint strategic planning. And the Netherlands had received the message that the only way to survive a large European scale conflict was to stay neutral to the end.

[00:11:20]No planning and coercion with other neighboring powers and that the Belgians could not be trusted. Now if we imagine in a different scenario perhaps in which Belgium had not made these demands where there had been more integration of Benelux countries working together perhaps with the allied power block who knows how things may have been different but as it stood because of the mistrust between the two countries it meant that both were tackled and taken over by the Germans within a series of days. Another interesting thing to think about is well what if Belgian demands had been acquiesced to and there was this greater Belgium would the Netherlands still have been invaded by the Germans on route to try and take over France? I think probably they would still have done even though they could have attacked Belgium on a larger front. But what may be even more interesting than thinking about this is what kind of Netherlands would there be today if suddenly they had had territory taken off them despite being neutral in a war. I think almost certainly the Netherlands would have taken a shift towards national socialism and perhaps in 1940 the Netherlands might not have been on the other side to the Germans at all but maybe would have aligned with the Germans in order to retake their territory that had been annexed by the Belgians. But that is just my thought on the matter. I think probably it was a silly idea for the Belgians uh to pursue even if perhaps it makes sense that they would control Zos Flanderin. It certainly did not do much to help relations between the two nations, but you can let me know in the comments below. Did you know about these plans of the Belgians to annex certain Dutch territories and Luxmbour of course as well? Um, do you think that perhaps it could have succeeded in another way or was it always doomed to failure?

[00:13:11]Anyway, thank you very much for watching this video. I've been Hilbert and if you like what I do, you can support me on Patreon. I'll see you in the next video.