I forget if it was the UK fucking with the Netherlands or if it was France but it was 1 of the two basically going “it’d be a shame if your most valuable and industrialized territory were simply not yours anymore”
No, it kind of became its own thing during the wars of the reformation. I had to double check because I mostly just know about this as a side part of other things (wars of the Reformation, French Revolution, etc.). The Netherlands were the protestant part that rebelled against the Hapsburgs and Belgium stayed loyal and Catholic. Then it became a part of France after the War of the First Coalition against Revolutionary France. There was an attempt to unify it with the Netherlands after the defeat of Napoleon, but due to a bad economic crisis inflaming the protestant/Catholic divide, Belgium rebelled and became a separate nation again. There was talk later in the 19th and early 20th centuries of folding it in to France or the Netherlands or something else, but it had become seen as a useful buffer territory between Germany and France, and best to keep several small non-aligned nations rather than letting the lowlands get claimed by one of the great powers.
I forget if it was the UK fucking with the Netherlands or if it was France but it was 1 of the two basically going “it’d be a shame if your most valuable and industrialized territory were simply not yours anymore”
No, it kind of became its own thing during the wars of the reformation. I had to double check because I mostly just know about this as a side part of other things (wars of the Reformation, French Revolution, etc.). The Netherlands were the protestant part that rebelled against the Hapsburgs and Belgium stayed loyal and Catholic. Then it became a part of France after the War of the First Coalition against Revolutionary France. There was an attempt to unify it with the Netherlands after the defeat of Napoleon, but due to a bad economic crisis inflaming the protestant/Catholic divide, Belgium rebelled and became a separate nation again. There was talk later in the 19th and early 20th centuries of folding it in to France or the Netherlands or something else, but it had become seen as a useful buffer territory between Germany and France, and best to keep several small non-aligned nations rather than letting the lowlands get claimed by one of the great powers.
excuse you but I have a degree in history from victoria 3
The UK was afraid of the French annexing Belgium