The Age of Revolution

In the first half of the seventeenth century, the Republic of the Seven United Provinces entered an era of great economic and cultural prosperity. Benefiting from internal struggles in England and France, the Dutch became a maritime and trade world-power. This age of success, however, did not last. Halfway through the eighteenth century, it was clear that the Republic could not stand up to the combined power of England and France. A continuous decline in the economy, and the inability of the government to manage this, led to growing unrest among Dutch citizens.

The southern territories did not fare better. The partition of north and south had resulted in a tremendous brain drain from the Spanish Netherlands, with protestant merchants, tradesmen, and intellectuals choosing to move northwards. The economy suffered as a result and would continue to suffer under protectionist policies and more competitive neighboring countries.

It should come as no surprise that, at the end of the eighteenth century, when the European continent was gripped by revolution, the Low Countries were affected as well. Both in the north and the south indigenous revolts broke out, but each was quickly put down through foreign intervention. The effects of the monumental French Revolution (1789), however, proved inescapable. The south was officially annexed by France in 1795, while the newly proclaimed Batavian Republic, the successor to the United Provinces, was relegated to being a French client-state. In 1806, France’s emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821) forced the Dutch to accept his brother Louis Bonaparte (1778 – 1846) as king, lest they be annexed as well, founding the Kingdom of Holland. Unhappy with his brother’s performance, Napoleon would formally add Holland to his empire in 1810.

In the period leading up to Napoleon’s defeat, Europe’s great powers came together to carve out a new European order. The governing principle of this Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) was to establish a clear balance of power on the continent. It was therefore decided to merge the Low Countries, forming the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. William VI of Orange (1772-1843), the son of the Republic’s last stadtholder, was crowned king. In his style of government, William I (as he was known after his ascension to the throne) sought to practice a form of enlightened despotism. His authoritarian methods, however, stirred up malcontent among liberals, most notably in the south. Coupled with a growing national sentiment, the Belgians revolted in august of 1830, eventually leading to the establishment of the sovereign state of Belgium in 1831.

The emergence of modern nationalism was something that had seemingly eluded the great powers at the Congress of Vienna. They drew a map of Europe that ensured no one state would become too powerful but failed to sufficiently take into account the wishes of the people. In the intellectual wake of the Enlightenment, the French and American Revolutions and German Romanticism, powerful ideas about nationhood and people belonging to unique groups that shared a common culture, language and history grew ever more popular. The concept of monarchical sovereignty was making way for the notion of national sovereignty, where the borders of the newfound nation-state would ideally follow the cultural boundaries of the nation.