page_title: History of Belgium
section_title: French control
hierarchical_section_title: History of Belgium / 17th and 18th centuries / French control
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Bataille de Fleurus, victoire française du général Jourdan, le 26 juin 1794, contre l'armée autrichienne menée par les princes de Cobourg et d'Orange. A gauche de Jourdan, Saint-Just en mission, à droite Marceau, Kléber et Championnet. English: Battle of Fleurus, June 26. 1794, French troops led by Jourdan beat back the Austrian army
context_page_description: The history of Belgium extends before the founding of the modern state of that name in 1830, and is intertwined with those of its neighbors: the Netherlands, Germany, France and Luxembourg. For most of its history, what is now Belgium was either a part of a larger territory, such as the Carolingian Empire, or divided into a number of smaller states, prominent among them being the Duchy of Brabant, the County of Flanders, the Prince-Bishopric of Liège and County of Luxembourg. Due to its strategic location and its history as a country of contact between different cultures, Belgium has been called the "crossroads of Europe"; for the many armies fighting on its soil, it has also been called the "battlefield of Europe" or the "cockpit of Europe". It is also remarkable as a European nation which contains, and is divided by, a language boundary between Latin-derived French and Germanic Dutch.
  Belgium's modern shape can be partly traced back at least as far as the "Seventeen Provinces" within the Burgundian Netherlands.
context_section_description: Following the Campaigns of 1794 of the French Revolutionary Wars, Belgium Austriacum was invaded and annexed by France in 1795, ending Habsburg rule.
  Southern Netherlands and the territory of Liège was divided into nine united départements and became an integral part of France. The Bishopric of Liège was dissolved. Its territory was divided over the départements Meuse-Inférieure and Ourte. The Holy Roman Emperor confirmed the loss of Southern Netherlands,  by the Treaty of Campo Formio, in 1797.
  The French invaded and controlled Belgium, 1794–1814, imposing all their new reforms and incorporating what had been the "Austrian Netherlands" and the Prince-Bishopric of Liege into France. New rulers were sent in by Paris. Belgian men were drafted into the French wars and heavily taxed. Nearly everyone was Catholic, but the Church was repressed. Resistance was strong in every sector, as Belgian nationalism emerged to oppose French rule. The French legal system, however, was adopted, with its equal legal rights, and abolition of class distinctions. Belgium now had a government bureaucracy selected by merit, but it was not at all popular.
  Until the establishment of the Consulate in 1799, Catholics were heavily repressed by the French. The first University of Leuven was closed in 1797 and churches were plundered. During this early period of the French rule, the Belgian economy was completely paralyzed as taxes had to be paid in gold and silver coin while goods bought by the French were paid for with worthless assignats. During this period of systematic exploitation, about 800,000 Belgians fled the Southern Netherlands. The French occupation in Belgium led to further suppression of the Dutch language across the country, including its abolition as an administrative language.  With the motto "one nation, one language", French became the only accepted language in public life as well as in economic, political, and social affairs.
  The measures of the successive French governments and in particular the 1798 massive conscription into the French army were unpopular everywhere, especially in Flemish regions, where it sparked the Peasants' War. The brutal suppression of the Peasants' War marks the starting point of the modern Flemish movement.
  In 1814, the Allies drove out Napoleon and ended French rule. The plan was to join Belgium and the Netherlands, under Dutch control. Napoleon briefly returned to power during the Hundred Days in 1815, but was decisively defeated at the Battle of Waterloo, south of Brussels.
caption: French soldiers fight at Fleurus in Belgium during the Revolutionary Wars, 1794
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