Belgium

views updated

BELGIUM.

On the eve of World War I Belgium was an industrialized and prosperous country that had been ruled for thirty years by the Catholic Party. Three conflicts had affected Belgian society for decades: an ideological conflict between clerical and anticlerical camps; a linguistic and identity-based conflict stemming from the emergence of Flemish claims upon the Francophone state and a nascent Walloon movement that sought to counter them; and finally a social conflict fueled by the socialist and liberal progressivist movement to obtain universal suffrage. These conflicts notwithstanding, all political struggles disappeared into a union sacrée (sacred union) around King Albert I (r. 1909–1934) for the duration of the war once German troops invaded the country on 4 August 1914.

Belgium was a small country dragged into the torment despite itself, invaded without having declared war, and a young and relatively untested country where the church continued to play a preponderant role. The country experienced civilian massacres and the destruction of several cities during the invasion, the horror of the trenches on the Yser front, the deportation of civilians beginning in 1916, and the daily misery and systematic pillage of a country under occupation. Indeed, given the fact that the king stayed on the front lines alongside his troops and the government was exiled to France, practically the entire kingdom spent four years under the boots of the Germans.

However, the image Belgium held of itself changed radically over the course of this conflict. Its identity became tied to the emblem of the soldier-king; innocence lost; and undying fidelity to right, courage, honor, heroism, and martyrdom. At the end of the war the country emerged with a new face. Although Belgium lay in ruins it had nevertheless maintained its rank in the eyes of the nations arrayed against the invaders. In the Treaty of Versailles Belgium made several territorial gains on its eastern border and was awarded mandates over the African territories of Rwanda and Urundi. However victory would prove insufficient to quell the immense expectations born in the war. In general terms, the interwar years comprised two contrasting periods lasting one decade each: the 1920s was a time of change, reconstruction, and reform, followed by the Great Depression provoked by the Crash of 1929.

When universal male suffrage and proportional representation were introduced in 1919 the structure of Belgium's political landscape and governmental modes of functioning were radically altered. The bipartisanship of the war years ended, heralding an era of alternating Catholic versus liberal regimes incapable of governing alone, and required therefore to make concessions to the Belgian Socialist Workers Party. Coalition governments have resulted ever since, with the exception of 1950 to 1954, when a Catholic-only government briefly led the country. During the interwar years the most stable coalitions were composed of Catholics and liberals, but the more frequent and hence short-lived regimes were tripartite in nature, including Catholics, liberals, and socialists. The advent of coalition-style government had a considerable impact on Belgian political discourse, which progressively shed its pre-1914 ideological tone, in particular regarding the confrontation between Catholics and opponents to clericalism, and from groups devoted to the search for a consensus based on mutual concessions and negotiations about the great socioeconomic, linguistic, and educational questions of the day. Furthermore, the king no longer presided over the cabinet after 1918, when he was replaced by the newly created post of prime minister, a position held by a Catholic during this entire period with just two exceptions. Although government instability, particularly due to the language question, was rife during the interwar period (especially between 1918 and 1921 and from 1931 until World War II), certain ministers were seen to maintain their portfolios across different governments.

The first decade after 1918 was a period therefore of reforms, many of which were either being talked about or actively planned as early as 1914. Besides universal suffrage, most of the post-1918 socioeconomic changes, including the eight-hour workday and the right to strike (both legalized in 1921), went hand-in-hand with efforts being made at the international level by the International Labour Organization, which was created by the Treaty of Versailles. Nationalized industries were also founded at this time, including the National Industrial Bank and the Belgian National Railroad Company. The rise of unionism laid the groundwork for a publicly funded social safety net as well. Government-run industry-specific regulatory commissions were erected in 1919, requiring the various social groups to negotiate collective contracts on workers' issues.

The immense destruction wrought by the war called for a difficult reconstruction of the country and its economy. This reconstruction was only completed in 1925–1926 following a drastic devaluation of the Belgian franc. In this reconstruction, which was inspired by the American model, Taylorism and rationalization, as well as a movement favoring the concentration of businesses in fewer enterprises, were de rigueur in business management circles, as witnessed in the takeover by the SociétéGénérale of the National Arms Manufacturers. In 1926 the first regional economic association, the Vlaams Economisch VerBond (Flemish Employers Association), also appeared.

The importance of these economic and social questions to national life at the time, and above all their institutionalization according to the liberal model, led the traditional political parties to marry their political activities with social organizations sharing the same tendencies, for example the Christian Workers wing of the Catholic Party. The socialists in the Workers Party of Belgium, largely untroubled by the founding of the Communist Party in 1921, carried out its development in three classic forms of organization: unions, mutualist groups, and cooperatives.

The language question also evolved during this period. The Flemish movement did not make it through World War I unscathed because some of its activists, a clear minority of Flemish speakers who had collaborated with the occupying forces, were immediately condemned by public opinion and later by Belgian tribunals. A newly formed Regional Front Party, composed of Flemish faithful to the Belgian resistance, made it into parliament after 1919 and renewed key Flemish demands. Many activists were gradually pardoned as a series of language laws in their favor were easily adopted, especially between the years 1921 and 1928. These laws testify to the progressive formalization of a bilingual state and state institutions such as schools, the army, the courts, and public administration, accompanied by the identification of Belgian regions according to the language spoken by the majority of its inhabitants. Later this process was accelerated by a 1932 law establishing unilingualism in Flanders and Wallonia and bilingualism in Brussels for administrative matters. Two years earlier an age-old Flemish demand had been satisfied when the University of Gand (Ghent University) was designated solely Flemish-speaking.

After the stock market crash of 1929 and the depreciation of the pound in 1931, Belgium was struck by economic depression, with catastrophically high unemployment rates and severe downward pressure on workers' salaries leading to strikes in 1932, particularly in heavy industries like coal mining and metallurgy. The government responded by giving special budgetary powers normally reserved for the Legislature to technocrats in the finance ministry. Mixed-use banks were banned in 1934 and the franc was devalued in 1935. Henri de Man (1885–1953) and the Belgian Socialists promoted a work plan intended to establish a mixed-economy regime.

The accidental death of Albert I in February 1934 led to the succession of his son Leopold III (r. 1934–1951), whose reign began under difficult political circumstances. In the 1930s the antidemocratic extreme Right was making progress via new movements and political parties, including Verdinaso, founded by the National Front Deputy Joris Van Severen (1894–1940) and the Vlaams Nationaal Verbond (VNV), which brought together Flemish fascists who comprised the majority of the National Front caucus in parliament, as well as the Rex in Wallonia, led by the charismatic Léon Degrelle (1906–1994). Although the Rexists became a worrisome political force after the elections of 1936, the traditional parties banded together to oppose it, and by 1939 Rex was practically nonexistent. Despite circumstances hostile to democracy throughout Europe, Belgium resisted the onslaught of fascism.

During the interwar years the Catholic and Socialist parties alternated between first and second place, with the Liberals occupying the perpetual third position. Regional differences also appeared during this time, with the Parti Ouvrier Belge (POB) being the predominant party in Wallonia and the Catholics occupying this position in Flanders, while the electoral situation in Brussels was more fluid. Federalist state-reform initiatives introduced by respective Flemish and Walloon deputies broke new ground in the process of recognizing regional differences. Although these projects were not rigorously followed up at the time, they nonetheless embodied the first manifestations of federalist political aspirations at the heart of the national legislature.

In the international sphere, after having taken part in the occupation of the Ruhr Valley alongside the French (1923–1925) and having signed the Locarno Accords (1925), in 1936 Belgium reassumed its position of political neutrality when confronted with that region's remilitarization. This voluntary neutrality was recognized by all the major European powers, Nazi Germany included, but in vain. On 10 May 1940, without a formal declaration of war, German troops invaded Belgium in a blitzkrieg operation, provoking an ineffectual response from Belgium's British and French alliance partners. After eighteen days of combat Leopold III capitulated and chose to remain at the head of his army, then fallen into German hands, rather than follow his government, led by the prime minister, Hubert Pierlot (1883–1963), into exile. Leopold III was placed under house arrest at the Château de Laeken in Brussels.

During the first period of the occupation Belgian administrative and economic officials attempted to find a modus vivendi with the Germans, so that Belgium might in some way take advantage of the concessions of autonomy while at the same time allowing the military administration led by Alexander von Falkenhausen (1878–1966) to make the occupation satisfactory to the Reich and thus maintain order. But this fool's paradise was quickly exposed for what it was by the exploitation of the country, the demands of occupation, supply shortages, the repression of political dissent, the continued holding of Walloon prisoners of war in captivity, and the anti-Jewish policies implemented in 1940. Furthermore once the Battle for Britain was won public opinion changed—Hitler might just yet lose the war.

The country was divided by a rhythm of conflict that came to be known the world over. Active and passive forms of collaboration with the occupiers emerged, but organized resistance also arose as the application of the Final Solution to the Jews of Belgium progressed and the deportation of Belgian workers began in 1942. The Belgian Resistance assumed many guises, including supporting downed Allied pilots, persecuted Jews, and people who escaped from the Forced Labor Service; providing information and running underground presses; and armed attacks by groups adhering to various tendencies, from communism to ultra-monarchism. In short the usefulness and the intensity of the Belgian Resistance in the war effort would later be fully recognized by the Allies, at the price of seventeen thousand Belgians dead in the service of freedom.

Collaboration also assumed various forms: economic, political, and even military in the case of the Flemish Nationalists of the VNV and the monarchist Walloons under Léon Degrelle. All told some thirty-one thousand Belgians would fight alongside the Nazi ranks. After the invasions at Normandy the Germans transferred Leopold III to Austria. In September 1944 Belgium was liberated by the Allies and its government-in-exile in London returned to Brussels, although Germany's bomb-equipped rockets and its harsh counteroffensive in the Ardennes placed a temporary halt on the country's complete return to normal.

In keeping with the constitution, as soon as the chamber of deputies returned it declared Leopold III, then whisked away by the Reich, ineligible to rule, and the king's brother Prince Charles (1903–1983) was installed as regent on 20 September 1944. The "royal affair" had just begun, but more urgent questions were then pressing the country as it began to emerge from the war. Following strict monetary policies led by the finance minister, Camille Gutt (1884–1971), and with the help of the Marshall Plan, economic reconstruction was achieved relatively quickly, especially as Belgium had escaped the wholesale destruction of its industrial infrastructure, including the Walloon Basin and the Port d'Anvers. The political landscape did not change dramatically, with the exception of the suppression of Rex and VNV. The Communists received a slight boost in the immediate postwar period, and the other parties were rebaptized as the Christian Socialist Party, the first political force to arrive on the scene as early as February 1945, and the Socialist Party of Belgium. A social-security system still in place today was formally institutionalized after having been laid out in private during the war. Besides this the process of flushing out collaborators was the order of the day, leading to the condemnation of fifty-three thousand Belgians (comprising 0.52 percent of the population of Wallonia and 0.73 percent of that of Flanders). Amnesty was a key theme in the demands raised by Flemish nationalists, and this became a kernel of discord between the country's two communities. Women were at last accorded the right to vote in legislative elections in 1948.

One of the most significant shifts to have occurred after the war was the ending of Belgium's political neutrality, which had twice been swept away. The country was integrated into the Western camp and the institutions of its international partnerships. As early as 1944 Belgium supported the formation of a customs union with the Netherlands and Luxembourg, which culminated in the Benelux alliance. It was also active in the creation of the United Nations and in 1949 became a member of NATO, whose headquarters would be housed in Brussels. A contingent of Belgian volunteers took part in the Korean War. These pro-Western policies, maintained despite internal differences by actors as diverse as the socialist Paul-Henri Spaak (1899–1972) and the Catholic Paul Van Zeeland (1893–1973), made Belgium one of the early architects of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, and of Euratom and the European Economic Community in 1957. This earnest and loyal engagement with Europe made Brussels the seat of even more European institutions, and ended with its designation as capital of the European Union.

Belgium's international stature would be tarnished by its handling of the crisis in the Congo beginning in 1960. On 15 November 1908 Congo became a Belgian colony after having first been the Independent State of Congo with Leopold III as its sovereign from 1885 onward. The colony's economic development had only begun to be felt in the 1920s, particularly in Katanga. In certain areas, such as primary school education, health, and communications infrastructure the local population appeared to benefit from colonization, but Belgium carried out strict segregationist policies. When it gained independence, the country had practically no homegrown political, social, and intellectual elites. Belgium was a colonial power until 30 June 1960, the date when the Congo gained its independence under difficult conditions.

Postwar Belgium still had to sort through the poisonous "royal affair." For several years the Christian Socialists, sole supporters of restoring Leopold III (then living in Switzerland), failed to muster a sufficient parliamentary majority because the other parties reproached him for his conduct during the war. A popular referendum was held on 12 March 1950, and 57.68 percent of voters favored his return to power, but marked regional disparities between Flanders and Wallonia, which was primarily against the king, were indicative of a fracture in Belgian public opinion. The highly significant electoral victory of the Catholics in 1950 allowed them to form a unified government and then make use of the referendum's results. The king was restored amid strikes and urban violence in the heart of industrial Wallonia, leading to the death of four men. In order to avoid civil war and despite his constitutional legitimacy, Leopold III ended up abdicating in favor of his son Baudouin (1930–1993), who became king on 17 July 1951.

Besides the royal affair, the education question was the site of the first great postwar confrontation because the majority Catholic government that ruled Belgium between 1950 and 1954 was followed by an anticlerical Socialist, Liberal, and Communist coalition that took aim at measures adopted by the previous legislature, which had favored Catholic instruction. A war over education seemingly right out of the nineteenth century led many Belgians to take to the streets. The demonstrations ended with the implementation of an education pact. The effects of this pact can still be observed. Its provisions included free middle-school education, equal treatment for teachers, and freedom of choice for heads of households regarding educational matters.

It was the evolution of the issue of group identity that would ultimately weigh most heavily on the nation's destiny. The Walloon movement and the various elements comprising it across the political spectrum emerged from the war unscathed in moral terms and began to organize its pro-federalist political activities from Liège beginning in 1945, opting for a formula of annual congresses, including one at Charleroi in 1950 notable for its gathering of popular and union forces together under the banner of the charismatic André Renard (1911–1962), secretary-general of the General Federation of Belgian Workers. At the same time deputies of Walloon origins would try in vain to pass state-reform propositions in parliament during the 1950s.

The Flemish movement recovered more slowly from the war because of its having been compromised by collaboration with the Germans, and the subsequent effects of the cleansing process. That being said, its ability to rebound through various cultural associations and the activities of parliamentary deputies united by a newly formed nationalist party in 1954 called the Volksunie was further fueled by the fact that Flanders, already favored by demographics, had become the predominant economic region in Belgium versus Wallonia, whose aging coal and steel industries were marked by deep discontent, most evident in the general strikes that took place in the winters of 1960 and 1961. In fact during these years population growth in Flanders led to a reversal in economic power relations in Belgium in its favor. These disparities led to the establishment of a formal linguistic border in 1962, the drawing up of which was hotly contested, and which today remains the object of considerable controversy. In January 1968 tensions between the Flemish and Walloons brought down the government and the University of Louvain was split in two: the Flemish wing stayed in the Old City and the Francophones were obliged to move to the other side of the language border. In June 1968 a government composed of Socialists and Christian Socialists led by Gaston Eyskens (1905–1988) found itself at a crossroads—institutional changes were inevitable, especially since the three main political parties were about to undergo divisions into Flemish and Walloon factions.

The country was dragged into a lasting economic downturn during this period by the fragility of successive governments, the oil crisis of 1973, regional disparities, and a rise in unemployment and inflation. The influence of Wilfried Martens (b. 1936), who led eight successive governments, would dominate the 1980s. It was under these conditions that in the latter part of the twentieth century a series of constitutional reforms were undertaken beginning in 1970, continuing in the 1980s (especially in 1988–1989), and ending in 1993 when Belgium became a full-fledged federal state. The first revision, which took place in 1970, established three cultural communities (French-, Flemish-, and German-speaking), and envisioned the creation of three regions: Wallonia, Flanders, and Brussels. In 1980 these communities received additional powers over cultural matters, including health and social welfare. They were also granted regional councils (parliaments) and executive branches, effectively founding the Regions of Wallonia and Flanders at the same time. Soon thereafter the Region and Community of Flanders were fused, and in 1988–1989 the Region of Brussels-Capital was established, even as regional and communal powers were further enhanced, a process completed by the fourth revision of the Constitution in 1993, the year when King Baudouin died and his brother Albert II (b. 1934) succeeded him on the throne.

In the 1990s Belgium remained at the head of efforts to strengthen and expand the European Union, which had been formally established by the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Brussels's status as the Union's capital obviously stimulated this engagement with Europe. However, the 1990s were also years marred by a climate of social and economic transformation. Events in that decade included the assassination of the Socialist leader André Cools (1927–1991), corruption scandals, and the child murders underlying the "Dutroux Affair." Following the electoral decline of the Christian Democrats and Socialists in both the northern and southern regions of the country, identity problems continued to confront Belgium in the 2000s: Flanders, pressured by the far-right populist Vlaams Blok, became more aggressive with respect to Brussels's claims to sovereignty, and has increased its demands for the division of the country's social-security system, widely considered one of the few items still holding Belgium together. Despite all these ordeals, Belgium weathered the twentieth century with a keen sense of adaptation to varying circumstances, defying those who regularly foretold of its imminent disappearance. As the country celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2005, the question remained as to whether this adaptability will persist in the years to come.