Belgium
Belgium is a country in north-west Europe bordered by France, Luxembourg, Germany, and the Netherlands. It is a constitutional monarchy with a population (1997) of 10.1 million, and occupies 11,783 square miles (30,528 square kilometres) The capital is Brussels (Dutch: Brussel; French: Bruxelles). The national languages are Dutch and French; a small German-speaking minority lives along the eastern border with Germany.
The country has since 1977 been divided into three semi-autonomous regions: Flanders (the Dutch speaking area), Wallonia (the French speaking area) and Brussels, a bilingual 'island' within Flanders.
History of Belgium
The territory known as Belgium has had many rulers over the centuries: Burgundian, Spanish, Austrian, French. In the post-Napoleonic settlement of 1815 it became part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands but rebelled in 1830 and in 1839 was recognized as an independent kingdom, its neutrality guaranteed by the Great Powers. This neutrality was violated on 1 August 1914 when German troops invaded Belgium as part of the Schlieffen Plan to defeat France (the Belgian government had refused a German demand to allow their troops to cross Belgium). This action caused the United Kingdom to enter the war on the side of Belgium and France, part of the widening circle of conflict that turned a Balkan dispute into the First World War. Most of Belgium was occupied by the Germans in the autumn of 1914, but a small area around Ypres (Dutch: Ieper) remained in Belgian hands. Three major battles were fought between British and German forces in the Ypres Salient between 1914 and 1917.
Under the Treaty of Versailles Belgium acquired the districts of Eupen and Malmedy from Germany in 1919. Belgian troops also participated in the (French-led) occupation of the Ruhr in 1923.
1n 1940 Belgium was again occupied by German forces, and was liberated by British, Canadian and American forces in 1944. The hilly and heavily wooded Ardennes region was the scene of two major offensives by German armored forces. The first was in 1940, when German armor passed through the supposedly impenetrable Ardennes to go round the side of the Maginot Line, on which the French had pinned their hopes of resistance. In December 1944 an offensive was mounted by German forces against Allied troops in an attempt to recapture the port of Antwerp and halt Allied forces in the west. This had the power of surprise and achieved initial gains, but stubborn American resistance at the strategic road junction of Bastogne, a change in weather allowing Allied aircraft to attack German tanks, and an overall shortage of fuel, spares and ammunition doomed the German offensive to failure.
Belgium was one of the original six members of the European Common Market (now the European Union) in 1957.
Economy
Medieval and early modern Flanders was one of the most advanced and urbanised regions in Europe, specialising in the cloth trade and many other craft industries. Belgium is considered to be the second country to have embarked on large scale modern industrialisation, after the United Kingdom, due in no small measure to its large coal resources; these are now largely exhausted. The modern Belgian economy is dominated by service industries (helped by the fact the Brussels is the de facto capital of the EU); it also has significant iron and steel and petrochemical industries; the country is also known for armaments manufacture. Food and drink is an important, if specialised sector: Belgian chocolate and the immense variety of craft beers are world-renowned.
