Scandinavia and the World
Scandinavia and the World

Comments #9558010:


Daru

60
Government Down 17 11, 12:44am

@Gelderland
"We Dutch should have invaded there and then... ;p"
You did, sort of... After Waterloo, the "Belgian" departments wanted to stay with France but England, Prussia and some other powers were convinced this would make France too strong, so these departments were joined to the Netherlands, there were some Dutch troops in the very south of Belgium where you find more fair-haired people than you would expect... The Dutch stayed until... King Willem I behaved so much as the kings of yore that he pissed off the south, especially Brussels and Liège.
As a kid we learnt the poem :
Wij willen Willem weg,
Wilde Willem wijzer wezen,
willen wij Willem weer.
He stubbornly decided not to modify his policy with the result of Belgium seceding from the north.
Imagine if Belgium had remained. The Benelux-sized country would probably have been among the top 10 world economies, controlling the Rhine, the Meuse, the Scheldt, organizing the trade of rubber, spices, coffee, having mines, iron industry, shipping industry, car building factories, electronics, chemistry, a thriving economy, politcally neutral and too big to be attacked by Germany in WW I...
No use crying over spilt milk. As neighbours go, we get on quite nicely, don't we ?