Belgian Revolution

The Belgian Revolution
	; Episode of the Belgian Revolution of 1830, Gustaf Wappers (1834), (Museum of Modern Art, Brussels)
Date	25 August 1830 – 14 July 1831
Location	Northwestern Europe the Netherlands and Belgium
Result	Belgian victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom of the Netherlands	Southern Provinces ; Kingdom of the French
Commanders and leaders
William I of the Netherlands	Erasme Louis Surlet de Chokier; Charles Latour Rogier ; Étienne Maurice Gérard

The Belgian Revolution was the secession of the Southern provinces from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. It made an independent Kingdom of Belgium.

The people of the southern part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands were mostly Roman Catholic and the elite was French-speaking. They did not like the Protestant King William I's rule, or that he had revoked certain special privileges granted to the Catholic Church.

On August 25, 1830 riots started in Brussels and shops were looted. There was an opera playing about liberty of the fatherland, and the theater-goers joined the rioters. The King sent troops to stop the riots.

A battle took place in Brussels. The French came to support the breakaway province of Belgium. Belgium won the battle and became an independent country. Leopold I was made "King of the Belgians" in 1831. It took until 1839 for the Dutch to say Belgium was independent. They signed the Treaty of London.

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Belgian Revolution Media

Charles Rogier leads the 250 revolutionary volunteers from Liège to Brussels (Charles Soubre, 1878)
Retreat of the Dutch cavalry on the Vlaamsesteenweg in Brussel, 1830
Leopold taking the constitutional oath (Gustaf Wappers, 1831)
Germany's defiance of the 1839 Treaty of London in 1914 outraged British opinion.