The Question of the Netherlands in 1829–1830

Abstract

In the year 1829 the disputes between the Northern and the Southern Netherlands were rapidly coming to a head.It will be remembered that shortly before the Congress of Chatillon was dissolved in March, 1814, the Allies having found it impossible to make peace with Napoleon, a secret article in the Treaty of Chaumont provided that Holland was to receive an increase of territory, and be erected into a kingdom for the Prince of Orange. After the abdication of Napoleon the Definitive Treaty of Peace with France, signed at Paris on May 30, 1814, carried the settlement of the Netherlands a step further by a secret article defining the increase of territory which Holland was to receive. Flanders and the other Belgian provinces, which had been taken from Austria by the armies of the French Revolution, were now, together with the Principality of Liege, to be joined to Holland, and the united countries were to constitute a Kingdom of the Netherlands under the sovereignty of the House of Orange.