The Brabant Revolution or Brabantine Revolution was an armed insurrection that occurred in the Austrian Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) between October 1789 and December 1790. The revolution, which occurred at the same time as revolutions in France and Liège, led to the brief overthrow of Habsburg rule and the proclamation of a short-lived polity, the United Belgian States.
The revolution was the product of opposition which emerged to the liberal reforms of Emperor Joseph II in the 1780s. These were perceived as an attack on the Catholic Church and the traditional institutions in the Austrian Netherlands. Resistance, focused in the autonomous and wealthy Estates of Brabant and Flanders, grew. In the aftermath of rioting and disruption in 1787, known as the Small Revolution, many dissidents took refuge in the neighboring Dutch Republic where they formed a rebel army. Soon after the outbreak of the French and Liège revolutions, this émigré army crossed into the Austrian Netherlands and decisively defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Turnhout in October 1789. The rebels, supported by uprisings across the territory, soon took control over virtually all the Southern Netherlands and proclaimed independence. Despite the tacit support of Prussia, the independent United Belgian States, established in January 1790, received no foreign recognition and the rebels soon became divided along ideological lines. The Vonckists, led by Jan Frans Vonck, advocated progressive and liberal government, whereas the Statists, led by Henri Van der Noot, were staunchly conservative and supported by the Church. The Statists, who had a wider base of support, soon drove the Vonckists into exile through a terror.
By mid-1790, Habsburg Austria had ended its war with the Ottoman Empire and prepared to suppress the Brabant revolutionaries. The new Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold II, a liberal like his predecessor, proposed an amnesty for the rebels. After a Statist army was overcome at the Battle of Falmagne, the territory was quickly overrun by Imperial forces, and the revolution was defeated by December. The Austrian reestablishment was short-lived, however, and the territory was soon overrun by the French during the French Revolutionary Wars.
Because of its distinctive course, the Brabant Revolution had been extensively used in historical comparisons with the French Revolution. Some historians, following Henri Pirenne, have seen it as a key moment in the formation of a Belgian nation-state, and an influence on the Belgian Revolution of 1830.
Background and causes
Austrian rule
The Austrian Netherlands was a territory with its capital at Brussels which covered much of what is today Belgium and Luxembourg during the Early Modern period. In 1714, the territory, which had been ruled by Spain, was ceded to Austria as part of the Treaty of Rastatt which ended the War of the Spanish Succession. In the 1580s, the Dutch Revolt had separated the independent Dutch Republic from the rest of the territory, leaving the Austrian Netherlands with a staunchly Catholic population. The clergy maintained substantial power.
The Austrian Netherlands were both a province of Habsburg Austria and a part of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1764, Joseph II, was elected as Holy Roman Emperor, ruling over a loosely unified federation of autonomous territories within Central Europe roughly equivalent to modern-day Belgium, Germany, Slovenia the Czech Republic and Austria. Joseph's mother, Maria Theresa, had appointed her favourite daughter, Maria Christina, and her husband, Albert Casimir, as joint Governors of the Austrian Netherlands in 1780. Both Joseph and Maria Theresa were considered reformists and were particularly interested in the idea of enlightened absolutism. Joseph II, who was known as the philosopher-emperor (empereur philosophe), had a particular interest in Enlightenment thought and had his own ideology which has sometimes been termed "Josephinism" after him. Joseph particularly disliked institutions which he considered "outdated", such as the established ultramontane Church whose allegiance to the papacy prevented the Emperor from having total control, which restricted efficient and centralist rule. Soon after taking power, in 1781, Joseph launched a low-key tour of inspection of the Austrian Netherlands during which he concluded reform in the territory was badly needed.
Politically, the Austrian Netherlands comprised a number of federated and autonomous territories, inherited from the Spanish, which could trace their lineage to the Middle Ages. These territories, known collectively as the Provincial States, retained much of their traditional power over their own internal affairs. The states were dominated by the wealthy and prominent Estates of Brabant and Flanders. The Austrian Governors-General were forced to respect the autonomy of the provincial states and could only act with some degree of consent. Within the states themselves, the "traditional" independence was considered extremely important and figures such as Jan-Baptist Verlooy had even begun to claim the linguistic unity of Flemish dialects as a sign of national identity in what is now Flanders.
Propelled by his belief in the Enlightenment, soon after taking power, Joseph launched a number of reforms which he hoped would make the territories he controlled more efficient and easier to govern. From 1784, Joseph launched a number of "radical and wide-ranging" reforms in the fields of economics, politics and religion aimed at institutions which he judged outdated. Some have drawn parallels between Joseph's rule in the Holy Roman Empire and that of Philip II in the Netherlands as both attempted to suborn local traditions in order to achieve more effective central rule. Like Philip, Joseph's perceived attacks on important institutions succeeded in uniting multiple divergent social classes against him.
His initial reforms were aimed at the Catholic church which, because of its allegiance to the Vatican, was viewed a potentially subversive force. Joseph's first act was the proclamation of the Edict of Tolerance of 1781–82 which abolished the privileges which Catholics enjoyed over other Christian and non-Christian minorities. As an attack on the place of the church, it was deeply unpopular among Catholics, but because the non-Catholics were a tiny minority, it did not win any real support. The Edict was condemned by Cardinal Frankenberg who insisted that religious tolerance, the relaxation of censorship and the suppression of laws against the Jansenists all constituted an attack on the Catholic Church. Later, 162 monasteries whose inhabitants led a purely contemplative life were abolished. In September 1784, marriage was made a civil, rather than a religious, institution. This sharply reduced the church's traditional influence and power in its parishioners' family lives. Following this, in October 1786, the government abolished all seminaries in the territory to establish a single, state-run General Seminary (seminarium generale) in Leuven. Within the General Seminary, training would be in liberal and state-approved theology which was opposed by the upper ranks of the clergy.
In December 1786, he followed up his belief in liberalisation and earlier attacks on guild privileges by removing all tariffs on grain trade, but this was revoked in the economic slump that soon followed. Replaced local charity or poor-relief organisations with a single, central Brotherhood of Active Charity in April 1786. Schools were reformed.
Above all, however, Joseph attempted to break up the structure of autonomous states which provided the framework for the Austrian Netherlands. He introduced two reforms in early 1787 instituting new administrative and judicial reform to create a much more centralised system. The first decree abolished many of the administrative structures which had existed since the rule of Emperor Charles V (1500–58) and replaced them by a single General Council of Government under a minister-plenipotentiary. In addition, nine administrative circles (cercles), each controlled by an Intendant, were created to which much of the power of the states was devolved. A second decree abolished the ad hoc semi-feudal or ecclesiastical courts operated by the states and replaced them with a centralised system similar to that already in place in Austria. A single Sovereign Council of Justice was established in Brussels, with two appeal courts in Brussels and Luxembourg, and around 40 local district courts.
By threatening the independence of the states, the interests of the nobility and the position of the church, the reforms acted as a force to unite these groups against the Austrian government.
Opposition and the Small Revolution
Joseph's reforms were deeply unpopular within the Austrian Netherlands. The Enlightenment had made few inroads into the territory, and it was widely distrusted as a foreign phenomenon which was not compatible with traditional local values. The majority of the population, especially influenced by the Church, believed the reforms to be a threat to their own cultures and traditions which would leave them worse off. Even in pro-Enlightenment circles, the reforms caused discontent which were seen as not sufficiently radical and not far reaching enough. Popular opposition was centered on the provincial states, in particular Hainaut, Brabant and Flanders, as well as their law courts. There was a wave of critical pamphleting. In some towns, riots broke out and the militia had to be called to suppress them. The Estate of Brabant called a lawyer, Henri Van der Noot, to defend their position publicly. Van der Noot publicly accused the reforms of violating the precedents established by the Joyous Entry of 1356 which was widely regarded as a traditional bill of rights for the region.
Discontent crystallised into a wave of uprisings and rioting known as the Small Revolution (Kleine Revolutie) of 1787. The revolution was suppressed by levying the civil militias but it alarmed the Governors-General and opposition grew. The Small Revolution proved that the Austrian army was insufficient on its own to keep order without some popular support. The allegiance of the civil militias, who were already beginning to call themselves Patriots (Patriotten), was uncertain. Fearing for the security of the regime, the Governors-General temporarily suspended the reforms without the Emperor's permission on 20 May 1787. They invited all aggrieved parties to express their opposition and grievances in petitions but this merely inflamed the regime's critics. The Emperor himself was furious and recalled his minister, Ludovico, Conte di Belgiojoso. Alarmed by the level of unrest, Joseph eventually agreed to repeal his reforms to the judicial system and governance but left his clerical reforms in place. He hoped that, by removing the grievances of the states and middle classes, the opposition would become divided and would be easily suppressed. He also appointed a new Minister Plenipotentiary to oversee the province. The concession did not stop the opposition growing, inspired and funded by the Catholic clergy, which became especially notable at the University of Leuven.
Between 1788 and 1789, the Minister-Plenipotentiary of the Austrian Netherlands decided that the only way in which reform could be provoked would be by rapid and uncompromising enforcement. Some states had already begun to refuse payment of taxes to the Austrian authorities. The Joyous Entry was officially annulled and the Estates of Hainaut and Brabant were disbanded.
Growth of organised resistance and the émigrés
In the aftermath of the suppression of the Small Revolution, opposition began to consolidate into more organised resistance. Fearing for his safety, Van der Noot, the organiser of the disruption of 1787, went into exile in the Dutch Republic where he tried to lobby support from William V. Van der Noot attempted to persuade William to support the overthrow of the Austrian regime and install his son, Frederick, as Stadtholder of a Belgian republic. However, William was suspicious and expressed little interest in Van der Noot's proposal. None of the political factions in Dutch society proclaimed support for similar proposal. Nevertheless, Van der Noot was able to set up a headquarters in the city of Breda, near the Dutch-Belgian border, where an émigré faction grew. The Dutch population also remained broadly sympathetic towards the patriots. As disquiet in the Austrian Netherlands grew, thousands of Flemish and Brabant dissidents fled into the Dutch Republic to join the growing patriot army at Breda although the force remained relatively small.
Inside the Austrian Netherlands themselves, the lawyers Jan Frans Vonck and Verlooy formed a secret society called Pro Aris et Focis in April or May 1789 in order to plan for an armed uprising against Austrian rule. Weapons and revolutionary tracts were distributed. Most of the members of the organisation came from the liberal professions (such as lawyers, writers and merchants). Most were moderates who did not object to Joseph II's reforms in principle but because they had been levied on the territories without consultation. They were supported financially by the clergy. Initially members of the opposition were divided on how the uprising should occur. Unlike Van der Noot, Vonck believed that Belgium should liberate itself rather than rely on foreign aid.
With the support of the Belgian clergy, all the opposition factions (including Van der Noot) agreed to unite and a Brabant Patriot Committee (Brabants patriottisch Comité) was formed in Hasselt. On 30 August, Pro Aris et Focis voted to install Jean-André van der Mersch (or Vandermersch), a retired military officer, as the commander of the émigré army in Breda. The Committee agreed that the rebellion should begin in October 1789.