France had occupied and annexed Belgium (then a Habsburg territory) in the 1790s, at a time when France was regularly at war with its neighbours. Belgium was placed under Dutch rule after the
Congress of Vienna. In 1830, the
Belgian Revolution broke out, and French involvement would prove crucial to securing the emerging nation's independence.
Louis de Potter's visit to Paris in 1830 At the moment of the
July Revolution in 1830, Belgian revolutionary
Louis de Potter and his brother exiles, who were on the road from Mainz to Switzerland, changed their route, and entering France by Strasbourg, proceeded direct to Paris. Their arrival in the French capital was a species of ovation. They were received with exaggerated demonstrations of sympathy and fraternization, the natural offspring of the excited state of public feeling at that moment. They were complimented with banquets, speeches, and toasts, and greeted with a degree of deference not always accorded to men of the most eminent merit in less feverish times. This histrionic display of amity on the part of La Fayette and others, though the mere result of the tinsel policy of the hour, was mistaken for sterling coin by the Belgian exiles. As unaccustomed, as they were perhaps undeserving, of the extraordinary respect shown them both at home and abroad, their vanity was inflated beyond all measure, and they consequently attributed to their own particular virtues that incense which was but the mere ephemeral exhalation of the times. They little dreamed that the triumphant epoch, for which they so ardently sighed, would be the signal for their political discomfiture, and that the tide of popularity, after bearing them up on its stormy billows for a few shortlived hours, would as suddenly ebb, and leave them stranded and forgotten. In the meanwhile they leagued themselves with the most exaggerated spirits in France, and openly avowed their republican principles, through the medium of the Tribune, a French paper devoted to the movement party. They also availed themselves of their temporary popularity at home to increase the exasperation of their countrymen. In short, had it depended on their will, Belgium would have risen in mass, and France would have thrown an army of occupation into that country; a war of conquest, under the pretext of giving liberal institutions, would have been declared; and those rich and fertile lands, where agriculture, industry, commerce, and the arts are now rapidly recovering their former splendour, would have been converted into a theatre of devastation and the most abject vassalage. But what were the miseries or thraldom of their country to men who had personal hatreds to revenge, and who would probably have been richly rewarded for their labour ? Fortunately, however, the good genius of Europe stood between the apostles of destruction and the people whom they would have sacrificed to their reckless ambition. Whilst this was passing at Paris, the most influential unionists who desired to proceed constitutionally, were busy concerting plans for a vigorous parliamentary campaign. All were bent on a systematic opposition to the government, and on employing every possible stratagem to induce the Dutch members to unite with them in demanding redress of grievances, and a more liberal system of government; but considerable difference of opinion existed as to ultimate proceedings. The whole desired reform and change; but few were actuated with direct hostility to the dynasty. Some there were, however, who inwardly sighed to cast off the Dutch yoke, and eagerly turned their eyes to France.
Interwar The French government was infuriated at
King Leopold III's open declaration of neutrality in October 1936. The
French Army saw its strategic assumptions undermined; it could no longer expect cooperation from the Belgians in defending Belgium's eastern borders, which would allow it to stop a German attack well forward of the French border. The French were dependent on cooperation from the Belgians. Such a situation deprived the French of any prepared defences in Belgium to forestall an attack, a situation which the French had wanted to avoid as it meant engaging the German
Panzer Divisions in a mobile battle. The French considered invading Belgium immediately in response to a German attack on the country. The Belgians, recognising the danger posed by the Germans, secretly made their own defence policies, troop movement information, communications, fixed defence dispositions, intelligence and air reconnaissance arrangements available to the French military attaché in
Brussels.
World War II During the
German invasion of Belgium in 1940, the Belgians were afforded substantial support by the French Army. The French 1st Army included General
René Prioux's Cavalry Corps. The Corps was given the
2nd Light Mechanized Division (2e Division Légère Mécanique, or 2e DLM) and the
3rd Light Mechanized Division (3e DLM), which were allocated to defend the
Gembloux gap. The armoured forces consisted of 176 of the formidable
SOMUA S35s and 239
Hotchkiss H35 light tanks. Both of these types, in armour and firepower, were superior to most German types. The 3e DLM contained 90 S35s and some 140 H35s alone. The French 7th Army was assigned to protect the northernmost part of the Allied front. It contained the
1st Light Mechanized Division (1re DLM), the
25th Motorised Infantry Division (25e Division d'Infanterie Motorisée, or 25e DIM) and the
9th Motorised Infantry Division (9e DIM). This force would advance to Breda in the Netherlands. The third French army to see action on Belgian soil was the 9th. It was weaker than both the 7th and the 1st Armies. The 9th Army was allocated infantry divisions, with the exception of the
5th Motorised Infantry Division (5e DIM). Its mission was to protect the southern flank of the Allied armies, south of the Sambre river and just north of
Sedan. Further south, in France, was the French 2nd Army, protecting the Franco-Belgian border between Sedan and
Montmédy. The two weakest French armies were thus protecting the area of the main German thrust. Ultimately, France's involvement in Belgium proved unable to repel the German attack, and both nations were defeated when the Wehrmacht launched
Fall Gelb. Post-World War II Belgium and France were both founding members of
NATO in 1949 and the
European Economic Community, which later evolved into the
European Union, in 1957. Since then, the countries have been close allies. == Diaspora ==