When Belgium was part of France...

It's history class today and you're going to learn a bit on what Belgian territories used to be. I will only talk about the period between 1790 and 1814, with the creation of the United Belgian States and the subsequent annexation to France... with the creation of Belgian departments with strange names, though shaping the current Belgian provinces. You will also get hints on how Walloons are not "that" French and... actually not that Walloon either!

When some people claim that Wallonia should be a French region simply because it was once part of France, they're referring to a short period from 1792 to 1814, in which the current territory of Belgium was included in the French Republic and, subsequently, the French Empire. As a counter-argument to this, let's say Wallonia is as French as... Flanders! And even sections of the Netherlands and Germany were also French at that time for the same duration... So is this argument really valid?

Map of the former French departments on the Belgian territory

During the French period, it is interesting to see how the regional limits were formed and how similar they look to the current ones. As France was (and is still) divided into smaller departments for each region, Belgium was constituted with nine departments: Lys (Western Flanders), Escaut (Eastern Flanders), Deux-Nèthes (Antwerp), Meuse Inférieure (Limburg), Dyle (Flemish/Walloon Brabants and Brussels), Jemappes (Hainaut), Sambre-et-Meuse (Namur), Ourthe (Liège) and Forêts (Luxembourg). Those were called after rivers and streams, except the current Luxembourg, which was then called after its... forests (Forêts), original huh?... (And today, some call it Wallabama...)

United Belgian States before French annexation

Before this period, Belgium consisted mostly of the so-called "United Belgian States" in 1790, which did not actually include Liège, a principality on its own... Therefore, during the French period, there was not really an distinction between Flemish and Walloons, but there was one between Belgians and Liégeois! And it is only when the territories were given to the Dutch that Liégeois considered themselves as Belgians (and Catholics), by opposition to the Dutch who ruled the big Netherlands and were Protestants. Still today, Liégeois are known to use a different accent to the rest of Wallonia...

As you can see on the map, Flanders used to only be the name of a smaller territory that included Ghent and Bruges (Western and Eastern Flanders provinces), and not Brabant and Limburg... For some reason, the name Flanders was also used for the whole Dutch-speaking region, while the French-speaking region was called after a local language (Walloon). Before this separation existed, French was the only official language of the country. This shows that Wallonia and Flanders have not always been homogeneous entities but are a recent way to separate the country linguistically invented during the last century.

Miles away from the "States" (of America), these Belgian States did not last more than 5 years and played more the go-between for the former Austrian Netherlands and the future French departments, which became Dutch later on... A complicated story, which cannot be summed up as "Wallonia is French" and "Flanders is Dutch".

Belgian weather in a nutshell: la drache!

Belgian weather seems to be as complicated as its politics! It is the end of summer and everyone keeps complaining about it, Belgians included. I personally never spend a season without getting a sore throat in Belgium. Like in other North European countries, the sky is mostly cloudy and people are mostly... wet! But don't worry, we're used to it! In this article, I'll explain you why Belgian weather can be frustrating, what a drache is and how the country is divided.
 

Wettest summer in 22 years!

It seems to me that it has never been as rainy as it is today in Belgium. Recently published weather facts prove it... The summer of 2014 was the wettest in Belgium since 1992, according to meteorologist David Dehenauw, who took records of precipitations at the national weather station in Uccle (Brussels region). In June, July and August, we got around 345 mm of water on our faces in total, especially July (117 mm) and August (135 mm), and we also had slightly less sunshine and warmth than usual. All in all, July and August are wet months, so it isn't so nice to spend holiday in your garden here... Therefore you'll find so many Belgians in Southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Croatia or Greece) in the summer, together with their Dutch and German neighbours.

Seasons in Belgium

As a university student, it was very hard for me to concentrate on my May-June exams, because the weather was probably the nicest one at that time of the year. Now in September, we also have a nicer weather than in August but kids have to go back to school! But still... don't expect a perfect dry sunny day this month! It is so unusual that Belgian people love to celebrate it with a BBQ or by drinking beers outside of cafés. Summery Belgian weather is random and weird... It just keeps changing, so that whenever you check the weather forecasts on TV or the web, it will always look like this:

Sunshine and rainclouds spend a lot of time together

On the same day, even within a few hours, you can get sun, rain (a light one that lasts forever or a quick downpour that ruins your clothes) or even hail, which is very frequent in summer. That's why I always carry an umbrella and a scarf in my bag just in case... And for no reason, the weather in the morning always seems to be the opposite as the weather when I go back from work.

Anyway, right after September, things start to cool down and it becomes darker and colder until the end of wintertime. Yet, another disappointment is that snow usually comes too late for Christmas and we usually get rain and muddy roads on that day. If you want to go sleighing or cross-country skiing (which I advise you to do in the Walloon Ardennes), you should wait until February or even March, when people are already over the whole Christmas spirit and wish for Spring, flowers and swallows. Actually, spring is usually pretty discreet and fast, because it just looks like any other seasons, in which you also get unexpected showers, in addition to hay fever. 

La drache nationale, a cultural event

Typical of Belgian climate, la drache (den drache in Flemish) is a heavy downpour that is unexpected and can ruin a wedding day or anything you wear. This typical Belgian word seems to come from German "dreschen", which means "to thresh or thrash", or from Dutch dras(sig), "marshy, soggy". This weather situation is well-known for happening every year on the national day, 21st July, which is called la drache nationale in Belgian French and den drache national in Flemish (read my article on the national anthem). In an extended, and more positive meaning, the word drache is used for a glass of beer offered in a bar to a whole group of people!

Three climates...

I'm probably not the best person to talk about the weather, but I've noticed that we had three climatic zones in Belgium: the North, the Centre and the South. they seem to correspond with the type of landscape you will find in these areas. Most often, the worst weather you will find will always be in the South, mostly in the Ardennes. It is the place you can actually get loads of snow in the winter. In summer, you can find a some days to wear a t-shirt and a swimsuit and try to take a dip in one of our cold lakes, but it is usually moist and chilly in those deep forests. The North is what Jacques Brel called "le plat pays" (the flat land/country), with hardly any hill and the long beaches of De Panne, Knokke or Oostende, the weather is usually the nicest, although quite windy (don't expect to keep your nice permanent in there!). Finally, the Centre is stuck in the middle of this, with a climate in Brussels I could qualify as "so-so", nothing much to say here.

The division is more or less like on this map