My teacher once said that Flanders and Wallonia are like a couple who want to break up, but they stay togheter for their child. (Brussels)

'Im not advocating for the Netherlands to invade Belgium' *Doubt*

One little thing that you have missed : In the 1830s, during the Belgian Revolution, there was a religious divide between the newly-born Belgium and the Netherlands. Belgium was catholic, while The Netherlands were Protestant. This religious unity was a large part of the decision to include Flanders in the new country, along with Wallonia. However, as religious practice has declined since the XIXth century, the uniting effect of having the same religion has also declined to the point of becoming irrelevant now.

Difference between Flemish and Nederlandish: In you try speaking Flemish in Belgium they think "That's nice, the Foreigner is making an effort, I will speak slowly and clearly." In Nederland, they think "The only people who would ever speak Dutch is a Dutchman therefore I will speak very very quickly."

The best time Belgium had, was when it didn't have a government for 589 days in 2010 - 2011 :)

Belgium is too simple for us... Greetings from Bosnia... :)

Thank you for showing your interest in our little country but I am sorry to say that this video is, once again, full of mistakes and constitutes a dangerous rewrite of history. It is very sad to note that the history of Belgium is always so badly addressed by foreigners, especially on internet. You said in the video that it is the french speaking people of Belgium who made the Belgian revolution. It is absolutely false. The Belgian revolution was mainly made by inhabitants of Brussels, which at the time was largely Brabantian (a "dialect" of dutch). They were then joined by volunteers from all over Belgium. Historians agree today that more than 60% of the volunteers were Flemish speakers (see the studies of Jean Stengers and John W. Rooney Jr). The revolution was due to a combination of factors, the main one being the difference of religion (catholic in today's Belgium, protestant in today's Netherlands). You didn't even cite this element. There were plenty of other highly determinant factors: the under-representation of today's Belgians in the parliament (62% of the population and only 50% of the seats); an over-representation of Dutch people in the administration and important positions (4 times more); the public debt of the Netherlands (way higher than the one of the south) had to be supported by the south as well; the diminution in the freedom of the press and freedom of assembly, ... Language was indeed also a consideration since William I of the Netherlands had imposed the standard Dutch everywhere in the northern part of Belgium. The francophone Belgian elites were of course unhappy about this situation but the Flemish speakers as well since they didn't master this language they were now imposed to speak! This part of the video is thus false and really biased. You talked about the situation of the Flemish speakers in the trenches during the first world war and the fact that they were killed because they couldn't understand the instructions of the french-speaking officers. You said that whether this happened or not is not known for certain. Although the officers showed a great deal of condescension towards the non french-speaking soldiers (Flemish and Walloon), plenty of historians have however demonstrated decades ago that this affirmation is largely exaggerated. This is very serious because this idea has wrongfully fed for a long time the Flemish separatist movements. 1) It was not Walloon officers or officers from the south. In general, the officers came from the bourgeoisie, whether from the south or the north of the country (and the majority of them were from current Flanders and Brussels), a bourgeoisie that has always spoken French. 2) How did the Walloon soldiers understand the orders, as they didn't speak either French? 3) There were translators in the trenches and the NCOs were bilingual (since they came from the people but had to learn French to advance in rank) 4) At war, especially during the first world one, the orders are simple and learned quickly. The blows of a whistle, it is universal! How did soldiers in other armies who spoke only their dialect understand the orders in the standard language? You implied many times that the south of Belgium was simply French speaking. This is however only a very recent phenomenon that began after the first world war. At the time of the 1830 revolution, people from the south were speaking different dialects of Walloon and often couldn't understand French (Walloon is a different language from the same family as french but they are only poorly mutually intelligible). French was chosen as the official language of the new Belgian state because it was the lingua franca of the bourgeoisie and noble elites of the country (from the north and the south), but also because the standard Dutch was the language imposed by the enemy, finally because the Flemish-speaking region was composed of a multitude of local dialects that were often unintelligible to each other (therefore, without a unified language). The language conflict of Belgium is thus historically not a conflict between the south and the north but between the bourgeoisie and the people, between the powerful and those who have nothing. More generally, you fall into the classic affirmation by foreigners and Flemish separatists that Belgium is a forced wedding between the Flemish and the Walloons, an "artificial state" encompassing two different "nations". This is historically completely false as those two identities are really recent. In 1830 the Walloon and Flemish identities don't exist, as people simply identify themselves as being Belgians (See the works of Jean Stengers, Fred Stevens, Axel Tixhon, Jacques Logie, ...). I am sorry to have to write this long and annoying commentary but don't you understand that publishing a "historical" video on the internet, before the eyes of all, gives you a responsibility for the accuracy of its content? At the time of "fake news" and manipulation of the masses your responsibility as a content author is even greater and a simple research on internet could have saved you from saying a lot of false information. Thank you for your reading.

"Belgium is so divided" Switzerland: "Hold by beer and my rösti"

I was an American living in France. When I drove to Belgium, some one said to me "Vous êtes de septante." I wondered "How does he know that I have seven aunts?" Then I realized that he was referring to my license plate that indicated that I was from Department 70 in France.

As a Dutch person, I'm pretty sure about 90% of the Dutch population would love to have Flanders back.

When your economics teacher tells you that you're unlucky to be born in the most politically complicated country that you know. You where born in the right country.

_When France and Netherlands love each other very much_ *_BOOM!_* _We got Belgium. (Who has multiple personality disorder)_ _[[WARNING: French and Dutch nerds fighting in the replies]]_

I'm not from Belgium but one of my parents is and I go there a lot, I'm born and live in the Netherlands. If you're interested in Belgium, particularly the Dutch speaking side, you might find this comment interesting. As far as I understand (and I think I'm very knowledgable on the issue) the whole political situation is severely misunderstood by foreigners and Belgians aren't as divided as everyone thinks. On top of that, Dutch people (from the Netherlands) tend to be a bit "louder" on the topic online, because of their national pride, they'd like to see Flanders join the Netherlands just to see the Netherlands become a little bigger on the world map, so there is a lot of Dutch bias that's difficult to correct when talking to foreigners who've never been to or know anyone in Belgium. In short: a lot of the information about Belgium isn't actually Belgian, it's from Dutch people in Holland who naturally have their own bias and like any other foreigner talking about another country misunderstanding and lack of knowledge on the subject. It's like an average Australian thinking he can explain the entire UK in an absolutely factual and objective way because he's read half a wikipedia page and some youtube comments about it, you'd rather hear that information from a British person and even then the average British person probably doesn't fully understand the UK either. *TL;DR:* It's important to understand that just because the Flemish speak Dutch, doesn't mean they're culturally Dutch, Flemish people are as different from Dutch people culturally as any other foreigner, this is not a biased exageration, it's very important to know if you want to understand Belgium and Flemish people. Keep in mind the inter marriage rate between Dutch and Flemish people is smaller than the inter marriage rate between Walloons and Flemish people. Most Dutch and Flemish people don't fully know about the cultural gap, they just tend to look at the other side as weird without a real explanation for it, it's very hard to find a Dutch person with Flemish friends and vice versa, so there is just not a lot of connection or knowledge about eachother. Just to give you a taste, they don't consume eachother's media, a good example: apart from one hilarious exception Flemish comedians don't make it in Holland, and Dutch comedians don't make it in Flanders. The same goes for almost everything, cuisine, morals and values, social rules, etc. Even the language is different in that it's a variety of Dutch, not so much just a regional accent or dialect, you can compare it to British English vs American English. This comparison might be hard to understand for foreigners because the two countries are so close to eachother and don't have geographic barriers between them. This cultural divide is a result of lots of things, but the biggest one is probably the French cultural dominance that has lasted for a quite a while in Belgium (at least from its independence, but probably longer than that). If you'd compare it to the Anglophone world, you could compare the Flemish, who speak Dutch, to the Americans, who speak English (and yes, many Flemish people say they speak Flemish, rather than Dutch). Most people don't care about cultural geography so this won't become known to anyone who doesn't visit both countries regularly, which include many Dutch and Belgian people. Most Dutch people only know about the cultural differences of the other side that they've seen, and assume everyting else about the country is just the same, and vice versa, which doesn't help in forming a fully knowledgeable and unbiased picture of Belgium to explain to foreigners over the internet. Again, this is probably similar to Americans and English people, or even English and Irish people, or for instance Norwegians and Icelandic people or Greek and Cyprus Greek people (don't really know anything about those guys, but you get the point). Because the region is so small and isn't seperated by geographic barriers though, as far as I know the situation is a unique one in this world in that way, which I think makes it very interesting and some historians should get on that, but that's besides the point. Though a significant minority of Flemings want to leave or are okay with leaving Belgium, the vast majority of those don't want to join the Netherlands. It's impossible for a foreigner to fully understand, but it's one of the reasons Belgium does exist. I suspect in the future the record will be set more straight as Belgians will start getting annoyed at these stereotypes (like I do) that start to float around on the internet and will speak out, but this will probably take time. If you wanna help with that you can like this ridiculously long comment if you agree with me that this misrepresentation of Belgium is kind of annoying. By the way, I think there are plenty of way more intersting things about Belgium to talk about, one of those: Beer!

Omfg the part with willem van oranje was amazing ;)

some adjustement from a walloon: -Before WW2, walloon was the only language spoken by poor walloon (and is very different to understand as french speaker) -Before WW2, French was spoken by rich people in Wallonia and flanders -After WW2, Flemish peoples diffended their language and culture against rich french speaker (Some were walloon some were Flemish) -After WW2, Walloon language disapeared and French was learned instead. Today nobody speaks walloon anymore aside of some grandparents but that's it -These days, there is a rivalry Flemish VS French which was initially Poor against Rich

And people wonder why I never address the "so explain something of your country"

"We are DETERMINED to keep splitting up states until every one of our countries is the size of Luxemburg and no more than 4 speak the same language" -Europeans probably

"Recently belgium had some issues" belgium has had issues from the day it was created.

"The French encouraged on Germanic lands" *Cough -A L S A C E L O R A I N E-

As wacky as it might be I actually like the cultural divide in Belgium. It is what makes the country unique.

Belgium remains together by the sheer strength of its bureaucracy. :)

Ever heard of "Plan N" proposed by Flemish law expert Matthias Storme? It was a proposal to solve a potential deadlock when Flanders would become independent, because in principle it would have to re-apply to the EU in order to become a member. Some French-speaking Belgians had threatened to undermine that process together with their allies (like France), so it would become really hard for the Flemish to re-join the EU. Mathias Storme postulated that Flanders could join the *kingdom* of the Netherlands on the same terms as the Dutch overseas territories, which in principle are automatically part of the EU. That way, Flanders would be independent, be only nominally part of the Netherlands (only for defense and foreign affairs) and remain EU-member. Great video BTW! They are getting better and better!

Anyone from belguim?:( EDIT:thanks for all the likes yesterday i had 21 likes (Dankjewel voor de likes gisteren had ik nog maar 21 likes Edit 2:why are you Guys liking so much?

Top man. Ik kijk je video's nou een jaartje of zo. Echt leuk. Vrij diep en vol met relevante informatie, relatief tot hun lengte. Compact en toch niet te snel gesproken. Prettig stemgebruik; regelmatig wat bescheiden humor er in. Doe je goed!

I can't believe it's taken me till now to actually realize those self centered Romans named the acts of love after themselves. Romantic. Romance. 🤔🙄

Thank you for a very clear, concise explanation. I genuinely learned a lot about a country that although I've not been to yet I look forward to visiting soon. Kind regards from Ireland.

Main reason for the early 19th century Wallonian riches and later decline was that wallonia was not just industrial, but almost entirely based on coal mining and steel production. In those days, coal and steel were the driving force of the industrial revolution and wealth creators. Flanders was poorer, but also had plenty of industry, mainly textiles. The city where i live for example Gent, had plenty of factories for textiles. But also, in flanders, the wealthy factory owners spoke french or were bilingual, because the wealthy in general mainly spoke french and the rich flemish factory owners copied them. French was the language of the wealthy bourgoisie up until WW1 - WW2. This already had roots in the 15th century, when flanders (and the netherlands) were the burgundian netherlands ruled by the burgundians and later the hapsburgs, who spoke french. French often was the language of the wealthy and ruling classes/government, even in flanders from the burgundian period on. After WW2, the economic focus in the western world shifted from coal and steel to oil. The coal mines in wallonia dried up and became to expensive to exploit, and the steel mills also gradually declined and took with them the wealth and jobs. Flanders however, because of the huge port at Antwerp and the smaller ports at Gent, Oostende and Zeebrugge, became ideally located for oil refining, chemical plants and pharmaceuticals,... all the post WW2 modern industries and wealth creators. That is the main reason the economic positions of Wallonia and Flanders shifted so drastically after WW2.

Hi, french speakers of Belgium pronounce the final "S" of cityies of "Anvers" or "Mons" but not for "Bruxelles", only the french from France say "Anver" (without S) or "BruXelles" (bruksel) "X" in city name is often pronounced "SS", so French-Speakers for "Bruxelles" pronounce "Brussel" like the Flemish In Belgium both Flemish and French speaker pronounce "W" the same as the English (Walloonian are not Valloonian ;) ) French from France pronounce "W" as "V" like the Germans

as a dutchmen from Breda Noord-Brabant i welcome you with open arms flemish brothers. Antwerp is a beautiful city

Mooi gedaan Hilbert. +1 UKpostsr pts. voor jou.

I love this. Please make more videos on anything related; I studied linguistics, so that would be my preference, but I need to learn whatever you can share. People don't talk enough about Belgium.

im surprised how accurate the memes you use are, since theyre national memes. Keep it up m88 enjoying it

Am just here cause Belgium defeated Brazil today in football

You are making a lot of great content now, thank you for doing so

Goed gedaan deze docu! Je belicht het ook vanaf meerdere kanten, en dat is erg goed! PROPS!

I love that every every video where Willem of Orange is mentioned, Stille Willem plays

*Insert rightful Dutch Clay joke*

As an Englishman I found the video interesting, giving me detail of a situation I knew very little about. I always find the comments very enlightening too, giving different perspectives and I congratulate you all on your perfect written English!! Thanks! Merci! Bedankt! Vielen Dank!

my great great grandfather died in ww1 because he didn't understand french

Loved the video thanks for the info!

im from Belgium and it is great that someone from another country know us and talks about us goe gedaan jongeman

Belgium? More like anti-maginot route

Thank you for your explanation...I have an acquaintance that tried to explain the problem he had as a Dr. in that country and making sure he spoke the "correct" language for his patients .

Thanks for all people from Belgium who were very kind to me , my family and other Chechenian people , Wish you all good luck !

The many comments show as well, as the video itself, why belgium is so divided ;)

The thing about the world war 1 mess with commanders not giving orders in Flemish is _absolutely true,_ but it goes even further than that. My great-grandfather, being from a richer family, was a Flemish commanding officer during world war 1, and he was apparently _not allowed_ to give his troops orders in anything but French. He became a very driven flamingant because of it.

Super interesting and well presented! Two thumbs up 👍

Informative video! Btw, your pronunciations are on point.

Holy Oranje-Nassau, het is Willem de Rapper.

My God😱 so much more complicated than i realized. Borders are truly a present global discussion/concern. Thanks for this!

I have no idea why this country still exists, but I'm glad that it does

It’s funny, ever since Belgium got really good at football the country has united more

Belgium exists today because Spain reconquered it from the Dutch republic, creating the modern border separating Belgium and the Netherlands.

Just wanted to say thanks for the videos. I’m from Canada, and I’ve always had a fascination with the Low Countries. Can’t wait to travel here again

Your map of the division of Belgium between France and the Holly Roman Empire is totally wrong as the main part of Wallonia was part of the "Principauté de Liège" itself part of the Holly Roman Empire. I'm in France and the nearest town in Belgium, Beaumont, was part of the Holly Roman Empire.

There is full of historical mistakes in this video. E.g. The independence of Belgium did not happen because of the langage but because the Walloon and the Flemish were Catholic whereas the Dutch were protestant. Not at all because a part of the population wanted to speak french. Indeed, French wasn't spoken by the belgian population at that time, it came way later in the country. #CheckYourFact

Belgium is divided because it is the swinging door of Europe...

My head hurts when I think of Belgium and Switzerland. How do they even function with two or three official languages?

Ik ben van belgië en jou videos zijn top , maak veel want uw informatie is wel spanned

I do love that he actually pronounces the Dutch names correctly.

2:08 LMAOOO i can't breathe XD XD Geweldig XD Leve willem se zwijger!

5:00 Wasn’t the liberation also due to the fact that the south of the Netherlands (aka Belgium) was predominantly Catholic but the government in the north (in Amsterdam or Haag?) was Protestants? So it was also the classic religious divide. I’m I correct Hilbert?

Thx for the simplified and consequently not comprehensive view on my country. Broadstrokes, but generally accurate enough. Could you provide references for the claim that post-war investment focused more on the northern part of the country? I find this an interesting angle that I had not heard of before. Thx again for the effort and the playful rendition of a Groot-Nederlandse flag. Quite innovative.

I really appreciate the pronunciation. History is awesome!

Hiya Hilbert, great video! As a Walloon, just letting you know that there are almost no differences between “Walloon french” and “French french”. The difference is comparable to British English and American English. The only huge difference I can think of is that we have different words for 70 and 90. Keep making these they’re great!

French have this tendency to oppress other linguistic groups and cultures.

Great video However, you never mentioned why Brussels is French speaking but it's located in the Flemish part of the country. Is that information in another video you've made?

Well done! Great doc!

#BELGIANLIVESMATTER

inserts stille Willem

There are so many inaccuracies in this video it's hard to know where to start. The map showing the divide between France and the holy roman Empire is completely false. The only part of modern day Belgium that was once a part of France was actually Flanders (the original county, not modern day Flanders). All the rest was part of the holy roman empire, and included both flemish and walloon speaking parts. During the 80 years wars, the Dutch did not manage to conquer/liberate most of the southern part, not because they spoke French, but because they were much more catholic than in the North, and therefore remained mostly loyal to the (very catholic) king of Spain. It has nothing to do with a language divide in that case. The perpetuation of the Flemish nationalist myth that Flemish soldiers died needlessly because they could not understand the orders has been thoroughly debunked, and it has actually been shown that the proportion of deads was consistent with that of the population (60% Flemish, 40% walloons). Anyway, poor walloons did not speak French either. Again it was a class divide more than an 'ethnic' one. Rich people (and therefore officers) spoke French, while the folks spoke their dialects. Saying that the Walloons don't want autonomy is also false. The Walloons are the ones that actually pushed for devolution in the first place. Walloon politicians just don't want to admit it publicly so that they can blame the Flemish for the destruction of Belgium. The idea of Brussels being culturally Walloon is also inaccurate. Wallonia is a mostly rural region, and Brussels is a big city. People from Bussels tend to look down on Walloons which they see as peasants. They look down on the Flemish too for the same reasons. Walloons might actually have more in common with the Flemish than they do with People from Brussels. Finally this idea that the various regions of Belgium would split and join neighbouring countries speaking their respective language is just a pipe 'dream' kept alive by a very tiny minority of Belgians. This idea is probably appealing to the said countries because it would allow them to increase their territory, but Belgians don't want it. It's nice trying to explain Belgium, but unfortunately this video just repeats clichés and misconceptions that have been mostly made up by politicians on both sides to divide an conquer, and it's not helpful at all. The real story is much more complicated than that. Walloons and Flemish have much more in common that even They think they do, and they are certainly much closer to each other than they are to any other neighbouring country.

Awesome video!

At around 8:00, when you talk about the fact that Flemish didn't understand the orders they were given, bear in mind that the Walloons were speaking walloon, and didn't understood french either. Only the richer parts of society spoke french, and that goes for both part of Belgium.

i actually learned more about my country in this video then i ever did at school

8:33 also the mines closed in Wallonië and they couldn’t do any economy whereas Flanders could do trade on sea

Hilbert, where the duck are you from? Your accent and pronunciation is so on point, it is impossible for me to pinpoint where you are from. Please enlighten me!

Shout out to all the Flemish people in Belgium. You guys are awesome and I felt I can always communicate with a Flemish person in English without any problem. I've been to Brussels 6 times and always had problems in restaurants. It was very different when I went to Antwerp, Brugge, Ghent and Leuven. My Flemish friends always made sure the Brussels waiter spoke to them in Flemish, they always told me that by law they're suppose to speak both languages dont know how accurate that is.

As a german-spaking Belgian, I would like to keep Belgium how it is now. We, the french-speaking, the dutch-speaking and the german-speaking, went through so much stuff together that it would be a real shame to remove all this and be annexed by the neighbour countries. We have something in common that cannot be explained, and I would rather fight to keep my country together that seeing it fall apart

As an expat living in Netherlands this clip helps :) Good job!

what are the coats of arms at 1:36? I do not recognize the middle one and the right one is the Bohemian lion?

BELGIAN LIVES MATTER!!!!!

Let it split already. Brussels can become a special district as capital of EU.

To be honest, as a Flemish speaking Belgian I'd much rather see the 3 regions stripped of their autonomy, have 1 much smaller and more efficient government, and a better mix between the languages. It's a strength which I believe we're not exploiting enough.

Am I really the only Belgian who’s FUCKING PROUD OF MY LITTLE COUNTRY I MEAN we are so so small but still people know us

Stille Willem will never die.

Could you make a video about the differences between German and Dutch language?

hil btw ben je nederlands? ik hoor aan je manier van spreken.maak ook video van die crash tijd geleden op die brug waar alle auto's op mekaar stonden in brand etc

I like your flag design on the right at 14:35 !

Both Dutch and and French are spoken in Brussels

So many videos 😍😍

hilbert i really hope you can answer my question because i have been searching for it and so far no reasonable answer yet if belgium were to split into three entities wallonia and flanders and liege the current monarchy would not pick liege for sure so would the current monarchy be the monarchs of wallonia or monarchs of flanders i would like to know your opinion badly stay safe

I applaud your dutch pronounciation, its perfect, i couldnt tell if you’re actually from belgium or the UK

Quiet sad, tou didn't talk much about Eastbelgium. Our part is often forgotten by the Belgian, so please internet, don't forget us :)

Slight danish protest: You make it look like Danmark was part of the Holy Roman Empire. We never were!

Excellent again. How can someone not living in Belgium sum up this twisted mess so succinctly? I am impressed.

And I thought Quebec and Cameroon had quirky linguistic schisms...

I met some Flanders Separatists at a Scottish Independence rally a few years back (2014 ish)‚ if I remember correctly they where split between full on Independence and joining the Netherlands. I also met some Italian separatists who wanted Venice to become Independent.

More stuff on Belgium A.U.B.! Dank U Wel for a great vid, from a Brit who loves Vlaanderen

Is this divide only due to separate languages or is there much more to it that I'm not understanding?

i love this channel. but what are you hilbert? lol, i love language, accents, flags and geography. are you an englishman that has lived in the netherlands? or married a beautiful dutch person? forgive my nosiness haha. top channel and top lad.