On the morning of the 24th the attack on the city was made at three several points; and, to the great astonishment of Prince Frederick and his troops, they found at all a determined resistance instead of the easy triumph on which they had reckoned.
Continuing Revolution in Belgium,
our selection from an article in Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 16 by Thomas Colley Grattan published in 1905. The selection is presented in seven easy 5-minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.
Previously in Revolution in Belgium.
Time: 1830
Place: Brussels
The Committee of Public Safety was specially charged with three main objects: First, with the care of preserving the rights of the dynasty. Second, with obtaining the separation by legal means. Third, with protecting the commercial and manufacturing interests of the country.
For a fortnight after the departure of the Prince of Orange this committee fulfilled the conditions of its nomination. The greatest difficulties consisted in finding employment for the poor, and in counteracting the violent conduct of the revolutionary clubs, by whom they were daily menaced and denounced. The committee consisted of eight persons. Four of them were noblemen, of no talent, whose names had been inserted merely to give the appearance of aristocratic sympathy with the four plebeians who were the active members. These latter were Messrs. Gendebien, Meéus, Rouppe, and Vandeweyer. The first was hasty and rash; the second and third were timid and temporizing; the fourth was cautious and cunning.
Elements of character such as these could form no combination fit to cope with the vigorous energy of such daring spirits as Charles Rogier, Feigneaux, Niellon, and Van Halen, the leading men of the clubs. The confidence of the people was soon given to those strenuous haters of Dutch connection in every shape; and the Committee of Public Safety, yielding to the uncontrollable influence that pressed on them, only wished to be driven from the post which they had not sufficient courage to maintain or resign.
It now became clear that the King had no intention of acceding to the proposed separation, which he talked of in his opening speech to the States-General at The Hague on September 13th, but which he carefully abstained from recommending, and toward the consideration of which, for several days following, they made no progress. It cannot be too forcibly impressed on those who would rightly understand the question, that, up to the very last moment of apparent security on the part of the King, the Belgian people were anxious to effect the separation on amicable and equitable terms. And it must also be observed that this proposed separation was not a mere revolutionary crotchet or a fanciful remedy for the existing evils. It might have been effected without any violation of the treaties of 1815, at that time forming the public law of Europe, and without the least attaint to the privileges of nations or individuals. It would have been a certain security against any wish on the part of Belgium for a re-annexation to France, by founding a distinct nationality; and it would have conciliated all the great powers while it healed the discontent existing between the two divisions of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
It must be admitted, to account for, but by no means to justify, the policy of the King and the Government, that they were in a state of most culpable ignorance of the real nature of public feeling in Belgium. The great bugbear which frightened them from their political propriety was the fear of republicanism in France, and of its spread in Belgium. This delusion was combated by a few disinterested observers; but their reasoning was not listened to when they pointed out the necessity for promptitude in the legislative proceedings, and an abstinence from all hostile measures.
Events now hurried on. Brussels was invested by an army of fourteen thousand men. The people, roused to desperation, and led on by Feigneaux and other clubmen, on the night of September 20th forced the doors of the Town Hall, seized on a depot of arms which was placed there for greater security, and drove out the incompetent committee, who, abandoning the care of the public safety, now only sought their own. They fled the country and left the people to their fate — even Gendebien, the only one of the members from whom more resolution was expected; Baron D’Hoogvorst being the only one who remained, but in close concealment until the fearful events of the ensuing days had passed by.
The whole power now devolved, as if in the regular succession of revolutionary inheritance, to the people and their immediate chiefs. Yet it cannot be truly said that anarchy at any time reigned in Brussels. No act of spoliation or violence took place during the last three days, from September 20th to 23rd, during which the very rabble formed the Government, and pike and bayonet were the law. All the degrading impulses of mob ferocity were suppressed; and every feeling was concentrated in the one absorbing object of a desperate defense. At length the agony of expectation was set at rest by the fiercer excitement of actual combat. On the morning of the 24th the attack on the city was made at three several points; and, to the great astonishment of Prince Frederick and his troops, they found at all a determined resistance instead of the easy triumph on which they had reckoned.
Among those who particularly distinguished themselves during the four days in which the people of Brussels fought so gallantly, and conquered, was Charles Rogier, who gave to the country the first impulse of armed resistance; who had been foremost in leading his detachment of the men of Liège to the attack on the Dutch at Diegham the day before the assault of Brussels took place; and who had, as soon as resistance was actually offered to that assault, boldly taken upon himself — in company with M. Jolly, a retired officer of engineers — the responsibility of a government, and the organization of the desultory and scattered elements, which ended in so complete a triumph. Van Halen, the commander-in-chief appointed by Rogier and Jolly, fought bravely; as did also Messrs. Niellon, Mellinet, Kessels, Vandermeere, Borremans, Grégoire, and Baron Felner (killed on the field of battle); besides a host of others equally brave and more or less celebrated.
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