Editing Southern Netherlands (section)

== Austrian Netherlands ==
{{Main|Austrian Netherlands}}

[[File:Map_of_Austrian_Netherlands_1789.svg|thumb|The Austrian Netherlands were bisected by the fragmented Principality of Liège: historic Flanders, Brabant, Hainaut and Namur to the West, and Luxemburg to the east.]]
[[File:Lybaert 3.jpg|thumb|''Portrait of a patriot from Antwerp'', commemorating the uprising against Joseph II]]

Under the [[Treaty of Rastatt]] (1714), following the [[War of the Spanish Succession]], what was left of the [[Spanish Netherlands]] was ceded to Austria and thus became known as the '''Austrian Netherlands''' or ''Belgium Austriacum''. However, the Austrians themselves generally had little interest in the region (aside from a short-lived attempt by Emperor [[Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles VI]] to compete with British and Dutch trade through the [[Ostend Company]]), and the fortresses along the border (the [[Barrier Treaty|Barrier Fortresses]]) were, by treaty, garrisoned with Dutch troops. The area had, in fact, been given to Austria largely at British and Dutch insistence, as these powers feared potential French domination of the region.

Throughout the latter part of the eighteenth century, the principal foreign policy goal of the [[Habsburg-Lothringen|Habsburg]] rulers was to exchange the Austrian Netherlands for [[Bavaria]], which would round out Habsburg possessions in southern Germany. In the 1757 [[Treaty of Versailles (1757)|Treaty of Versailles]], Austria agreed to the creation of an independent state in the Southern Netherlands ruled by [[Philip, Duke of Parma]] and garrisoned by French troops in exchange for French help in recovering [[Silesia]]. However the agreement was unimplemented and revoked by the [[Third Treaty of Versailles]] (1785) and Austrian rule continued.

In 1784, its ruler, [[Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor|Emperor Joseph II]], took up the long-standing grudge of [[Antwerp]], whose once-flourishing trade was destroyed by the permanent closing of the [[Scheldt]], and he demanded for the [[Dutch Republic]] to open the river to navigation. However, his stance was far from militant, and he called off hostilities after the so-called [[Kettle War]], so called because its only "casualty" was a kettle. Though Joseph secured in the [[Treaty of Fontainebleau (1785)|1785 Treaty of Fontainebleau]] that the territory's rulers would be compensated by the Dutch Republic for the continued closing the [[Scheldt]], this failed to gain him much popularity.

The people of the Austrian Netherlands rebelled against Austria in 1788 as a result of Joseph II's centralizing policies. The different provinces established the [[United States of Belgium]] (January 1790). However, waylaying Joseph's intended concessions to the Belgians to restore the height of their autonomy and privileges, Austrian imperial power had been restored by Joseph's brother and successor, [[Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor|Leopold II]], by the end of 1790.