ABSTRACT
The national consciousness of the Dutch was subjected to one further trial. At the end of the Napoleonic wars, the Belgians were not yet endowed with the same determined sense of nationhood as the Dutch. But the Dutch, without any assertion or proclamation of their identity, were so very much themselves that amalgamation with them proved to be impossible and undesirable. In 1830 the Dutch were still too loyal to their sovereign even to dream of revolting against him. There has been talk in recent years among Flemings who have since given their support to pan-Germanism, and among a handful of Dutch dreamers, of a “Greater Netherland” based upon the community of language between the Flemings and the Dutch. Successive revisions have made the Dutch constitution more democratic, and have given more and more reality to the doctrine of national sovereignty.
