ABSTRACT
While in the north Jews cooperated fully with the government’s integration policy, it met with resistance among Catholics in the southern provinces. The Southern Netherlands had been part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands since 1815. William I’s attempts to impose the Dutch language on French speakers and to bring the Catholic Church under his supervision provoked fierce opposition there. In 1830 a revolution broke out and it resulted, to the surprise even of the rebels themselves, in the creation of a new state: Belgium.
