Treaty of London 1839: Encyclopedia II - Treaty of London 1839 - Territorial consequences of the treaty

Treaty of London 1839 - Territorial consequences of the treaty

Since 1815, Belgium had been a part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. With the treaty, the southern provinces of the Netherlands became the Kingdom of Belgium, while the province of Limburg was split into Belgian and Dutch parts. The same happened to the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg which in turn was split into a Belgian part and the current Grand Duchy which was under a personal union with the Netherlands under King William III until 1867. Zeeuws-Vlaanderen was detached from Belgium as well and became part of the Dutch province of Zeeland because the Dutch didn't want Belgium to have co-control of the Scheldt estuarium. In return they had to guarantee the free navigation on the Scheldt into the Port of Antwerp.

The Treaty of London also guaranteed Belgium the right of transit by rail or canal over Dutch territory as an outway to the German Ruhr. This became actual again in 2005 when on May 24, 2005 the Permanent Court of Arbitration reaffirmed this right in a dispute between Belgium and the Netherlands on the Ijzeren Rijn ('Iron Rhine') railway track.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Territorial consequences of the treaty", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki