I've read once that Belgium has the dubious honor of being the nation that has been invaded the most.
Well, take it from me, I'm a Belgian dude. We've been invaded by everyone... Everyone... really... If there would have been an award for most invaded place we'd be in front of the line alright.
The troubles started even before Belgium was known as Belgium:
There are caves in Belgium with
caveman artefacts from the Early Stone age. There are some
axes and
weapons among them, so presumably the cavemen were invaded from time to time...
In the Late Stone age, some people started building
huts and started
farming. There probably were some minor
invasions by
jealous cavemen, who'd rather have a nice, warm hut to sleep in than a cold, damp cave.
After that, in the Bronze and the Iron age, all seemed quiet in Belgium. This was the period when
human sacrifice and druidic
magic was common practice here. People think twice about invading a country that's full of
drunk Kelts who as a passtime go see their
druid ritually disembowel one of their own clanmembers.
This period of glory came to an end when, in 57bC. we were invaded by the Head Honcho of the
Romans;
Julius Caesar.
Now... this Julius Caesar was a nasty piece of
work. When it became apparent that the Belgae wouldn't submit to Roman
authority without handing out a few knuckle sandwiches themselves, the Romans set up a
genocide mission. There are several Keltic tribes (a.o. the Eburons and the Aduatucs) that were completely annihilated.
During the
Pax Romana, pre-Belgium was invaded by
Christianity.
After the Pax Romana, we were invaded by the 'Salische Franken', the Germanen and another tribe of Franken.
In the Early Middle Ages, we only got our
butt kicked only once or twice by foreign powers. The rest of the time we spent squabbling among ourselves.
In the... err...'middle' Middle Ages, things got
worse. pre-Belgium got repeatedly overrun by various alliances of
Barons,
Counts, bigshot
farmers and important
merchants guilds.
In the late Middle Ages, France also got in the fray. Lots of wars... After
Death and
War, the other two
Horsemen of the Apocalypse,
Pestilence and
Hunger, also invaded pre-Belgium. This was a really
bad time.
We ended up under Spanish government (Habsburgs). They got kicked out by the Dutch for a while but they soon regained the place.
We, Belgians, came in
existence in 1598, when the Habsburgs set us up as an
autonomous state as a safeguard against the Dutch.
While the Habsburgs were keeping an eye on the insidious Dutchman, however, the French attacked again, and there were lots of wars, with a
climax in 1695, when the
capital of Belgium was eradicated by the French.
At this point, I guess we just couldn't be bothered anymore, so we started up a weapons
factory, Fabrique Nationale (FN) and started selling weapons to our invaders.
Then, France and Austria invaded us a couple of times.
After that:
26 June 1794. French
23 September 1830.
Revolution! We decide we've had enough and Belgium declares it's
independence.
2 August 1831. Dutch king Willem I.
3 August 1914. Dutch king Willem II, followed by the Germans and later the English and the French to drive out the Germans.
After that it's Hitler from Germany. He gets kicked out by a.o. the Americans and the British.
Since then, things have been eerily quiet...
I was just thinking I must be
mad typing up all this stuff that no-one will read anyway... Well, gotta go now. It's time for
bed.
Update: Apparently you _do_ read this stuff... Some of you even seem to appreciate it.
Hehehe... I'm gonna try something now that I've got your attention....
Get a piece of writing paper. Grab a pencil. Any pencil will do. You also need an envelope and a stamp.
Write a formal letter addressed to your local governor, senator, monarch, dictator or president.
Ask them not to invade Belgium.
Tell them we're a country that can hardly be seen without a magnification glass on the average world map.
Point out the absolute absence of any valuable mineral resources whatsoever in Belgian soil.
Enlighten them to the fact that one of our national symbols is, in fact, a statue of a small, peeing boy (
Manneken Pis, we call him).
Whatever you write, make clear that we're really not worth invading. Please.
As a fair trade befits, I shall then write to my king (Yes, I know, we still have one of those) and I shall ask him not to attack your country.