Part of a series on the
History of Luxembourg
Early history Celtic Luxembourg ~51 BC  • Treveri   Gallic Wars 58–50 BC Roman rule 90 AD–c.500 AD
Middle Ages Franks   Merovingians 481–751  • Austrasia   Carolingians 751–987 Duchy of Lorraine 959~  • House of Luxembourg   Duchy of Luxembourg 1352-1482 Habsburg rule 1482–1556
Early Modern Spanish rule 1556–1714 Louis XIV's siege 1684 Austrian rule 1714–95 Revolutionary siege 1794–95 French rule 1795–1815  • Peasants' War 1798
19th century Congress of Vienna 1815  • Grand Duchy of Luxembourg 1815– Dutch rule 1815–30  • Reign of Guillaume I 1815-40  • Belgian Revolution 1830–31 Personal union 1839–90  • Treaty of London 1839  • Reign of Guillaume II 1840–49  • Reign of Guillaume III 1849-90  • Luxembourg Crisis 1867 Full independence 1890-
20th and 21st centuries Reign of Adolphe 1890-1905 Reign of Guillaume IV 1905-12 Reign of Marie-Adélaïde 1912-19 World War I:    • German occupation 1914-18 Reign of Charlotte 1919-1964 World War II:    • German invasion 1940  • German occupation 1940-45  • Government in exile 1940-45  • Holocaust 1941 Reign of Jean 1964-2000 Reign of Henri 2000-
Luxembourg portal

The history of Luxembourg consists of the history of the country of Luxembourg and its geographical area.

Although its recorded history can be traced back to Roman times, the history of Luxembourg proper is considered to begin in 963. Over the following five centuries, the powerful House of Luxembourg emerged, but its extinction put an end to the country's independence. After a brief period of Burgundian rule, the country passed to the Habsburgs in 1477.

After the Eighty Years' War, Luxembourg became a part of the Southern Netherlands, which passed to the Austrian line of the Habsburg dynasty in 1713. After occupation by Revolutionary France, the 1815 Vienna Congress transformed Luxembourg into a Grand Duchy in personal union with the Netherlands. The treaty also resulted in the second partitioning of Luxembourg, the first being in 1658 and a third in 1839. Although these treaties greatly reduced Luxembourg's territory, the latter established its formal independence, which was confirmed after the Luxembourg Crisis of 1867.

In the following decades, Luxembourg fell further into Germany's sphere of influence, particularly after the creation of a separate ruling house in 1890. It was occupied by Germany from 1914 until 1918 and again from 1940 until 1944. Since the end of the Second World War, Luxembourg has become one of the world's richest countries, buoyed by political stability and European integration.

Early history

History of the Low Countries
Frisii			Belgae
	Cana– nefates	Chamavi, Tubantes		Gallia Belgica (55 BC–c. 5th AD) Germania Inferior (83–c. 5th)
		Salian Franks		Batavi
unpopulated (4th–c. 5th)		Saxons	Salian Franks (4th–c. 5th)
Frisian Kingdom (c. 6th–734)			Frankish Kingdom (481–843)—Carolingian Empire (800–843)
		Austrasia (511–687)
Middle Francia (843–855)					West Francia (843–)
Kingdom of Lotharingia (855– 959) Duchy of Lower Lorraine (959–)
Frisia
Frisian Freedom (11–16th century)	County of Holland (880–1432)	Bishopric of Utrecht (695–1456)	Duchy of Brabant (1183–1430) Duchy of Guelders (1046–1543)		County of Flanders (862–1384)	County of Hainaut (1071–1432) County of Namur (981–1421)	P.-Bish. of Liège (980–1794)	Duchy of Luxem- bourg (1059–1443)
	Burgundian Netherlands (1384–1482)
	Habsburg Netherlands (1482–1795) (Seventeen Provinces after 1543)
Dutch Republic (1581–1795)				Spanish Netherlands (1556–1714)
				Austrian Netherlands (1714–1795)
				United States of Belgium (1790)			R. Liège (1789–'91)
Batavian Republic (1795–1806) Kingdom of Holland (1806–1810)				associated with French First Republic (1795–1804) part of First French Empire (1804–1815)
Princip. of the Netherlands (1813–1815)
Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815–1830)								Gr D. L. (1815–)
Kingdom of the Netherlands (1839–)				Kingdom of Belgium (1830–)
								Gr D. of Luxem- bourg (1890–)

In the territory now covered by the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, there is evidence of primitive inhabitants dating back to the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age over 35,000 years ago. The oldest artifacts from this period are decorated bones found at Oetrange.

However, the first real evidence of civilisation is from the Neolithic or 5th millennium BC, from which evidence of houses has been found. Traces have been found in the south of Luxembourg at Grevenmacher, Diekirch, Aspelt and Weiler-la-Tour. The dwellings were made of a combination of tree trunks for the basic structure, mud-clad wickerwork walls, and roofs of thatched reeds or straw. Pottery from this period has been found near Remerschen.

While there is not much evidence of communities in Luxembourg at the beginning of the Bronze Age, a number of sites dating back to the period between the 13th and the 8th century BC provide evidence of dwellings and reveal artefacts such as pottery, knives and jewellery. The sites include Nospelt, Dalheim, Mompach and Remerschen.

What is present-day Luxembourg, was inhabited by Celts during the Iron Age (from roughly 600 BC until 100 AD). The Gaulish tribe in what is present-day Luxembourg during and after the La Tène period was known as the Treveri; they reached the height of prosperity in the 1st century BC. The Treveri constructed a number of oppida, Iron Age fortified settlements, near the Moselle valley in what is now southern Luxembourg, western Germany and eastern France. Most of the archaeological evidence from this period has been discovered in tombs, many closely associated with Titelberg, a 50 ha site which reveals much about the dwellings and handicrafts of the period.

The Romans, under Julius Caesar, completed their conquest and occupation in 53 BC. The first known reference to the territory of present-day Luxembourg was by Julius Caesar in his Commentaries on the Gallic War.^[1] The Treveri were more co-operative with the Romans than most Gallic tribes, and adapted readily to Roman civilization. Two revolts in the 1st century AD did not permanently damage their cordial relations with Rome. The land of the Treveri was at first part of Gallia Celtica, but with the reform of Domitian in c. 90, was reassigned to Gallia Belgica.

Gallia Belgica was infiltrated by the Germanic Franks from the 4th century, and was abandoned by Rome in AD 406. The territory of what would become Luxembourg by the 480s, became part of Merovingia Austrasia and eventually part of the core territory of the Carolingian Empire. With the Treaty of Verdun (843), it fell to Middle Francia, and in 855, to Lotharingia. With the latter's division in 959, it then fell to the Duchy of Upper Lorraine within the Holy Roman Empire.

County

The history of Luxembourg properly began with the construction of Luxembourg Castle in the High Middle Ages. It was Siegfried I, count of Ardennes who traded some of his ancestral lands with the monks of the Abbey of St. Maximin in Trier in 963 for an ancient, supposedly Roman, fort named Lucilinburhuc, commonly translated as "little castle".^[2] Modern historians link the etymology of the word with Letze,^[2] meaning fortification, which may have referred to either the remains of a Roman watchtower or to a primitive refuge of the early Middle Ages.

Duchy

From the Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance, Luxembourg bore multiple names, depending on the author. These include Lucilinburhuc, Lutzburg, Lützelburg, Luccelemburc, and Lichtburg, among others. The Luxembourgish dynasty produced several Holy Roman Emperors, Kings of Bohemia, and Archbishops of Trier and Mainz.

Around the fort of Luxembourg, a town gradually developed, which became the centre of a small but important state of great strategic value to France, Germany and the Netherlands. Luxembourg's fortress, located on a rocky outcrop known as the Bock, was steadily enlarged and strengthened over the years by successive owners. Some of these included the Bourbons, Habsburgs and Hohenzollerns, who made it one of the strongest fortresses on the European continent, the Fortress of Luxembourg. Its formidable defences and strategic location caused it to become known as the ‘Gibraltar of the North’.

Habsburg (1477–1795) and French (1795–1815) rule

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the electors of Brandenburg, later kings of Prussia (Borussia), advanced their claim to the Luxembourg patrimony as heirs-general to William of Thuringia and his wife Anna of Bohemia, the disputed dukes of Luxembourg in the 1460s. Anna was the eldest daughter of the last Luxembourg heiress. From 1609 onward, they had a territorial base in the vicinity, the Duchy of Cleves, the starting-point of the future Prussian Rhineland. This Brandenburger claim ultimately produced some results when some districts of Luxembourg were united with Prussia in 1813.

The first Hohenzollern claimant to descend from both Anna and her younger sister Elisabeth, was John George, Elector of Brandenburg (1525–98), his maternal grandmother having been Barbara Jagiellon. In the late 18th century, the younger line of Orange-Nassau (the princes who held sway in the neighbouring Dutch oligarchy) also became related to the Brandenburgers.

In 1598, the then possessor, Philip II of Spain, bequeathed Luxembourg and the other Low Countries to his daughter, the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia and her husband Albert VII, Archduke of Austria. Albert was an heir and descendant of Elisabeth of Austria (d. 1505), queen of Poland, the youngest granddaughter of Sigismund of Luxembourg, the Holy Roman Emperor. Thus, Luxembourg returned to the heirs of the old Luxembourg dynasty of the line of Elisabeth. The Low Countries were a separate political entity during the couple's reign. After Albert's childless death in 1621, Luxembourg passed to his great-nephew and heir Philip IV of Spain.

Developing independence (1815–1890)

The three Partitions of Luxembourg.

Luxembourg remained more or less under French rule until the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. When the French departed, the Allies installed a provisional administration. Luxembourg initially came under the Generalgouvernement Mittelrhein in mid-1814, and then from June 1814 under the Generalgouvernement Nieder- und Mittelrhein (General Government Lower and Middle Rhine).

The Congress of Vienna of 1815, gave formal autonomy to Luxembourg. In 1813, the Prussians had already managed to wrest lands from Luxembourg, to strengthen the Prussian-possessed Duchy of Julich. The Bourbons of France held a strong claim to Luxembourg, whereas the Emperor Francis of Austria, on the other hand, had controlled the duchy until the revolutionary forces had joined it to the French republic. However, his Chancellor, Klemens von Metternich, was not enthusiastic about regaining Luxembourg and the Low Countries, as they were separated so far from the main body of the Austrian Empire.

Prussia and the Netherlands, both claiming Luxembourg, made an exchange deal: Prussia received the Principality of Orange-Nassau, the ancestral Principality of the Prince of Orange in Central Germany; and the Prince of Orange in turn received Luxembourg. In 1815 Luxembourg joined the German Confederation and 1842 the German Customs Union.

Luxembourg, somewhat diminished in size (as the medieval lands had been slightly reduced by the French and Prussian heirs), was augmented in another way through the elevation to the status of grand duchy and placed under the rule of William I of the Netherlands. This was the first time that the duchy had a monarch who had no claim to the inheritance of the medieval patrimony. However, Luxembourg's military value to Prussia prevented it from becoming a full part of the Dutch kingdom. The fortress, ancestral seat of the medieval Luxembourgers, was garrisoned by Prussian forces, following Napoleon's defeat, and Luxembourg became a member of the German Confederation with Prussia responsible for its defence, and a state under the suzerainty of the Netherlands at the same time.

Historic map (undated) of Luxembourg city's fortifications

In July 1819, a contemporary from Britain visited Luxembourg — his journal offers some insights. Norwich Duff, writes of its city that

"Luxembourg is considered one of the strongest fortifications in Europe, and … it appears so. It is situated in Holland (then as now used by English speakers as shorthand for the Netherlands) but by treaty is garrisoned by Prussians and 5,000 of their troops occupy it under a Prince of Hesse. The civil government is under the Dutch and the duties collected by them. The town is not very large but the streets are broader than [in] the French towns and clean and the houses are good.... [I] got the cheapest of hot baths here at the principal house I ever had in my life: one franc."

In 1820, Luxembourg made use of the metric system of measurement compulsory.^[5][6] Previously, the country had using local units such as the "malter" (which was equivalent to 191 litres).^[5]

Much of the Luxembourgish population joined the Belgian revolution against Dutch rule. Except for the fortress and its immediate vicinity, Luxembourg was considered a province of the new Belgian state from 1830 to 1839. By the Treaty of London in 1839, the status of the grand duchy became fully sovereign and in personal union to the king of the Netherlands. In turn, the predominantly Oil-speaking geographically larger western part of the duchy was ceded to Belgium as the province de Luxembourg.

This loss left the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg a predominantly German state, although French cultural influence remained strong. The loss of Belgian markets also caused painful economic problems for the state. Recognising this, the grand duke integrated it into the German Zollverein in 1842. Nevertheless, Luxembourg remained an underdeveloped agrarian country for most of the century. As a result of this, about one in five of the inhabitants emigrated to the United States between 1841 and 1891.

Beginning in the 1830s, Luxembourg came to develop its own national identity.^[7] The Catholic Church helped provide a sense of a unique cultural identity, and as early as 1840, Luxembourg had been granted its own diocese, and in 1870, a separate bishopric. Luxemburger Wort, which came to be the domination national newspaper in Luxembourg, also had close links with the church. Patterns of language use further consolidated Luxembourgish nationality - while bilingualism prevailed, Luxembourgish became a language used in local literature and newspapers, especially when domestic issues and folklore were discussed; French was considered a language of diplomacy and was used when discussing international matters.^[7]

Separation and the World Wars (1890–1945)

Luxembourg remained a possession of the kings of the Netherlands until the death of William III in 1890, when the grand duchy passed to the House of Nassau-Weilburg due to the 1783 Nassau Family Pact, under which those territories of the Nassau family in the Holy Roman Empire at the time of the pact (Luxembourg and Nassau) were bound by semi-Salic law, which allowed inheritance by females or through the female line only upon extinction of male members of the dynasty. When William III died leaving only his daughter Wilhelmina as an heir, the crown of the Netherlands, not being bound by the family pact, passed to Wilhelmina. However, the crown of Luxembourg passed to a male of another branch of the House of Nassau: Adolphe, the dispossessed Duke of Nassau and head of the branch of Nassau-Weilburg.

By the beginning of the 20th century, Luxembourg had abandoned its cultural ties to Germany in favour of developing its own nationalism - writers such as Nicolas Ries elevated the status of Luxembourgish to a literary language, and nationalist organisations such as the Letzeburger Nationalunio'n developed, espousing anti-German and anti-French sentiments.^[7] Luxembourgish was confirmed as an official and separate language by the Education Law of 1912, which established it as a mandatory school subject.^[7] The demographic patterns reversed, with more people immigrating to Luxembourg than emigrating from it, and the politics of Luxembourg had consolidated into three major parties - the socialists of Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party, the liberals of the Liberal League, and the conservatives of the Rietspartei.^[7]

Modern history (since 1945)

After World War II, Luxembourg abandoned its politics of neutrality, when it became a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations. It is a signatory of the Treaty of Rome, and constituted a monetary union with Belgium (Benelux Customs Union in 1948), and an economic union with Belgium and the Netherlands, the so-called BeNeLux.

Between 1945 and 2005, the economic structure of Luxembourg changed significantly. The crisis of the metallurgy sector, which began in the mid-1970s and lasted till the late 1980s, nearly pushed the country into economic recession, given the monolithic dominance of that sector. The Tripartite Coordination Committee, consisting of members of the government, management representatives, and trade union leaders, succeeded in preventing major social unrest during those years, thus creating the myth of a “Luxembourg model” characterised by social peace. Although in the early years of the 21st century Luxembourg enjoyed one of the highest GNI per capita in the world, this was mainly due to the strength of its financial sector, which gained importance at the end of the 1960s. Thirty-five years later, one-third of the tax proceeds originated from that sector. The harmonisation of the tax system across Europe could, however, seriously undermine the financial situation of the grand duchy.

Luxembourg has been one of the strongest advocates of the European Union in the tradition of Robert Schuman. It was one of the six founding members of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1952 and of the European Economic Community (EEC) (later the European Union) in 1957; in 1999 it joined the euro currency area.

Encouraged by the contacts established with the Dutch and Belgian governments in exile, Luxembourg pursued a policy of presence in international organisations. In the context of the Cold War, Luxembourg clearly opted for the West having joined NATO in 1949. Engagement in European reconstruction was rarely questioned subsequently, either by politicians or by the greater population.

Despite its small proportions, Luxembourg often played an intermediary role between larger countries. This role of mediator, especially between the two large and often bellicose nations of Germany and France, was considered one of the main characteristics of its national identity, allowing the Luxembourgers not to have to choose between one of these two neighbours. The country also hosted a large number of European institutions such as the European Court of Justice.

Luxembourg's small size no longer seemed to be a challenge to the existence of the country, and the creation of the Banque Centrale du Luxembourg (1998) and of the University of Luxembourg (2003) was evidence of the continuing desire to become a “real” nation. The decision in 1985 to declare Lëtzebuergesch (Luxembourgish) the national language was also a step in the affirmation of the country's independence. In fact, the linguistic situation in Luxembourg was characterised by trilingualism: Lëtzebuergesch was the spoken vernacular language, German the written language, in which Luxembourgers were most fluent, and French the language of official letters and law.

In 1985, the country became victim to a mysterious bombing spree, which was targeted mostly at electrical masts and other installations.

In 1995, Luxembourg provided the president of the European Commission, former Prime Minister Jacques Santer, who later had to resign in March 1999 over corruption accusations against other commission members.^[12]

Prime Minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, followed this European tradition. On 10 September 2004, Mr Juncker became the president of the group of finance ministers from the 12 countries that share the euro, a role that led him to be dubbed "Mr Euro".^[13]

The present sovereign is Grand Duke Henri. Henri's father, Jean, succeeded his mother, Charlotte, on 12 November 1964. Jean's eldest son, Prince Henri, was appointed "Lieutenant Représentant" (Hereditary Grand Duke) on 4 March 1998. On 24 December 1999, Prime Minister Juncker announced Grand Duke Jean's decision to abdicate the throne on 7 October 2000, in favour of Prince Henri who assumed the title and constitutional duties of Grand Duke.^[14]

On July 10, 2005, after threats of resignation by Prime Minister Juncker, the proposed European Constitution was approved by 56.52% of voters.^[15]

In July 2013, Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker announced his resignation following a secret service scandal. He had been prime minister since 1995.^[16]

In December 2013, openly gay Xavier Bettel was sworn in as the new prime minister to succeed Juncker. Bettel of Democratic Party (DP), formed a coalition of Liberals, Social Democrats and Greens who won a combined majority of 32 out of 60 seats in Luxembourg's snap election on October 20, 2013. However, Juncker's Christian Democrats (CSV) remained the biggest party with 23 seats.^[17]

In July 2014, European Parliament elected former Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker as the President of the European Commission on 1 November 2014, succeeding Portugal's Jose Manuel Barroso, who had held the post since 2004.^[18][19]

In December 2018, Prime Minister Xavier Bettel was sworn in for a second term, following the narrow victory of his liberal-led coalition in 2018 parliamentary election.^[20]

See also

• List of monarchs of Luxembourg
• List of prime ministers of Luxembourg
• Politics of Luxembourg
• History of rail transport in Luxembourg, 1846 to present day

General:

• History of Europe

Footnotes

Further reading

• Arblaster, Paul. A History of the Low Countries (Palgrave Essential Histories) (2005)
• Blom, J.C.H. History of the Low Countries (2006).
• Bodenstein, Felicity. "National Museums in Luxembourg." Building National Museums in Europe 1750-2010 (Linköping University Electronic Press, 2011) online.
• Brühwiler, Ingrid, and Matias Gardin. "Fabricating National Unity in Torn Contexts: World War I in the Multilingual Countries of Switzerland and Luxembourg." in Small Nations and Colonial Peripheries in World War I (Brill, 2016) pp. 140–156.
• De Bres, Julia, Gabriel Rivera Cosme, and Angela Remesch. "Walking the tightrope of linguistic nationalism in a multilingual state: constructing language in political party programmes in Luxembourg." Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 41.9 (2020): 779–793.
• de Vries, Johan. "Benelux, 1920-1970," in C. M. Cipolla, ed. The Fontana Economic History of Europe: Contemporary Economics Part One (1976) pp 1–71.
• Duong, Mei (2021). "Development-Led or 'Preventive' Archaeology in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg". Internet Archaeology (57). doi:10.11141/ia.57.6.
• Fletcher, Willard Allen. “The German Administration in Luxemburg 1940-1942: Towards a ‘De Facto’ Annexation” Historical Journal 13#3 (1970), pp. 533–544. online
• Garcia, Nuria. "The paradox of contemporary linguistic nationalism: the case of Luxembourg." Nations and Nationalism 20.1 (2014): 113–132.
• Horner, Kristine, and Jean Jacques Weber. "The language situation in Luxembourg." Current issues in language planning 9.1 (2008): 69–128.
• Kossmann, E. H. The Low Countries 1780–1940 (1978).
• Millim, Anne-Marie. "Schooling the gaze: Industry and nation-building in Luxembourgish landscape-writing, 1900–1940." Journal of European Studies 44.2 (2014): 151-169 online.
• Péporté, Pit. Constructing the Middle Ages: historiography, collective memory and nation-building in Luxembourg (Brill, 2011).
• Péporté, Pit; Kmec, Sonja; Majerus, Benoît and Margue, Michel Inventing Luxembourg. Representations of the Past, Space and Language from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-first Century Archived 17 January 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Vol. 1 of the Collection ‘National Cultivation of Culture’, ed. Joep Leerssen (Leiden/Boston: Brill) (2010).
• Schreiber, Catherina. "Integrating the cosmopolitan and the local–The curricular construction of citizens in Luxembourg in the long 19th century." Encounters in Theory and History of Education 16 (2015): 165-182 online.
• Thyssen, Geert. "The stranger within: Luxembourg’s early school system as a European prototype of nationally legitimized international blends (ca. 1794–1844)." Paedagogica Historica 49.5 (2013): 625–644.
• Zariz, Ruth. “The Jews of Luxembourg during the Second World War” Holocaust & Genocide Studies No 7 (1993). pp. 51–66.

External links

• History Of Luxembourg

Wikimedia Commons has media related to History of Luxembourg.

• Luxembourg emigration in the 19th century - Offers reasons why people left Luxembourg in the 19th century.
• History of Luxembourg: Primary Documents
• Historical Map of Luxembourg 1789
• National Museum of Military History