and ultimately let to the separation of the Southern Provinces from the Netherlands. This new territorial dominion, a Buffer State, between the European powers: Great Britain, France, Germany, became known as Belgium, after the Ancient Roman Province of Galilia Belgica; with the establishment of a Roman Catholic church as the great power over the land took control in 1836 and a New, officially French-speaking, Bourgoisie was to function as a neutral independent country under a provisional government and a national congress. Since the installation of Leopold I as king on 21 July 1831 (which is now celebrated as Belgium's National Day), Belgium has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a laicist constitution based on the Napoleonic code. Although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 (with plural voting until 1919) and for women in 1949.
The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party and the Liberal Party, with the Belgian Labour Party emerging towards the end of the 19th century. French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie. It progressively lost its overall importance as Dutch became recognised as well. This recognition became official in 1898 and in 1967 a Dutch version of the Constitution was legally accepted.
The Berlin Conference of 1885 ceded control of the Congo Free State to King Leopold II as his private possession. From around 1900 there was growing international concern for the extreme and savage treatment of the Congolese population under Leopold II, for whom the Congo was primarily a source of revenue from ivory and rubber production. In 1908 this outcry led the Belgian state to assume responsibility for the government of the colony, henceforth called the Belgian Congo. Germany invaded Belgium in 1914 as part of the Schlieffen Plan to attack France and much of the
