The Rise of Luxembourg - 1815-2015 - A Historical Portrait (Emile Haag, 2016)

(314 pages)

Christmas gift from Martine & Jose et al.  Seems like a timely read given that a path to Luxembourg citizenship has emerged for us.

Congress of Vienna - much discussed in this book - creates the Grand Duchy as a separate state in 1815 - but "independence" is difficult.

It was interesting to read this book pretty much in tandem with this history of Prussia.  Both discuss the events of the late 1860s - Bismarck defeats Austria in 1866 and is moving toward uniting Germany, more or less, under Prussian leadership - the Prussian book describes an 1867 "Luxembourg crisis" orchestrated by Bismarck (behind the scenes he encourages Napoleon III to annex Luxembourg but then leaks that very news, to predictable outrage); at the end of the process Bismark succeeds in uniting Germany but all the European powers agree (in 1867) that Luxembourg thenceforward would be an independent neutral state; war between Germany and France is avoided (or at least delayed for a few years).

That episode was part of Luxembourg consistently needing to navigate the boundary zone between France and Germany; the area seems to have been more directly influenced (if not controlled via economic zones and the like) by Germany, but felt a greater affinity with France (hard to measure, and perhaps this is because France seemed less threatening?)

Being in that boundary zone of course led to deep consequences in the two world wars.

Author reviews the roles of leading industrialists and statesmen; it also turns out that the leadership from the royals has mattered quite a bit - Grand Duchess Charlotte apparently quite important.  Also goes over developments in the fine arts, sports, etc.

As Europe centralized - via EEC and then EU - Luxembourg has benefited from being a small, less-threatening nation - important offices have been headquartered here from the beginning of this project.  No doubt it also took lots of skill to achieve this; multi-lingual population was helpful. 

Author gives some history on Letzebuergesch - used in daily life, legally recognized in 1984 - interesting how (as elsewhere in Europe) some of the unwritten, or at least less-written local languages were revived and treated more formally than in their heyday.

Lovely book; pictures, maps, etc. are very helpful.