Luxembourg On My Mind: Arelerland,USA

ARELERLAND, USA is the third volume in the series 'Luxembourg On My Mind' 'Arelerland' (From Arel = Lëtzebuergesch for the city of Arlon) is the region in the Kingdom of Belgium bordering on the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The area is part of the territory awarded to the Kingdom of Belgium by virtue of the Treaty of London of April 19, 1839. The European powers recognized and guaranteed the independence and neutrality of Belgium and confirmed the independence of the Lëtzebuergesch-speaking part of Luxembourg. Historians surmise that the Arelerland area, though Lëtzebuergesch-speaking, was awarded to the Kingdom of Belgium based on France’s strategic concerns. France’s post-Napoleon politicians considered that countries the size of Belgium and Luxembourg would not survive independently and that sooner or later Germany and France would fight over those lands. The city of Arlon, connecting France’s fortress of Longwy with Belgium’s capital Brussels, was considered an important strategic crossroad whose governance could not be entrusted to the Prussians manning the mighty Luxembourg fortress. The area had been mired in unrest since revolutionary France’s invasion in 1794. Predictably, during that period and over the subsequent decades thousands of villagers from the ‘Arelerland’ opt to join the swelling human wave of migrants to the New World in search of a better future.