Partitions of Luxembourg

There were three Partitions of Luxembourg between 1659 and 1839. Together, the three partitions reduced the territory of the Duchy of Luxembourg from to the present-day area of over a period of 240 years. The remainder forms parts of modern-day Belgium, France, and Germany. All three countries bordering Luxembourg have, at one point or another, sought the complete annexation of Luxembourg, but all such attempts have failed. Conversely, there have been historical movements to reverse Luxembourg's loss of territory, but none of these came to fruition, and Luxembourgian revanchism is only a fringe opinion today. Franco-Spanish War (1635–59) The first partition of Luxembourg occurred in 1659, when the Duchy of Luxembourg was in personal union with the Kingdom of Spain. During the Franco-Spanish War, France and England had captured much of the Spanish Netherlands. Under the Treaty of the Pyrenees, France received from Luxembourg the fortresses of Stenay, Thionville, and Montmédy, and the surrounding territory. The area taken by France from the Duchy of Luxembourg totalled . This area accounted for approximately one-tenth of area of the Duchy of Luxembourg at the time. French Revolutionary Wars In 1795, during the French Revolutionary Wars, Luxembourg was annexed to France as part of the département of Forêts. Upon the defeat of Napoleon, under the 1814 Treaty of Paris, Luxembourg was liberated from French rule, but its final status was to be determined at the Congress of Vienna the following year. There, it was agreed that Luxembourg would be elevated to a Grand Duchy, and that the House of Orange would receive all of the Low Countries, including Luxembourg. However, Prussia, which had received the whole of the Rhineland and Westphalia during the war, requested the fortress of Bitburg, which would serve to form part of the German Confederation's western border fortifications. As the rest of Luxembourg was changing hands anyway, the Dutch did not attempt to argue this point.