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Groussherzogtum Lëtzebuerg
Großherzogtum Luxemburg
Grand Duchy of Luxemburg
Conventional short name:
Local:	Lëtzebuerg
English:	Luxemburg

Capital:	Stad Lëtzebuerg
Currency:	Convention Thaler = 20 Kreuzer = 240 Pfennige
Languages
National	Lëtzebuergesch
Official Reich languages	Standard German, Latin
Other	Walon, Lorrain, Jovian
Population:	736,000 Luxemburgers
Grand Duchess:	H.G.D.H. Haedrana Nassau-Weilburg-Kastelnow
ISO code:	LU
Organizations:	Holy Roman Empire, Deutscher Bund

GRAND DUCHY OF LUXEMBURG

Map of Luxemburg and surrounding territories

Luxemburg is a member of the Holy Roman Empire and the Deutscher Bund. The national language, Lëtzebuergesch or Luxemburgish, is a branch of central High German, also known as Franconian. In general, Luxemburg is oriented more toward its Western neighbors than its fellow German states. More so than other members of the Empire, it frequently behaves as if it were a small, independent country rather than a part of Germany.

Economy

Today, Luxemburg is renowned for its banks and financial stability. Very little industry remains in the country, and most farmers are heavily subsidized by the government. The only export of note is wine from vineyards. [DH]

Geography

The northern and western parts of the country form part of the Ardennen, a rugged, heavily wooded plateau. The area is sparsely populated, but throughout the history of Europe has been highly strategic, sought by many of the continent's great powers. Today, castles and fortresses dot the landscape, a few still occupied by the Lëtzebuerger Arméi. Most of the country's 150,000 French speakers live in the western Ardennes, mostly in small villages and rural settlements. The southeastern part of the grand duchy is a fertile wine-producing region called the Gutland (Goodland). The area is more densely populated and is home to the capital, Stad Lëtzebuerg.

Luxemburg's main river is the Moselle (290 m3/s, as the Louisianans measure it). The Luxemburgers call it the Musel normally, but when they're being poetic or sentimental they use the much more lyrical-sounding Jovian name, Moseola. (Luxemburgers usually find themselves resorting to Jovian whenever they want to talk about pretty things, their own language being so ill-equipped to handle them.)

Borders

North, West: France
South: France, Moselle (France/Jervaine)
East: Rhineland-Palatinate

History

Please see Grand Dukes of Luxemburg for more details.

Early history

963: Siegfried I, a minor Ardennes nobleman, acquires a highly defensible fief in the HRE called Lucilinburhuc. His descendents become the House of Luxemburg. (just like *here*)

1309-1312: Henry VII of Luxemburg and his son Jang (John) the Blind secure the respective posts of Holy Roman Emperor and Bohemian King. Luxemburg itself is thenceforth ruled as an appenage by a junior branch of the family (like *here*, except that the nature of the Bohemian Crown was different).

c.1350-1378: Karel of Luxemburg is one of the strongest Bohemian kings and HR Emperors ever. As a sign of this new prestige, Luxemburg is elevated to a duchy. After his reign, Bohemia again becomes relatively decentralized.

1414-1418: Sigismund of Luxemburg, King of Bohemia, Hungary, and the Romans, summons the Council of Kontanz in response to writings of Jan Hus; this has great repurcussions for the Reformation later on.

1437: After the death of Sigismund, the Habsburgs replace the Luxemburgs as the HRE's premier family.

1440s-1477: Luxemburg and the rest of the Batavia region become Burgundian, then Habsburg territory.

Early XVIJth century: the northern Habsburg provinces revolt to form the nation of Batavia. Unlike *here*, the Habsburgs never come to power in Spain, so Luxemburg, Flanders, and Wallonia remain in Austro-Dalmatian hands.

French Revolution

France occupied and annexed Luxemburg in 1795 along with the rest of the Austrian Netherlands. Napoleon was fighting in Italy at the time. In 1804, Napoleon decided to use Luxemburg as a springboard for gaining control of Germany. He declared that Luxembourg would be restored, this time as a grand duchy, with himself as Grand Duke. When Holy Roman Emperor Francis II of Austria abdicated his imperial title in 1806, Napoleon forced the German Diet to elect him as King of the Romans. At the same time that he crowned himself Emperor of France, the Pope also crowned him Emperor of the Romans.

For Napoleon, this move was more than logical. His coronation made his dream a reality: the resurrection of the Roman Empire, with himself at its head. En passant it also allowed him to keep an eye on Prussia, which also controlled territory within the Empire.

(JvS)

Napoleon's rule, in general, greatly improved the economic and social well-being of the little country. He instituted a new law code. He moved the Imperial capital of Germany to Luxemburg and had the splendid Groussherzogleche Plädse (Grand Ducal Palace) built to his specifications outside the city, modeled on the ruins of palaces on the Palatine Hill in Rome.

Nineteenth and twentieth centuries

The flag of the Luxemburger Republic of 1848, later revived as the civil ensign of the Grand Duchy.

After Napoleon's death in 1821, Napoleon II allowed the empire to disintegrate. In 1830 Napoleon II was overthrown in a revolution and fled to Andorra. The German princes met and quickly restored Francis II of Austria to the Imperial throne. Luxemburg, however, remained in dispute. During the Napoleonic period it had been de jure a grand duchy and a part of the Holy Roman Empire, in personal union with France via the Napoleons. However, it was de facto administered as part of France.

After 1830, France under King Louis-Philippe continued to administer it as it had during the Napoleonic period, although Louis never actually claimed the title of Grand Duke. Officially, Luxemburg remained a grand duchy with a vacant throne. Many people, especially the Lëtzebuergesch speakers in the state's eastern half, resented French rule and unsuccessfully pursued independence, most notably in 1848 with the establishment of the short-lived Luxemburger Republic.

In 1848, Napoleon III came to power as Emperor of France. He gave Luxemburg the same status as it had under Napoleon I. He restored some measure of autonomy, but much of the administration continued to come from Paris. There was talk of outright annexation. Anti-French feeling continued to grow.

Expansionist Prussia encouraged nationalism among the Lëtzebuergers. During the Franco-Prussian War Prussia helped sponsor another popular revolt. Rebels seized control of the imposing fortress in Luxemburg City and were reinforced by Prussian troops. As part of the 1871 Treaty of Frankfurt, all of Luxemburg, including the Francophone western region, was guaranteed independence and neutrality. Six months later, Luxemburg voted to rejoin the Holy Roman Empire.

King Willem III of Batavia was made Grand Duke of Luxemburg to placate him for the loss of lands in Nassau, and to ensure that neither France nor Prussia would be able to dominate the country. In 1890 the king died, leaving only his daughter Wilhelmina. Luxemburg passed to a related dynasty, the House of Nassau-Weilburg, to fulfill the Salic Law of male-only succession. The unexpected extinction of the dynasty, combined with Luxemburg's decision to join the Empire, gave Prussia the opportunity to exert more and more influence over it.

Luxemburgers began to resent Prussia's increasingly overbearing policies. The grand duchy welcomed its increased autonomy following the Second Great War. During the 55-year reign of Grand Duchess Tréis, its policies began to look outward beyond Germany. Luxemburg was instrumental in convincing the Deutscher Bund, central and southern Germany's economic bloc, to attend the first European Federation meeting in 1981. Thus it led the way toward a united currency system in Western Europe. In 2005, Tréis died and was succeeded by her oldest daughter Haedrana.

The Grand Duchy hosted the Small States Games of Europe in June of 2008.

Military

Luxemburg City is home to what has long been considered the strongest fortress in continental Europe. This combined with its strategic location has earned it the nickname "the Gibraltar of the North." Under the 1871 Treaty of Frankfurt, Luxemburg was officially declared neutral and did not fortify the city. Prussia, however, semi-illegally maintained a garisson in the fortress by taking advantage of a loophole in the treaty.

After the First Great War, the Allies acknowledged Luxemburg City as a de facto Prussian military outpost. The Second Great War essentially rendered the fortifications obsolete, but it remained important as a strategically located base.

After the war, Prussia was expressly forbidden to occupy Luxemburg. The Allied Powers encouraged Luxemburg to fortify the city to forestall any potential future Prussian designs on the grand duchy. With Allied aid, Luxemburg became the smallest postwar German state to have a full-fledged (albeit diminutive) standing army, the Lëtzebuerger Arméi.

After GW2 Luxemburg also created a small air force, the Groussherzogesch Loftwaff. It adopted for its insignia a roundel rather than a typical German cross.

Languages

Language map of Luxemburg

Luxemburgish

The national language, Lëtzebuergesch or Luxemburgish, is a branch of central High German, also known as Middle Franconian. It is similar to Luxembourgish *here*, except that much of the French influence is replaced with influence from Jovian. It differs from many other German dialects in that it has been standardized for use in literature and administration.

French dialects

Luxemburg is divided along a roughly north-south line between Lëtzebuergesch speakers in the east and French speakers in the west. Walon is the French dialect in the northwest, while Lorain predominates in the southwest. The Francophone parts are more sparsely populated, and many French speakers have left for France or America since 1821, so Lëtzebuergesch is spoken by a large majority.

Note that although Luxemburgish is designated the national language, it does not have sole status as the official language: both Walon and Lorain are often used for official purposes such as civil courts and contracts.

Since the Francophone region is the more sparsely populated, it comprises only around 20% of the country's people. Walon and Lorain can be used for official purposes in the grand duchy, but few speakers are monolingual.

Other languages

Standard German is spoken mainly by immigrants from elsewhere in the Reich, nearly all of whom live in the capital. A few others live in the town of Arel and the southern border cities of Déifferdeng and Esch-Uelzecht. As in the rest of Germany, the standard language is largely urban and used for commerce and business.

Déifferdeng and Esch-Uelzecht are highly multilingual, home to many native Jovian speakers as well as speakers of Luxemburgish and German. Luxemburgers as a whole are among Europe's most multilingual citizens.

Conclusion

The westernmost of the German states in attitude as well as geography, Luxemburg straddles the divide between Germanic and Romance, beer and wine, Empire and independence, feudal past and modernizing present. As it continues to prove to the world that it is a different sort of place, change is the only thing certain in the future of this petit grand duchy.

(BK)

Participants of the Holy Roman Empire

Member Entities

Colony: Rickerman-Insel

Luxemburg

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