Part IV: Fighting France and Britain
With Belgium out of the war, Prussia found herself at war against France and Britain. Immediately after the attempt to siege Lille the French launched a counter attack on Tournai, with 90,000 troops. The two armies met at the outskirts of Tournai on the 26th of December. The odds initially favoured the French, but after one month of manoeuvring and sporadic attacks by the Prussians, they inflicted mediocre losses upon the French and made the odds favour them.
This procedure took nearly 4 months, before the armies met at Mouscron, a village about 20 kilometres from Tournai. By now the Prussians had called upon reinforcements and outnumbered the French 2 to 1. The battle lasted for a few days, before the French withdrew to Cambrai. This was the time for the Prussian to use their long border against the French. When French troops had appeared near Tournai, the Prussians launched a counter offensive against the city of Metz. By the time the Battle of Tournai had ended, Metz was firmly in Prussian hands. During the next stage nearly 100,000 Prussian crossed the border and marched towards Lille and Camrbrai. Short battles occurred in the vicinity of the cities, but the French were unable to push the Prussian forces back.
Just as Lille and Cambrai were falling to the advancing Prussian army, the French started to express their desire for peace. Although Prussia was able to continue the war, it would take a huge toll, as already the economy was strained by the war effort. Under economic pressure, the Prussian state offered favourable terms to France and on the 20th of May, 1838, hostilities between France and Prussia ended.
The only thing remaining was Britain, which had, since the start of the war, been harassing the Dutch. The occupation of the harbour of Rotterdam was a blow to the economy of the Dutch, and so Prussian troops marched towards Rotterdam. Nearly 50,000 British troops found themselves encircled when a force of nearly 70,000 Prussian and Dutch troops engaged British positions. Despite initial successes of the British, they were slowly being pushed back to the coast, and on the 9th of September, the remaining 14,500 British troops surrendered. With Rotterdam once again under Dutch control, peace talks between Britain, the Netherlands and Prussia commenced. The British initially wanted to take the Dutch colony of Surinam, but due to the recent losses the stood no chance on actually gaining them.
The London Treaty was revised and now acknowledged Prussian ownership over Wallonia, while the Dutch would gain Breda back from the Belgians. The British further had to concede that Belgium was dead, and that the Flemish successor state would become a Dutch satellite state.
The Lowlands after the Belgian Conflict has ended