March, 1950

Faced with a general strike across the country immediately after taking the regency from his now-dead brother, King Leopold III directed a strong response to "those attempting to challenge his authority." Incensed by the strike being set off by a referendum on his rule, Leopold directed that the Belgian Armed Forces and Gendarmerie were to put down the strike with as much force as necessary. It was clear that he saw a Communist Uprising in the General Strike, despite little evidence to support that conclusion.

Despite being countermanded by several officers at varying levels, the response to the strike overall was violent and severe. In Mons, police fired on an assembly of workers, killing four and injuring dozens others, after claiming to be attacked by a sniper on a nearby rooftop. In Namur, several protestors were severely injured when mounted gendarmerie charged on an assembled group of strikers. In Liege, the original epicenter of the violence that started last year, the local military commander refused to conduct a repeat of the Massacre of the 101 that occurred in June of last year. Instead, pro-Leopoldists militias from across Flanders bussed in armed groups of supporters, who have cracked down with even more brutality than their military and gendarme counterparts. This crackdown had the intended effect, however, and the general strike was broken after only two weeks.

The strong response has had the effect of galvanizing the anti-Leopoldist, pro-Wallonian camp into a solid United Front for Wallonia (FUW). This organization declares its support for an independent, or at least autonomous Wallonia. The majority of supporters fall into one of these two classifications, with a minor amount supporting a Rattachist agenda with France. The FUW, as of yet, has not voiced support for some of the more radical Wallonian groups, including the RDSW-AD which claimed responsibility for the machine-gun attack on Palace Laeken last year. However, given the growing amount of pro-Leopoldist militias, and the violent breakup of the general strike, it is expected that violence, strikes, and civil unrest will continue in Belgium for the foreseeable future.