Risquons-Tout
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Risquons-Tout is a hamlet in the municipality of Mouscron, Hainaut province, Wallonia, Belgium. It is primarily known for the Risquons-Tout incident, in which a group of Belgian émigrés entered the country carrying arms in an attempt to overthrow the Belgian government during the Revolutions of 1848.
Name
Risquons-Tout is French for "Let's risk it all". The name was originally affixed to a sign for a cabaret that is no longer in existence.[1]
Location
The hamlet lies on a national border, immediately adjacent to Neuville-en-Ferrain and Tourcoing in France, and on a regional border, adjacent to Rekkem in Flanders. Risquons-Tout was once part of the municipality of Rekkem. In 1963, when the Belgian-language border was fixed, it was transferred to the city of Mouscron.[citation needed]
Risquons-Tout incident
Shortly after the French Revolution of 1848, Belgian migrant workers living in Paris were encouraged to return to Belgium to overthrow the monarchy and establish a republic.[2] Around 6,000 émigrés, coming from Paris, formed the Belgian Legion. The legion, equipped with weaponry by some of the administrative authorities of Lille, intended to penetrate into Belgium to "raise the people" and overthrow the Belgian monarchy. It is likely that the revolutionaries had the support of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Second Republic, which had only recently been installed and was still very militant. The first group of revolutionaries attempted to travel into Belgium by train; they were stopped and quickly disarmed at Quiévrain on March 26, 1848.[3]
The 2000-man-strong second group entered Belgium at dawn on March 29 at Risquons-Tout. The revolutionaries were met by around 250 infantrymen of the Belgian Army under the command of General Joseph Fleury-Duray. A heavy cannonade routed the revolutionaries in only two hours, killing seven and wounding 26. Sixty revolutionaries were captured. Some of the captured were imprisoned in the Citadel of Huy, and 17 of them were condemned to death and executed at Antwerp.[4]
Several smaller revolutionary groups managed to infiltrate Belgium, but the reinforced Belgian border troops were successful in keeping order, and the defeat at Risquons-Tout effectively ended the revolutionary threat to Belgium. Later two streets were named after the incident, and a monument was erected in the local cemetery.[citation needed]
