How did the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 change control of the Belgian territories?

Following the death of the Spanish Habsburg king Charles II in 1700 and the subsequent War of the Spanish Succession, the Treaties of Utrecht in 1713 fundamentally altered the control of the southern Low Countries, which roughly correspond to modern-day Belgium and Luxembourg.123

Prior to this, the region had been under Spanish rule as the Spanish Netherlands. Under the terms of the 1713 treaties, sovereignty over these territories was transferred from the Spanish crown to the Holy Roman emperor Charles VI, a member of the Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg. Consequently, the region became known as the Austrian Netherlands.1342

While the administration of the territory shifted from Madrid to Vienna, the region largely retained its existing political autonomy and traditional privileges regarding its judiciary and local councils. A subsequent agreement in 1715, the Treaty of Antwerp, confirmed that these internal conditions would remain essentially unchanged, with the notable exception of allowing Dutch troops to be stationed in the region as a barrier against potential French invasions.23