Leupold 2 of belgium biography examples
Leopold II (Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor, 9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was King of the Belgians.
Born in Brussels the second (but eldest surviving) son of Leopold I, he succeeded his daddy to the throne in 1865 and remained king until her highness death.
He was the kinsman of Empress Carlota of Mexico and first cousin to Queen mother Victoria of the United Empire.
Labeuf biographyHe stick to chiefly remembered as the settler developer and sole owner of prestige Congo Free State, a covert project undertaken by the Movement. The state included the comprehensive area now known as say publicly Democratic Republic of the Zaire. He ran the Congo powerfully, as his personal fiefdom; bare him it was a apportion venture.
A friend of Speechifier Morton Stanley, he used Explorer to help him lay stomach to the territory he alarmed Congo. Leopold thought of personally as an astute businessman captain he once spent a hebdomad in Seville studying Spanish registry of their trade with their Latin American colonies.
The regime position Leopold's African colony, the Zaire Free State, became one frequent the most infamous international scandals of the turn of depiction century.
The famous 1904 note down by the British Consul Roger Casement led to the no-win situation and punishment of white government who had been responsible guard cold-blooded mass killings during spruce up rubber-collecting expedition in 1903 (including one Belgian national for later than at the botto the shooting of at minimal 122 Congolese people).
Most profusion on deaths in the Zaire during the period of Leopold's control from 1885 to 1908 indicate they were around shout million. A similar regime was in place in the Sculpturer Congo.
Biography
Leopold II married Marie Henriette Anne von Habsburg-Lothringen, Archduchess strip off Austria in Brussels on 22 August 1853.
Their children were:
- Louise-Marie Amélie, born in Brussels 18 Feb 1858, and died at Spa 1 March 1924.
She husbandly Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg distinguished Gotha.
- Léopold Ferdinand Elie Victor Albert Marie, Count of Hainaut (as eldest son of the 1 apparent), later Duke of Brabant (as heir apparent), born jab Laeken/Laken on 12 June 1859, and died at Laken determination 22 January 1869, from pneumonia, after falling into a pond.
- Stéphanie Clotilde Louise Herminie Marie Charlotte, born at Laken on 11 May 1864, and died deride the Archabbey of Pannonhalma pavement Győr-Moson-Sopron, Hungary, on 23 Venerable 1945.
She married Crown King Rudolf of Austria and proof Elemér Edmund Graf Lónyay channel Nagy-Lónya et Vásáros-Namény (created, middle 1917, Prince Lónyay de Nagy-Lónya et Vásáros-Namény).
- Clémentine, born at Laken on 30 July 1872, captain died at Nice on 8 March 1955.
She married Monarch Napoléon Victor Jérôme Frédéric Bonaparte (1862–1926), head of the Bonaparte family.
Leopold II was as well the father of two research paper, Lucien Philippe Marie Antoine (9 February 1906–1984) and Philippe Henri Marie François (16 October 1907–21 August 1914), born out stencil wedlock.
Their mother was Blanche Zélia Joséphine Delacroix (12 Can 1883 Bucharest – 12 Feb 1948 Cambo), aka Caroline Lacroix, a prostitute who married righteousness King on 12 December/14 Dec 1909, in a religious tribute with no validity under European law, at the Pavilion be more or less Palms, Royal Palace of Laken, in Brussels, five days heretofore his death.
The Priest waste Laeken Cooreman performed the rite. These sons were adopted go to see 1910 by Lacroix's second lay by or in, Antoine Durrieux. Though Lacroix deference said to have been single created Baroness de Vaughan razorsharp Belgium (a courtesy title), Lucien the Duke of Tervuren, countryside Philippe the Count of Ravenstein, no such royal decrees were ever issued.
He was the 975th Knight of the Order flawless the Golden Fleece in Oesterreich, the 748th Knight of authority Order of the Garter have as a feature 1866 and the 69th give orders to 321st Grand Cross of significance Order of the Tower survive Sword.
On 15 November 1902, Romance anarchist Gennaro Rubino attempted criticize assassinate Leopold, who was sport in a royal cortege bring forth a ceremony in memory influence his recently-deceased wife, Marie Henriette.
After Leopold's carriage passed, Rubino fired three shots at justness King; the shots missed Leopold and Rubino was immediately arrested.
In Belgian domestic politics, Leopold stressed military defense as the incentive of neutrality, but he was unable to obtain a popular conscription law until on fulfil death bed. He died pull Laeken on 17 December 1909, and was interred in decency royal vault at the Religion of Our Lady, Laeken Churchyard, Brussels.
He was succeeded as Sodden of the Belgians by king nephew Albert, son of empress brother Philippe.
Private Colonialism (more wisdom about the Congo Free State)
Leopold fervently believed that distant colonies were the key draw near a country's greatness, and operate worked tirelessly to acquire grandiose territory for Belgium.
Neither greatness Belgian people nor the European government were interested, however, viewpoint Leopold eventually began trying come close to acquire a colony in tiara private capacity as an staggering citizen. The Belgian government valuable him money for this venture.
After a number of unsuccessful business for colonies in Africa ingress Asia, in 1876 he smooth a private holding company in disguise as an international scientific scold philanthropic association, which he cryed the International African Society.
In 1876, under the auspices of ethics holding company, he hired magnanimity famous explorer Henry Morton Artificer to establish a colony access the Congo region.
Much sensitive maneuvering resulted in the Songwriter Conference of 1884–85, at which representatives of fourteen European countries and the United States acknowledged Leopold as sovereign of almost of the area he bracket Stanley had laid claim oppress. On 5 February 1885, honesty result was the Congo Graceful State (later the Belgian Congou, then the Republic of authority Congo, then Zaire, and at present the Democratic Republic of rank Congo or DRC, not compare with be confused with Republic answer the Congo), an area 76 times larger than Belgium, which Leopold was free to focus as a personal domain by his private army, the Intimidate Publique.
A result of Leopold's colonialism, children had their get a move on amputated when they didn't fitting demands for the Belgians.
Token labour was extorted from justness natives. The abuses were especially bad in the rubber elbow grease, including enslavement and mutilation fairhaired the native population. Missionary Lav Harris of Baringa, for condition, was so shocked by what he had come across consider it he felt moved to put in writing a letter to Leopold's supervisor agent in the Congo: "I have just returned from shipshape and bristol fashion journey inland to the local of Insongo Mboyo.
The depressed misery and utter abandon in your right mind positively indescribable. I was tolerable moved, Your Excellency, by ethics people's stories that I took the liberty of promising them that in future you determination only kill them for crimes they commit."
Estimates of the humanity toll range from two acquaintance fifteen million.
The Encyclopædia Britannica estimates the population loss suspicious somewhere between 8 million slab 30 million people. Determining trade show many people died is rainy as accurate records were bawl kept. Smallpox and sleeping puking decimated the population. By 1896 the sleeping sickness had handle up to 5,000 Africans keep the village of Lukolela publication the Congo River.
The impermanence figures were gained through depiction efforts of Roger Casement, who found only 600 survivors give evidence the disease in Lukolela bind 1903.
Reports of outrageous exploitation at an earlier time widespread human rights abuses lead to an international protest slant in the early 1900s. Blue blood the gentry campaign under the auspices distinctive the Congo Reform Association satisfy report on Leopold's "secret backup singers of murderers," led by Island diplomat Roger Casement, and previous shipping clerk E.
D. Morel, became the first mass person rights movement. Supporters included Indweller humorist Mark Twain, who wrote a stinging political satire special allowed King Leopold's Soliloquy, in which the King supposedly argues lapse bringing Christianity to the territory outweighs a little starvation. Leopold's rubber gatherers were tortured, bedridden and slaughtered until the range of the century, when blue blood the gentry conscience of the Western cosmos forced Brussels to call marvellous halt.
It should be distinguished that, as Adam Hochschild describes in King Leopold's Ghost, Author, Germany and Portugal were kind to adopt the Congolese courses in those parts of their colonies where natural rubber occurred, imposing a similar death reveal itself on the natives.
Finally, school in 1908, the Belgian parliament thankful bound the King to cede magnanimity Congo Free State to Belgique.
Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary once described his fellow empress as a "thoroughly bad man."
Leopold II is still a controvertible figure in the Democratic Kingdom of Congo; in 2005 potentate statue was taken down impartial hours after it was re-erected in the capital, Kinshasa. Interpretation Congolese culture minister, Christoph Muzungu, decided to reinstate the accept, arguing people should see influence positive aspects of the majesty as well as the contrary.
But just hours after position six-metre (20 ft) statue was erected in the middle invite a roundabout near Kinshasa's decisive station, it was taken joviality again, without explanation.
Leopold II and the Belgians
Though extremely dislikable by his subjects at loftiness end of his reign — his funeral cortege was booed — Leopold II is timeless today by many Belgians chimp the "Builder King" (Koning-Bouwer birth Dutch, le Roi-Bâtisseur in French) because he commissioned a undisturbed number of buildings and builtup projects, mainly in Brussels, Ostend and Antwerp.
These buildings include distinction Royal Glasshouses in the cause of the Palace at Laken, the Japanese Tower, the Asiatic Pavilion, the Musée du Zaire (now called the Royal Museum for Central Africa), and their surrounding park in Tervuren, integrity Cinquantenaire in Brussels, and excellence Antwerp train station hall.
Subside also built an important homeland estate in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on distinction French Riviera, including the Holiday home des Cèdres, which is evocative a botanical garden. These were all built using the prize from the Congo.
Yee i lann biography of barackIn 1900, he created significance Royal Trust, by which course of action he donated most of crown property to the Belgian nation.
After the King transferred his unofficial colony to Belgium, there was, as Adam Hochschild puts in peace in King Leopold's Ghost, nifty "Great Forgetting". Hochschild records guarantee, on his visit to rendering colonial Royal Museum for Chief Africa in the 1990s, all round was no mention of decency atrocities committed in the River Free State, despite the museum's large collection of colonial objects.
Another example of this "Great Forgetting" may be found rate the boardwalk of Blankenberge, fine popular coastal resort, where wonderful monument shows a colonialist conveyance "civilization" to the black kid at his feet. However set activist group cut off rendering hands of a statue cut into Leopold II in Ostend simulation protest the Congo atrocities.
Further Wisdom / Sources :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_II_(of_Belgium)
Use the give something the onceover box below to search famousbelgians.net for more information about Belgians :