Skip to main content

Albert I of Belgium Biography

Albert I of Belgium

(Brussels, 1875-Marche-les-Dames, 1934) King of Belgium (1909-34), nephew and successor of King Leopold II of Belgium.Son of Philip, Count of Flanders, and Princess Maria de Hohenzollern, from childhood he received a careful education and entered the prestigious École Militaire de Bruxelles.In 1900 he married Princess Isabel de Baviera, with whom he had two children: Leopoldo Felipe Carlos, future King Leopoldo III, and Carlos Teodoro Enrique.

Albert I of Belgium

That same year he made a long trip through the Belgian Congo in which he examined the hardships and needs that the territory demanded, so that, On his return, he recommended to the government the need to build a railway network in the colony, in addition to demanding a radical change in the treatment of its indigenous inhabitants, treated as slaves.

In 1913, already as King of Belgium, Albert I made a diplomatic visit to Berlin, where he was informed by the German Emperor himself, Wilhelm II, of the intentions to go to war with France and of the invasion plan of that country, which included the passage through Belgium of the German armies.Back in his country, Alberto I devoted himself to reinforcing his army in anticipation of the imminent war: he substantially increased the number of troops and established compulsory military service.In turn, Albert I informed the French government of Germany's plans.

Finally, after the outbreak of World War I, on July 31, 1914, Albert I sent a letter to the German emperor informing him of Belgium's neutrality in the conflict.On August 2 of the same year, Wilhelm II issued an ultimatum to Belgium in which he asked Albert I for free passage to German troops in Belgian territory, all of this to carry out the plan devised by Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen and directed by General Helmuth von Moltke, which consisted of carrying out a lightning occupation of Belgium and penetrating France from the north, which would allow, once Paris was occupied, to transfer the bulk of the German troops to the eastern front.

After the resolute refusal of Albert I to the German requests, the invasion of Belgium began two days later.Alberto I was placed at the head of the Belgian army, in which he distinguished himself under the orders of the French general Ferdinand Foch, operational chief of the Belgian troops.After the hard battle of Autweup, in October 1914, the German army occupied practically the entire country and forced the troops of Albert I to retreat to the southwest of Flanders, the only Belgian area that had not yet fallen into German orbit.While the Belgian government was transferred to free France, King Albert I remained on the battlefront, where he energetically resisted the continuous attacks of the German forces and closed the way to Dunkirk and Calais, necessary to maintain communications, to the invader.with the British Isles.

After the end of World War I, Albert I appealed to the allied powers to abolish the Treaty of London (signed in 1839), by which Belgium was considered neutral country and therefore conducive to being violated and invaded in the event of a warlike confrontation, as had happened.The request of Alberto I was accepted, incorporating the measure between the points fixed in the Treaty of Versailles (1919), by which Germany had to pay Belgium large war reparations, both economic and territorial.

Alberto I personally led, until his death, the reconstruction of his country, destroyed and devastated by the occupation of German troops.It carried out effective support work in the reindustrialization of Belgium, in which the effort made in the construction of a powerful merchant fleet stands out.After having encouraged the national pride of his subjects with his direct participation in the war, Albert I established the services of voluntary work for the sake of the reconstruction of Belgium, a measure that all the political forces of the country unanimously supported, which always accepted the arbitration of the king in all serious or delicate matters of government.

In 1926, Albert I of Belgium helped introduce a monetary reform, necessary for the country, whose consequence was make the internal and external economy of Belgium more flexible.A great fan of extreme sports, he met his death while practicing mountaineering, on February 17, 1934.He was succeeded to the throne by his son Leopold III of Belgium.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

John jervis Biography

John Jervis (Meaford, 1735-Rochetts, 1823) British military.Commander of the English fleet in the West Indies (1793-1795) and in the Mediterranean (1795-1801).Forced to cross the Atlantic, he won a victory over the Spanish squad at Cape San Vicente (1797).First Lord of the Admiralty (1801-1804), where he put an end to corruption and indiscipline.
Post a Comment
Read more

Armando Discépolo Biography

Armando Discépolo (Buenos Aires, 1887- id ., 1971) Argentine playwright.His work abounds in festive themes and reideros that were very successful at the time ( The continuous movement , 1916; El chuco Pintos , 1917).Also noteworthy are his sainetes with dramatic touches, which make up what is known as grotesque criollo ( Mateo , 1923; Stéfano , 1928; Clockmaker , 1934).
Post a Comment
Read more

Hosea Biography

Hosea Old Testament prophet, the first of the group of the so-called Twelve Minor Prophets.Born around 800 BC.and died around 725 BC, he developed his ministry in the northern kingdom (Israel), where he came from.Hosea preached at the end of the reign of Jeroboam II (782-743 BC) and in the time of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah; therefore, its prophetic mission must be between 750 and 725 BC. The prophet Hosea He is credited with the authorship of the so-called Book of Hosea , in which the prophet denounces the people's infidelity towards Yahweh and it reveals the tender love of God, comparable to that of the husband who forgives his unfaithful wife or the father who loves his rebellious son.The book comprises fourteen chapters, and is divided into two parts.The first (chapters 1-3) symbolically exposes Israel's infidelity and announces her punishment and salvation in a presaged return to national unity.The second (chapters 4-14) directly challenges the people with r...
Post a Comment
Read more

James Wilkinson Biography

James Wilkinson (Calvert County, 1757-Mexico, 1825) American politician and adventurer.He participated in the American War of Independence and in the Kentucky separatist movement (1787) as a double agent for Spain.He was named Governor of Louisiana in 1805 and Commander of New Orleans in 1813.
Post a Comment
Read more

Giacomo Puccini Biography

Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, present-day Italy, 1858-Brussels, 1924) Italian composer.Heir to the great Italian lyrical tradition, but at the same time open to other currents and styles typical of the turn of the century, Puccini became the great dominator of the international lyrical scene during the first decades of the 20th century.He was not a prolific creator: without counting a few instrumental pieces and some religious pieces composed in his youth, twelve operas make up the bulk of his production, an insignificant figure compared to those of his predecessors, but enough to make him a key author of the repertoire.operatic and one of the most appreciated and applauded by the public. Puccini Giacomo Puccini was born into a family, some of whose members had held, since the 18th century, the position of chapelmaster from Lucca Cathedral.On the death of his father, Michele, in 1863, little Giacomo, despite not having shown a special musical talent, was destined to follow the family ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Guglielmo Ferrero Biography

Guglielmo Ferrero (Portici, 1871-Monte Peregrino, 1942) Italian historian.Disciple of Cesare Lombroso, he continued his positivism.From his first major work, The Grandeur and Decay of Rome , published from 1901 to 1907, he demonstrated a marked tendency towards sociology and the philosophy of history. Guglielmo Ferrero When fascism arrived, Guglielmo Ferrero lined up among his most intransigent adversaries and had to exile himself.Hosted in Switzerland, he continued the fight against the aforementioned political regime and in 1930 obtained the chair of History of the French Revolution at the University of Geneva. The courses on the French Revolution gave rise to two works, written in French: Adventure , Bonaparte in Italy (1796-1797) and Reconstruction , Talleyrand in Vienna (1814-1815) .In them he tried to point out to contemporary politicians the paths to a stable peace.At the same time, he taught history at the Institut Universitaire des Hautes Études Internationales ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Elijah Querejeta Biography

Elías Querejeta (Elías Querejeta Gárate; Hernani, 1930-Madrid, 2013) Spanish film producer.He studied chemistry and law, while at the same time he was part of the Real Sociedad de San Sebastián football team, a career he abandoned at the age of 24.He was a regular at the screenings held by the city's film clubs, where he met other young people-Víctor Erice, Antonio Eceiza-who would study at the Official Film School of Madrid. Elías Querejeta In 1961 he founded his first company, Laponia Films, at the same time that he collaborated with other production companies on his first films.After directing several short films, in 1964 he decided to found Elías Querejeta P.C.From his first films, he defined the style he wanted to print in his works, intervening in almost all of them as co-screenwriter, while gathering around him a group of professionals who would guarantee the finish of each film (Luis Cuadrado and Teo Escamilla as directors photography; Primitivo Álvaro, in the produc...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gian Domenico Cassini Biography

Gian Domenico Cassini (Perinaldo, present-day Italy, 1625-Paris, 1712) Italian-French astronomer.He was a professor of astronomy at the University of Bologna, where he studied and tabulated the positions of the satellites of Jupiter.In 1669 he assumed the direction of the Paris Observatory, at the express request of King Louis XIV, and in 1673 he was granted French citizenship.Continuing the studies begun in Italy, Cassini discovered the satellites of Saturn: Iapetus (1671), Rhea (1672), Tethys (1684) and Dione (1684).In 1675 he detected the dark space that separates the A and B rings of Saturn and that bears his name, the Cassini division.He was the first to consider zodiacal light as a phenomenon of cosmic and not meteorological origin (The elements of astronomy verified, 1693).Cassini rejected Johannes Kepler's theory of elliptical planetary orbits and proposed trajectories through oval curves, the so-called Cassini ovals.
Post a Comment
Read more

Joseph H. Maclagan Wedderburn Biography

Joseph H.Maclagan Wedderburn (Forfar, 1882-Princeton, 1948) British mathematician.Professor at Princeton University, he was editor of the Proceedings of the Edinburgh mathematical society (1905-1909) and the Annals of mathematics (1912-1928).He stated a theorem ( Wedderburn's theorem ) according to which every finite field is commutative.
Post a Comment
Read more

Federico Sopeña Biography

Federico Sopeña (Valladolid, 1917-Madrid, 1991) Spanish musicologist and music critic.Doctor of theology from the Gregorian University, he was professor of aesthetics and musicology at the Madrid Conservatory, where he also held the position of director (1951-1956).In 1958 he entered the Royal Spanish Academy and subsequently held the position of General Commissioner of Music (1971-1972) and director of the Prado Museum (1981-1983).His abundant production includes Contemporary European Music (1952), Stravinski (1956), Atlántida: Introduction to Manuel de Falla (1962) , Music and literature (1974), History of contemporary Spanish music (1976) and Written at night (1985).
Post a Comment
Read more