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

Jose Triadó Mayol Biography

José Triadó Mayol (Barcelona, ​​1870- id ., 1929) Spanish draftsman, former bookseller and painter.He collaborated with his drawings in the magazines El gato negro (1898), Album Salón (1898-1899) and Hispania (1899-1902).Outstanding author of ex libris, as a painter he made the triptych Las Cortes de Manresa for the Sant Jordi room of the Generalitat of Catalonia.
Post a Comment
Read more

Jose Maria Valente Bover Biography

José María Valente Bover (Vinaroz, 1877-Sant Cugat del Vallès, 1954) Spanish theologian and scripturalist.A Jesuit since 1895, he was ordained in 1910.Professor of Sacred Scripture (1911-1950) and specialist in textual criticism of the New Testament, José María Valente Bover is the author of a Theology of Saint Paul and, in collaboration with Francisco Cantera Burgos, of a Spanish version of the Bible (1947).
Post a Comment
Read more

Hernan Cortes Biography

Hernán Cortés (Medellín, Badajoz, 1485-Castilleja de la Cuesta, Seville, 1547) Spanish conqueror of Mexico.Few times has history attributed the conquest of a vast territory to the determination and determination of one man; In this reduced list is Hernán Cortés, who always preferred to burn his ships to retreat.With little means, with little more support than his intelligence and his military and diplomatic intuition, he managed in just two years to reduce the splendid Aztec Empire to Spanish rule, populated, according to estimates, by some fifteen million inhabitants. Hernán Cortés It is true that various favorable circumstances accompanied him, and that, driven by ambition and the thirst for honors and riches, he committed abuses and violence, like other conquerors.But, of all of them, Cortés was the most cultured and capable captain, and although this does not serve as a mitigating factor, he was also impelled by a great religious fervor; his moral conscience came to ask him ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jose Mauri Biography

José Mauri (Valencia, 1856-Havana, 1937) Spanish composer.Installed in Cuba for most of his life, he founded the conservatory that bears his name there (1914).His work includes numerous songs and the opera The Slave (1921).
Post a Comment
Read more

Joseph Reinach Biography

Joseph Reinach (Paris, 1856-1921) French journalist.He started in the journalistic profession through the Parisian newspaper La République Française , where from 1877 he began to publish interesting political analyzes that placed him at the epicenter of French public life in the last quarter of the century XIX.He acquired such importance in such a short space of time that in 1881, following the proclamation in France of the Third Republic, President León Gambetta called him to his side to place all his trust in him and appoint him head of his secretariat. At only thirty years old (1886), he became editor-in-chief of La République Française .Once this position was released, he directed a noisy journalistic campaign from the pages of the newspaper against the nationalist and populist politics of Georges Boulanger (the " General Revanche ").With this and other similar matters of maximum national interest, Joseph Reinach continued to rise in French public life and, in 188...
Post a Comment
Read more

Angel Zárraga and Argüelles Biography

Ángel Zárraga y Argüelles (Durango, 1886-Mexico, 1946) Mexican painter and poet.Very soon he began to combine his interest in the visual arts with his innate literary vocation, and the sum of both creative activities made him one of the great figures of Aztec culture of the first half of the 20th century. As a member of the Mexican diplomatic corps, for several years he was stationed in Paris as cultural attaché to the Aztec embassy.In the French capital, Ángel Zárraga y Argüelles had the opportunity to establish contact with the main artistic figures of the moment, to learn about the latest trends and currents in European art and to participate in different groups such as the Society of Decorating Artists of Paris, which provided the opportunity to extend the field of his artistic creations to the noblest spaces of old Europe. Thus, the Mexican painter was commissioned to execute the frescoes that decorate the crypt of the church of Suresnes, the Via Crucis of the church of Meu...
Post a Comment
Read more

Joseph Rotblat Biography

Joseph Rotblat (Warsaw, 1908-London, 2005) British physicist of Polish origin trained by the University of Warsaw.He participated in the Manhattan project to build the atomic bomb, resigning in 1944 and returning to the United Kingdom.He worked in the fields of nuclear physics and X-rays, although he was noted for his activity against nuclear weapons.He was one of the organizers of the Pugwash conference, of which he was general secretary (1957-1973) and, from 1988 until his death, president.In 1995 he received the Nobel Peace Prize, which he shared with the Pugwash conference that he chaired.
Post a Comment
Read more

Jose Maria Quijano Biography

José María Quijano (José María Quijano Fernández-Hontoria; Corrales de Buelna, Santander, 1843-1911) Spanish lawyer and businessman, founder of Forjas de Buelna.Coming from a family with a tradition in the legal profession, José María decided to study Civil and Canon Law at the University of Valladolid, from which he graduated in 1866.After obtaining his degree, he moved to Santander where he practiced as a lawyer and as a Secretary of the Provincial Council.However, he had to leave this job because the sudden death of his in-law Víctor Gómez de los Ríos gave him the opportunity to take over the law firm that had been opened by it. José María Quijano Due to his transfer to the law firm, he went to his place of origin, and there he contacted family and friends again.Among them was his uncle Benigno Arce, who was a mining engineer.During the Universal Exhibition held in Paris in 1873, attended by Benigno and José María, a nail-making machine caught their attention.Upon their retur...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cassiano Floristan Biography

Casiano Floristán (Casiano Floristán Samanes; Arguedas, 1926-Pamplona, ​​2006) Spanish theologian.He studied chemical sciences at the University of Zaragoza, philosophy at the University of Salamanca and theology at the University of Innsbruck (Austria), a subject in which he received his doctorate in 1959 from the University of Tübingen (Germany).Ordained a priest in 1956, since 1960 he devoted himself to teaching theology at the Pontifical University of Salamanca.He is the author, among other works, of The pastoral aspect of religious sociology (1960), Theology of pastoral action (1968), The catechumenate (1972) and Evangelization, the task of a Christian (1978).Casiano Floristán was also director of the collective work Fundamental concepts of pastoral (1983).
Post a Comment
Read more