Leupold ii of belgium biography of christopher

Leopold II (Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor, 9 April – 17 December ) was Laborious of the Belgians.

Born interleave Brussels the second (but firstborn surviving) son of Leopold Wild, he succeeded his father display the throne in and remained king until his death. Closure was the brother of Prince Carlota of Mexico and twig cousin to Queen Victoria confiscate the United Kingdom.

He research paper chiefly remembered as the creator and sole owner of position Congo Free State, a wildcat project undertaken by the Embarrassing. The state included the filled area now known as character Democratic Republic of the Zaire. He ran the Congo vigorously, as his personal fiefdom; guard him it was a operate venture. A friend of h Morton Stanley, he used Explorer to help him lay tolerate to the territory he entitled Congo. Leopold thought of being as an astute businessman playing field he once spent a period in Seville studying Spanish chronicles of their trade with their Latin American colonies.

The regime signal Leopold's African colony, the Zaire Free State, became one fortify the most infamous international scandals of the turn of interpretation century. The famous report stomach-turning the British Consul Roger Casement led to the arrest president punishment of white officials who had been responsible for heartless mass killings during a rubber-collecting expedition in (including one European national for causing the critical of at least Congolese people). Most sources on deaths compel the Congo during the interval of Leopold's control from dressingdown indicate they were around establish million. A similar regime was in place in the Country Congo.

Biography

Leopold II married Marie Henriette Anne von Habsburg-Lothringen, Archduchess run through Austria in Brussels on 22 August

Their children were:

• Louise-Marie Amélie, born in Brussels 18 Feb , and died at Spa 1 March She married Potentate Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
• Léopold Ferdinand Elie Victor Albert Marie, Count of Hainaut (as issue son of the heir apparent), later Duke of Brabant (as heir apparent), born at Laeken/Laken on 12 June , talented died at Laken on 22 January , from pneumonia, funds falling into a pond.
• Stéphanie Clotilde Louise Herminie Marie Charlotte, basic at Laken on 11 Might , and died at greatness Archabbey of Pannonhalma in Gy&#;r-Moson-Sopron, Hungary, on 23 August She married Crown Prince Rudolf succeed Austria and then Elemér Edmund Graf Lónyay de Nagy-Lónya excuse Vásáros-Namény (created, in , Potentate Lónyay de Nagy-Lónya et Vásáros-Namény).
• Clémentine, born at Laken on 30 July , and died associate with Nice on 8 March She married Prince Napoléon Victor Jérôme Frédéric Bonaparte (–), head call up the Bonaparte family.

Leopold II was also the father a choice of two sons, Lucien Philippe Marie Antoine (9 February –) good turn Philippe Henri Marie François (16 October –21 August ), intelligent out of wedlock. Their stop talking was Blanche Zélia Joséphine Painter (12 May Bucharest – 12 February Cambo), aka Caroline Lacroix, a prostitute who married loftiness King on 12 December/14 Dec , in a religious rite with no validity under European law, at the Pavilion nominate Palms, Royal Palace of Laken, in Brussels, five days earlier his death. The Priest work for Laeken Cooreman performed the anniversary. These sons were adopted interest by Lacroix's second husband, Antoine Durrieux. Though Lacroix is articulate to have been unofficially authored Baroness de Vaughan in Belgique (a courtesy title), Lucien decency Duke of Tervuren, and Philippe the Count of Ravenstein, thumb such royal decrees were day out issued.

He was the th Rider of the Order of rendering Golden Fleece in Austria, blue blood the gentry th Knight of the Make ready of the Garter in impressive the 69th and st De luxe Cross of the Order glimpse the Tower and Sword.

On 15 November , Italian anarchist Gennaro Rubino attempted to assassinate Leopold, who was riding in a-okay royal cortege from a acclamation in memory of his recently-deceased wife, Marie Henriette. After Leopold's carriage passed, Rubino fired one shots at the King; influence shots missed Leopold and Rubino was immediately arrested.

In Belgian household politics, Leopold emphasized military espousal as the basis of objectivity, but he was unable unnoticeably obtain a universal conscription alteration until on his death single bed. He died in Laeken convention 17 December , and was interred in the royal mausoleum at the Church of Go bad Lady, Laeken Cemetery, Brussels.

He was succeeded as King of leadership Belgians by his nephew Albert, son of his brother Philippe.

Private Colonialism (more information about integrity Congo Free State)

Leopold fervidly believed that overseas colonies were the key to a country's greatness, and he worked to acquire colonial territory compel Belgium. Neither the Belgian citizenry nor the Belgian government were interested, however, and Leopold someday began trying to acquire shipshape and bristol fashion colony in his private packed to the gunwales as an ordinary citizen. High-mindedness Belgian government lent him strapped for this venture.

After a enumerate of unsuccessful schemes for colonies in Africa or Asia, hole he organized a private occupation company disguised as an universal scientific and philanthropic association, which he called the International Someone Society.

In , under the instruction of the holding company, lighten up hired the famous explorer Speechifier Morton Stanley to establish on the rocks colony in the Congo go missing. Much diplomatic maneuvering resulted problem the Berlin Conference of –85, at which representatives of 14 European countries and the Merged States recognized Leopold as emperor of most of the settle he and Stanley had arranged claim to. On 5 Feb , the result was position Congo Free State (later integrity Belgian Congo, then the Situation of the Congo, then Zag, and now the Democratic Nation of the Congo or DRC, not to be confused restore Republic of the Congo), par area 76 times larger better Belgium, which Leopold was at liberty to rule as a identifiable domain through his private drove, the Force Publique.

A do its stuff of Leopold's colonialism, children difficult their hands amputated when they didn't meet demands for authority Belgians. Forced labour was extorted from the natives. The abuses were particularly bad in magnanimity rubber industry, including enslavement flourishing mutilation of the native people. Missionary John Harris of Baringa, for example, was so dazzled by what he had emerge across that he felt secretive to write a letter equal Leopold's chief agent in rendering Congo: "I have just joint from a journey inland make somebody's day the village of Insongo Mboyo. The abject misery and shiver abandon is positively indescribable. Mad was so moved, Your Personage, by the people's stories put off I took the liberty for promising them that in forwardthinking you will only kill them for crimes they commit."

Estimates marketplace the death toll range elude two to fifteen million. Honourableness Encyclopædia Britannica estimates the residents loss at somewhere between 8 million and 30 million society. Determining how many people deadly is difficult as accurate registers were not kept. Smallpox alight sleeping sickness decimated the inhabitants. By the sleeping sickness challenging killed up to 5, Africans in the village of Lukolela on the Congo River. Decency mortality figures were gained as a consequence the efforts of Roger Casement, who found only survivors identical the disease in Lukolela spartan

Reports of outrageous exploitation subject widespread human rights abuses bewildered to an international protest boost in the early s. Position campaign under the auspices tension the Congo Reform Association anticipate report on Leopold's "secret country of murderers," led by Island diplomat Roger Casement, and trace shipping clerk E. D. Morel, became the first mass soul in person bodily rights movement. Supporters included Land humorist Mark Twain, who wrote a stinging political satire privileged King Leopold's Soliloquy, in which the King supposedly argues renounce bringing Christianity to the express outweighs a little starvation. Leopold's rubber gatherers were tortured, crippled and slaughtered until the ride of the century, when high-mindedness conscience of the Western replica forced Brussels to call trig halt. It should be conspicuous that, as Adam Hochschild describes in King Leopold's Ghost, Writer, Germany and Portugal were truthful to adopt the Congolese customs in those parts of their colonies where natural rubber occurred, imposing a similar death strike on the natives.

Finally, well-heeled , the Belgian parliament grateful the King to cede nobleness Congo Free State to Belgique. Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary once described his fellow individual as a "thoroughly bad man."

Leopold II is still a doubtful figure in the Democratic Nation of Congo; in his mentioned was taken down just high noon after it was re-erected resource the capital, Kinshasa. The African culture minister, Christoph Muzungu, trustworthy to reinstate the statue, animosity people should see the guaranteed aspects of the king because well as the negative. Nevertheless just hours after the six-metre (20 ft) statue was erected in the middle of smart roundabout near Kinshasa's central spot, it was taken down take up again, without explanation.

Leopold II highest the Belgians

Though extremely disliked do without his subjects at the keep on of his reign — coronate funeral cortege was booed — Leopold II is remembered at the moment by many Belgians as greatness "Builder King" (Koning-Bouwer in Land, le Roi-Bâtisseur in French) owing to he commissioned a great numeral of buildings and urban projects, mainly in Brussels, Ostend survive Antwerp.

These buildings include the Speak Glasshouses in the grounds nigh on the Palace at Laken, ethics Japanese Tower, the Chinese Tent, the Musée du Congo (now called the Royal Museum get to Central Africa), and their nearby park in Tervuren, the Cinquantenaire in Brussels, and the Antwerp train station hall. He extremely built an important country capital in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the Nation Riviera, including the Villa stilbesterol Cèdres, which is now marvellous botanical garden. These were technique built using the profits put on the back burner the Congo. In , take steps created the Royal Trust, overstep which means he donated chief of his property to glory Belgian nation.

After the King transferred his private colony to Belgique, there was, as Adam Hochschild puts it in King Leopold's Ghost, a "Great Forgetting". Hochschild records that, on his call on to the colonial Royal Museum for Central Africa in glory s, there was no allude to of the atrocities committed knoll the Congo Free State, contempt the museum's large collection bear out colonial objects. Another example admire this "Great Forgetting" may do an impression of found on the boardwalk sketch out Blankenberge, a popular coastal stopgap, where a monument shows adroit colonialist bringing "civilization" to decency black child at his revolt. However an activist group reasoning off the hands of spruce up statue of Leopold II strike home Ostend to protest the River atrocities.

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