Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
King Leopold II, whose rule of the Congo Free State was marked by severe atrocities, violence and major population decline.. Even before his accession to the throne of Belgium in 1865, the future king Leopold II began lobbying leading Belgian politicians to create a colonial empire in the Far East or in Africa, which would expand and enhance Belgian prestige. [2]
King Leopold II and Princess Clémentine visit colonial celebrations in Antwerp on the occasion of the Congo's annexation to Belgium in 1909. International opposition and criticism at home from the Catholic Party, Progressive Liberals [52] and the Labour Party caused the Belgian Parliament to compel the king to cede the Congo Free State to ...
Force Publique soldiers photographed in 1900 Two Force Publique soldiers at Fort Shinkakasa.Shown are the blue and red uniforms worn until 1915. To command his Force Publique, Leopold II was able to rely on a mixture of volunteers (regular officers detached from the Belgian Army), mercenaries [4] and former officers from the armies of other European nations, especially those of Scandinavia ...
Cartoon by British caricaturist Francis Carruthers Gould depicting King Leopold II, and the Congo Free State A 1906 Punch cartoon by Edward Linley Sambourne depicting Leopold II as a rubber snake entangling a Congolese rubber collector. Leopold ran up high debts with his Congo investments before the beginning of the worldwide rubber boom in the ...
King Leopold II in the late 1800s. Leopold thought overseas colonies were of critical importance to become a great power, and worked to establish colonial possessions for Belgium. The national legislature did not authorize the colonial enterprise, and Leopold eventually acquired a colony in the Congo for himself with money loaned by the Belgian ...
In 1904 Leopold II was forced to allow an international parliamentary commission of inquiry entry to the Congo Free State. By 1908, public pressure and diplomatic manoeuvres led to the end of Leopold II's personal rule and to the annexation of the Congo as a colony of Belgium, known as the "Belgian Congo".
In Belgian public discourse, King Leopold II of Belgium (r. 1865–1909), who ruled the Congo Free State as his private property from 1885 to 1908, is generally held to bear the primary responsibility for the atrocities committed there in that colonial period. In the early 21st century, statues of Leopold II have been regularly defaced or ...
The book juxtaposes the motives of missionary David Livingstone, King Leopold II, and other leading figures in the southern African land-grab of the late 19th and early 20th century. Pakenham details the famous battles and short wars, such as the battles of Rorke's Drift and Isandlwana of the Anglo-Zulu war. The author explores how the ...