Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Leopold II [a] (9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was the second King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, and the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State from ...
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]
Leopold held this post for the rest of the war. Because of his position, Leopold was a potential German candidate for the throne of the puppet Kingdom of Poland. [5] On 4 March 1918, Leopold received yet another high honor, the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross, awarded only five times during World War I.
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".
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 ...
Carton de Wiart was born into an aristocratic family in Brussels, on 5 May 1880, as the eldest son of Léon Constant Ghislain Carton de Wiart (1854–1915), a lawyer and magistrate, and Ernestine Wenzig (1860–1886), although at the time he was widely believed to be an illegitimate son of King Leopold II of the Belgians. [8]
Prince Philippe was the third (second surviving) son of Leopold I (r. 1831–1865), the first King of the Belgians, and his wife, Louise-Marie of France, and the younger brother of King Leopold II of Belgium (r. 1865–1909). Princess Marie was a relative of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany (r.