Albert I. (Belgium)
Albert I. ( born Prince Albert Léopold Clément Marie Meinrad of Belgium ; * April 8, 1875 in the 'Palais de la Régence', Brussels ; † February 17, 1934 near Marche-les-Dames, a sub-municipality of Namur in Belgium) from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , was King of the Belgians from 1909 until his death .
Origin and early years
Prince Albert of Belgium was born on April 8, 1875, the fifth child and second son of Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders and his wife Maria Luise von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen . His father was the younger brother of the reigning Belgian King Leopold II and the newborn was fourth in line to the throne on the day of his birth. However, Crown Prince Leopold had died in 1869, and when Albert's older brother Prince Baudouin also died in 1891, Albert was then considered the presumptive heir of the Belgian crown. Since the death of his father in 1905 he has been a direct heir to the throne.
The training of the young prince was military and scientific-technical. Albert was characterized as a hardworking and ambitious student who conscientiously prepared himself for his possible role as monarch. In 1891 Albert entered the Royal Military Academy in Brussels and in 1892 was appointed lieutenant in a grenadier regiment.
From 1893 to 1909, Prince Albert was a member of the Senate . In this function he showed a real interest in the situation of the Belgian workforce and personally traveled incognito to working-class neighborhoods to see for himself the living conditions. In addition, he publicly advocated the improvement of the infrastructure and the navy. In the spring of 1898 Albert went on a four-month trip through North America , which he a. a. to New York City , Washington, DC , Boston , Los Angeles , San Francisco , Montreal, and Québec . In 1908 he undertook an extensive journey through the Belgian Congo , which until shortly before was the personal property of his uncle Leopold II. The prince found a completely dilapidated and exploited colony and made the decision to initiate reforms to protect the locals.
Marriage and offspring
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On October 2, 1900 Albert married in Munich , the Wittelsbach -Prinzessin Elisabeth Gabriele in Bavaria , second daughter of the famous ophthalmologist Carl Theodor in Bavaria (brother of the Austrian Empress Elisabeth ) and his wife Maria Josepha of Portugal . The two had met at a family funeral in France in 1897 and were able to get their love wedding through. The marriage, which was described as extremely trusting and loving, had three children:
- Léopold (born November 3, 1901 - † September 25, 1983), Duke of Brabant , as Leopold III. King of the Belgians from 1934 to 1951 ∞ Astrid of Sweden
- Charles (October 10, 1903 - June 1, 1983), Count of Flanders , Prince of Belgium
- Marie-José (August 4, 1906 - January 27, 2001), Princess of Belgium ∞ King Umberto II of Italy
As king (1909 to 1934)
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After 44 years of reign, Leopold II died on December 17, 1909. Six days later, the 34-year-old Albert swore his oath on the Belgian constitution and was proclaimed Albert I as the new king. He was the first Belgian monarch to take his oath not only in French , but also in Flemish . Then the new ruling couple in Brussels was cheered by an enthusiastic crowd. Due to their undemanding and harmonious family life, which was in contrast to the autocratic style of their predecessor, the king and queen enjoyed great popularity among the people.
In the early years of his reign, Albert strictly adhered to his constitutional role and surrounded himself with liberal figures such as Julius Ingenbleek and Harry Jungbluth . He also tried to narrow the gap between the monarchy and the population, for example by doing without an armed escort and allowing journalists to accompany him on trips. In terms of foreign policy, Albert tried to maintain good relations with France and the German Reich , but when the danger of war in Europe increased in the 1910s, he enlarged the Belgian army to around 350,000 men through an army reform in 1913 .
After the outbreak of the First World War , he rejected the demands of the neighboring German Reich for his troops to march freely through neutral Belgium and, after their invasion on August 3, 1914, had Belgian territory defended. As provided by the constitution for the case of defense, the king now assumed supreme command of the armed forces . His army managed to hold back the advance of the German troops long enough ( siege of Antwerp ) to give France and Great Britain time to prepare for the battle of the Marne (September 5–12, 1914). During the war, Belgium was almost 99% occupied and was subject to a harsh German occupation policy. King Albert was determined to resist and continued fighting with the remnants of his army from French territory and from unoccupied Belgium behind the Yser front in trench warfare. The royal family shared the fate of their subjects and soldiers: Elisabeth served as a nurse and the Crown Prince as an officer at the front. It was not until the summer of 1918 that the war paper finally turned in favor of the Entente . As the commander of the Flanders Army Group , which consisted of Belgian, British and French troops, Albert led a final offensive that liberated West Flanders until the armistice on November 11, 1918. When they moved into Brussels on November 22nd, the royal family was enthusiastically received and Albert formed a unity government with the "Government of the National Association" made up of representatives of the three major parties (Catholics, Liberals, Socialists). Together with this government, Albert pushed ahead with the reconstruction of the destroyed country; also with funds from his private assets. He also promised his people liberal reforms, the introduction of universal suffrage and the establishment of a Flemish university in Ghent .
In 1919 King Albert took part in the Paris Peace Conference to protect Belgium's foreign and security interests and to get reparations from Germany, because the main topic of his later rule was the reconstruction of his country, which even went so far that Belgian troops took part in the 1923 Ruhr occupation involved.
As the first ruling European monarch, Albert and his wife Elisabeth visited the United States in 1919.
In 1934 Albert visited Palestine and the Holy Land . He made a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulcher in the Jerusalem Church of the Holy Sepulcher . In Jerusalem he was knighted by Luigi Barlassina , the Patriarch of Jerusalem , of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and accepted into the Papal Lay Order.
Alpinism
Albert I was an avid mountaineer and climber whose interest in alpinism was aroused in 1901 by a lecture given by the secretary of the founder of the Solvayhütte on the Matterhorn . In 1907 Albert and his wife Elisabeth and the mountain guides Martin Schocher and Benedikt Supersaxo made the first ascent of the northeast ridge of Piz Caral (3421 m). In 1908 he was able to climb the Matterhorn (4478 m) over the Hörnligrat with three mountain guides . After his coronation he graduated from the serious climbing in the Dolomites , such as the south wall of the Marmolada (3343) or the 14 commission of the Preußwand ( V. difficulty ) in the east wall of the Campanile Basso (2883 m) along with Tita Piaz . He was considered the king of the mountains.
death
King Albert I died at the age of 58 on February 17, 1934, while climbing alone in the Ardennes near Marche-les-Dames. This place has been a sub-municipality of Namur since a regional reform in 1977 and is located about 8 km downstream on the Meuse . The official report named a climbing accident as the cause of death. In addition, other causes of death were and are suspected, e.g. B. an assassination attempt or a suicide. The official report mentioned an atypical location for a crash; A single bloody stone was found two to three meters from the body. A DNA test, in which blood residues found were compared with living relatives of the king, confirmed the official report in 2016 that Albert I actually fell while climbing.
A memorial has been set up at the foot of the rock at the crash site. Since then, the rock has also been known as Roche fatale (roughly: "Death Rock"), after which even streets in Belgium are named, e.g. B. the rue de la Roche Fatale / Noodlottige rotsstraat in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert / Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe .
His death is documented as "Belgian / King / Killed / Plunges / to Death / Mountain / Peak" in the 1934 mural "Library" by Bernard Zakheim in Coit Tower , San Francisco.
His eldest son followed him as Leopold III. to. Albert was buried in the royal crypt of the Church of Our Lady in Laeken .
rating
Albert has the greatest reputation alongside the first king of the Belgians, Leopold I. The historian Christoph Driessen writes about him in his history of Belgium : “The knight-king , who led his soldiers into the field himself, but avoided losing offensives and after the war drove the democratization of his country and the expansion of the welfare state, is considered the Belgian national hero par excellence. (...) There should not have been many monarchs in history who have made such a contribution to democracy as Albert, who is extraordinary in every respect. "
ancestors
| Franz von Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld (1750-1806) | |||||||||||||
| Leopold I King of Belgium (1790-1865) | |||||||||||||
| Auguste Reuss zu Ebersdorf (1757-1831) | |||||||||||||
| Philip of Belgium (1837–1905) | |||||||||||||
| Louis-Philippe I King of the French, (1773-1850) | |||||||||||||
| Louise d'Orléans (1812-1850) | |||||||||||||
| Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily (1782-1866) | |||||||||||||
| Albert I King of Belgium | |||||||||||||
| Karl von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1785-1853) | |||||||||||||
| Karl Anton von Hohenzollern (1811-1885) | |||||||||||||
| Antoinette Murat (1793-1847) | |||||||||||||
| Maria Luise von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1845-1912) | |||||||||||||
| Karl Grand Duke of Baden (1786-1818) | |||||||||||||
| Josephine von Baden (1813-1900) | |||||||||||||
| Stéphanie de Beauharnais (1789-1860) | |||||||||||||
See also
Web links
- King Albert I Memorial Foundation
- Archives Albert I Belgium , Royal Museum for Central Africa
- Personal folder on Albert I. (1) (PDF) in the historical Alpine archive of the Alpine clubs in Germany, Austria and South Tyrol (temporarily offline)
- Personal folder on Albert I. (2) (PDF) in the historical Alpine archive of the Alpine associations in Germany, Austria and South Tyrol (temporarily offline)
- Newspaper article about Albert I in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Valmar Cramer: The Order of Knights of the Holy Grave , Bachem 1952, p. 98
- ^ Roland Renson: The mountain king: Albert I of Belgium (1875-1934) and the sociocultural symbolism of mountaineering. 2010.
- ↑ z. B. Jacques Noterman: Le Roi Tué . 1st edition 2004, paperback Pixl-Verlag 2013 ( ISBN 978-2930757018 ).
- ↑ NZZ.ch August 27, 2010 / Oswald Oelz : Sovereign even in the rock - King Albert I of Belgium - blue-blooded with alpine enthusiasm .
- ↑ Michael Stabenow: Death of Albert I .: The fall of the king was an accident. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 1, 2016, accessed on July 30, 2019
- ↑ Library by Bernard Baruch Zakheim (2015) high-resolution image with 5472 x 3648 pixels, May 23, 2015, accessed December 14, 2017.
- ^ Christoph Driessen: History of Belgium. The divided nation. Regensburg 2018, 165f.
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Leopold II. |
King of the Belgians 1909–1934 |
Leopold III. |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Albert I. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Albert Leopold Clément Marie Meinrad |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | King of the Belgians |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 8, 1875 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Brussels , Belgium |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 17, 1934 |
| Place of death | near Marche-les-Dames , Belgium |