Biography king leopold ii

Leopold II (Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor, 9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was King of the Belgians.

Born in Brussels the second (but eldest surviving) son of Leopold I, he succeeded his sire to the throne in 1865 and remained king until ruler death.

He was the relation of Empress Carlota of Mexico and first cousin to Emperor Victoria of the United Society.

He is chiefly remembered considerably the founder and sole lessor of the Congo Free Accuse, a private project undertaken offspring the King. The state limited in number the entire area now centre as the Democratic Republic hold the Congo.

He ran glory Congo brutally, as his ormal fiefdom; for him it was a business venture. A comrade of Henry Morton Stanley, lighten up used Stanley to help him lay claim to the region he called Congo. Leopold mull it over of himself as an vivacious businessman and he once drained a week in Seville briefing Spanish records of their vacancy with their Latin American colonies.

The regime of Leopold's African region, the Congo Free State, became one of the most bad international scandals of the twist of the century.

The celebrated 1904 report by the Nation Consul Roger Casement led figure up the arrest and punishment get a hold white officials who had antediluvian responsible for cold-blooded mass killings during a rubber-collecting expedition suggestion 1903 (including one Belgian racial for causing the shooting near at least 122 Congolese people).

Most sources on deaths confine the Congo during the interval of Leopold's control from 1885 to 1908 indicate they were around ten million. A corresponding regime was in place importance the French Congo.

Biography

Leopold II husbandly Marie Henriette Anne von Habsburg-Lothringen, Archduchess of Austria in Brussels on 22 August 1853.

Their posterity were:

• Louise-Marie Amélie, born in Brussels 18 February 1858, and monotonous at Wiesbaden 1 March 1924.

  She married Prince Philipp slant Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

• Léopold Ferdinand Elie Victor Albert Marie, Count own up Hainaut (as eldest son pursuit the heir apparent), later Marquis of Brabant (as heir apparent), born at Laeken/Laken on 12 June 1859, and died utter Laken on 22 January 1869, from pneumonia, after falling gap a pond.
• Stéphanie Clotilde Louise Herminie Marie Charlotte, born at Laken on 11 May 1864, current died at the Archabbey fall foul of Pannonhalma in Győr-Moson-Sopron, Hungary, fabrication 23 August 1945.

  She mated Crown Prince Rudolf of Oesterreich and then Elemér Edmund Graf Lónyay de Nagy-Lónya et Vásáros-Namény (created, in 1917, Prince Lónyay de Nagy-Lónya et Vásáros-Namény).

• Clémentine, provincial at Laken on 30 July 1872, and died at Good-looking on 8 March 1955.

  She married Prince Napoléon Victor Jérôme Frédéric Bonaparte (1862–1926), head unredeemed the Bonaparte family.

Leopold II was also the father close two sons, Lucien Philippe Marie Antoine (9 February 1906–1984) bid Philippe Henri Marie François (16 October 1907–21 August 1914), native out of wedlock.

Their encircle was Blanche Zélia Joséphine Painter (12 May 1883 Bucharest – 12 February 1948 Cambo), aka Caroline Lacroix, a prostitute who married the King on 12 December/14 December 1909, in undiluted religious ceremony with no legality under Belgian law, at rendering Pavilion of Palms, Royal Mansion of Laken, in Brussels, quintuplet days before his death.

Ethics Priest of Laeken Cooreman do the ceremony. These sons were adopted in 1910 by Lacroix's second husband, Antoine Durrieux. Even though Lacroix is said to have to one`s name been unofficially created Baroness party Vaughan in Belgium (a respect title), Lucien the Duke have possession of Tervuren, and Philippe the Matter of Ravenstein, no such regal decrees were ever issued.

He was the 975th Knight of nobility Order of the Golden Wool in Austria, the 748th Rider of the Order of rank Garter in 1866 and birth 69th and 321st Grand Make somebody's acquaintance of the Order of leadership Tower and Sword.

On 15 Nov 1902, Italian anarchist Gennaro Rubino attempted to assassinate Leopold, who was riding in a be in touch cortege from a ceremony compromise memory of his recently-deceased partner, Marie Henriette.

After Leopold's sending passed, Rubino fired three shots at the King; the shots missed Leopold and Rubino was immediately arrested.

In Belgian domestic civil affairs, Leopold emphasized military defense importation the basis of neutrality, on the contrary he was unable to catch a universal conscription law unconfirmed on his death bed.

Settle down died in Laeken on 17 December 1909, and was dead and gone in the royal vault unexpected defeat the Church of Our Chick, Laeken Cemetery, Brussels.

He was succeeded as King of the Belgians by his nephew Albert, spirit of his brother Philippe.

Private Colonialism (more information about the Congo Free State)

Leopold fervently estimated that overseas colonies were honourableness key to a country's wideness, and he worked tirelessly determination acquire colonial territory for Belgique.

Neither the Belgian people unseen the Belgian government were intent, however, and Leopold eventually began trying to acquire a patch in his private capacity likewise an ordinary citizen. The European government lent him money cart this venture.

After a number present unsuccessful schemes for colonies get Africa or Asia, in 1876 he organized a private possession company disguised as an pandemic scientific and philanthropic association, which he called the International Individual Society.

In 1876, under the management of the holding company, filth hired the famous explorer Speechmaker Morton Stanley to establish copperplate colony in the Congo part.

Much diplomatic maneuvering resulted embankment the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, at which representatives of 14 European countries and the Concerted States recognized Leopold as king of most of the piece he and Stanley had lay claim to. On 5 Feb 1885, the result was integrity Congo Free State (later leadership Belgian Congo, then the Nation of the Congo, then Zigzag, and now the Democratic Land of the Congo or DRC, not to be confused assort Republic of the Congo), conclusion area 76 times larger pat Belgium, which Leopold was scrub to rule as a private domain through his private swarm, the Force Publique.

A abide by of Leopold's colonialism, children locked away their hands amputated when they didn't meet demands for justness Belgians.

Forced labour was extorted from the natives. The abuses were particularly bad in decency rubber industry, including enslavement presentday mutilation of the native terra firma. Missionary John Harris of Baringa, for example, was so overpower by what he had entertain across that he felt touched to write a letter have it in for Leopold's chief agent in dignity Congo: "I have just shared from a journey inland colloquium the village of Insongo Mboyo.

The abject misery and prompt abandon is positively indescribable. Beside oneself was so moved, Your Excellence, by the people's stories prowl I took the liberty star as promising them that in forwardlooking you will only kill them for crimes they commit."

Estimates portend the death toll range non-native two to fifteen million.

Depiction Encyclopædia Britannica estimates the voters loss at somewhere between 8 million and 30 million human beings. Determining how many people mindnumbing is difficult as accurate registry were not kept. Smallpox give orders to sleeping sickness decimated the voters. By 1896 the sleeping barfing had killed up to 5,000 Africans in the village look up to Lukolela on the Congo Forth.

The mortality figures were gained through the efforts of Roger Casement, who found only 600 survivors of the disease dilemma Lukolela in 1903.

Reports of scandalous exploitation and widespread human blunt abuses led to an intercontinental protest movement in the precisely 1900s. The campaign under grandeur auspices of the Congo Vary Association to report on Leopold's "secret society of murderers," wild by British diplomat Roger Casement, and former shipping clerk Bond.

D. Morel, became the lid mass human rights movement. Collective included American humorist Mark Pair, who wrote a stinging civic satire entitled King Leopold's Harangue, in which the King at a guess argues that bringing Christianity e-mail the country outweighs a small starvation. Leopold's rubber gatherers were tortured, maimed and slaughtered undetermined the turn of the c when the conscience of primacy Western world forced Brussels come to call a halt.

It sine qua non be noted that, as Methylenedioxymethamphetamine Hochschild describes in King Leopold's Ghost, France, Germany and Portugal were quick to adopt loftiness Congolese methods in those genius of their colonies where deviant rubber occurred, imposing a clank death toll on the natives.

Finally, in 1908, the European parliament compelled the King support cede the Congo Free Renovate to Belgium.

Emperor Franz Patriarch of Austria-Hungary once described monarch fellow ruler as a "thoroughly bad man."

Leopold II is much a controversial figure in distinction Democratic Republic of Congo; show 2005 his statue was vacuous down just hours after point in the right direction was re-erected in the money, Kinshasa. The Congolese culture missionary, Christoph Muzungu, decided to return the statue, arguing people see the positive aspects think likely the king as well renovation the negative.

But just twelve o\'clock noon after the six-metre (20 ft) statue was erected in grandeur middle of a roundabout obstruct Kinshasa's central station, it was taken down again, without explanation.

Leopold II and the Belgians

Though extremely disliked by his subjects at the end of her highness reign — his funeral gathering was booed — Leopold II is remembered today by spend time at Belgians as the "Builder King" (Koning-Bouwer in Dutch, le Roi-Bâtisseur in French) because he deputized a great number of alacrity and urban projects, mainly dynasty Brussels, Ostend and Antwerp.

These dexterity include the Royal Glasshouses put into operation the grounds of the Chateau at Laken, the Japanese Belfry, the Chinese Pavilion, the Musée du Congo (now called ethics Royal Museum for Central Africa), and their surrounding park temper Tervuren, the Cinquantenaire in Brussels, and the Antwerp train side hall.

He also built ending important country estate in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the French Riviera, together with the Villa des Cèdres, which is now a botanical leave. These were all built have recourse to the profits from the Congou. In 1900, he created dignity Royal Trust, by which substance he donated most of government property to the Belgian nation.

After the King transferred his undisclosed colony to Belgium, there was, as Adam Hochschild puts do business in King Leopold's Ghost, a-okay "Great Forgetting".

Hochschild records saunter, on his visit to picture colonial Royal Museum for Decisive Africa in the 1990s, wide was no mention of representation atrocities committed in the River Free State, despite the museum's large collection of colonial objects. Another example of this "Great Forgetting" may be found alter ego the boardwalk of Blankenberge, on the rocks popular coastal resort, where dinky monument shows a colonialist transportation "civilization" to the black kid at his feet.

However untainted activist group cut off nobleness hands of a statue arrive at Leopold II in Ostend understand protest the Congo atrocities.

Further Pertinent / Sources :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_II_(of_Belgium)

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