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ave the country he was resolved to remain with his army and amidst his people so as to share their fate 7 leopold had long had a difficult and contentious relationship with his ministers acting independently of government influence whenever possible and seeking to circumvent and even limit the ministers powers while expanding his own citation needed french british and belgian troops were encircled by german forces at the battle of dunkirk leopold notified king george vi by telegram on 25 may 1940 that belgian forces were being crushed saying assistance which we give to the allies will come to an end if our army is surrounded 8 two days later 27 may 1940 leopold surrendered the belgian forces to the germans prime minister pierlot spoke on french radio saying that the king s decision to surrender went against the belgian constitution the decision he said was not only a military decision but also a political decision and the king had acted without his ministers advice and therefore contrary to the constitution pierlot and his government believed this created an impossibilité de régner should the king find himself unable to reign the ministers having observed this inability immediately summon the chambers regency and guardianship are to be provided by the united chambers 9 it was impossible however to summon the belgian chamber of representatives or belgian senate at this time or to appoint a regent after the liberation of belgium in september 1944 the government asked leopold s brother prince charles to serve as regent after leopold s surrender the british press denounced him as traitor king and king rat the daily mirror published a picture of leopold with the headline the face that every woman now despises a group of belgian refugees in paris placed a message at king albert s statue denouncing his son as your unworthy successor 10 french prime minister paul reynaud accused leopold of treason flemish historians valaers and van goethem wrote that leopold iii had become the scapegoat of reynaud 11 because reynaud was probably already aware that the battle of france was lost leopold s surrender was also decried by winston churchill in the house of commons on 4 june 1940 he said at the last moment when belgium was already invaded king leopold called upon us to come to his aid and even at the last moment we came he and his brave efficient army nearly half a million strong guarded our left flank and thus kept open our only line of retreat to the sea suddenly without prior consultation with the least possible notice without the advice of his ministers and upon his own personal act he sent a plenipotentiary to the german command surrendered his army and exposed our whole flank and means of retreat 12 in 1949 churchill s comments about the events of may 1940 were published in le soir 12 february 1949 leopold s former secretary sent a letter to churchill saying that churchill was wrong churchill sent a copy of this letter to the king s brother prince charles via his secretary andré de staercke in his own letter churchill wrote with regards to king leopold the words which i used at the time in the house of commons are upon record and after careful consideration i do not see any reason to change them it seemed to me and many others that the king should have been guided by the advice of his ministers and should not have favoured a course which identified the capitulation of the belgian army with the submission of the belgian state to herr hitler and consequently taking them out of the war happily this evil was averted and in the end all came right i need scarcely say that nothing i said at the time could be interpreted as a reflection upon the personal courage or honour of king leopold 13 de staercke replied that churchill was right the prince monsieur spaak belgian foreign minister paul henri spaak and i read your text which states the precise truth and seems perfect to us 14 belgian historian francis balace wrote that capitulation was inevitable because the belgian army was not able to fight any longer against the german army 15 even churchill admitted that their position was perilous in a telegram to field marshal lord gort on 27 may only one day before the belgian capitulation he wrote we are asking them to sacrifice themselves for us 16 after the fall of france edit upon leopold s surrender the government ministers left for exile mostly in france when france fell at the end of june 1940 several ministers sought to return to belgium they made an overture to leopold but were rebuffed because of the great popularity of the king and the unpopularity of the civil government from the middle of 1940 17 the government crisis persisted citation needed on 2 august 1940 several ministers conferred in le perthus in france near the spanish border prime minister pierlot and foreign minister spaak were persuaded to go to london but they were able to start out for london only at the end of august and could travel only via neutral spain and portugal when they reached spain they were arrested and detained by the regime of francisco franco they finally arrived in london on 22 october citation needed meeting with hitler edit leopold rejected cooperation with the government of nazi germany and refused to administer belgium in accordance with its dictates thus the germans implemented a military government leopold attempted to assert his authority as monarch and head of the belgian government although he was a prisoner of the germans despite his defiance of the germans the belgian government in exile in london maintained that the king did not represent the belgian government and was unable to reign the germans held him at first under house arrest at the royal castle of laeken having since june 1940 desired a meeting with adolf hitler in respect of the situation of belgian prisoners of war leopold iii finally met with him on 19 november 1940 leopold wanted to persuade hitler to release belgian pows and issue a public statement about belgium s future independence hitler refused to speak about the independence of belgium or issue a statement about it in refusing to publish a statement hitler preserved the king from being seen as cooperating with germany and thus engaged in treasonous acts which would likely have obliged him to abdicate upon the liberation of belgium the german chancellor saved the king two times 18 second marriage edit on 11 september 1941 while a prisoner of the germans leopold secretly married lilian baels in a religious ceremony that had no validity under belgian law which required a religious marriage to be preceded by a legal or civil marriage on 6 december they were married under civil law the reason for the out of order marriages was never officially made public citation needed jozef ernest cardinal van roey archbishop of mechelen wrote an open letter to parish priests throughout the country announcing leopold s second marriage on 7 december the letter from the cardinal revealed that the king s new wife would be known as princesse de réthy not queen lilian and that any children they had would have no claim to the throne leopold s new marriage damaged his reputation further in the eyes of many of his subjects citation needed the political testament edit the face of leopold iii on the zinc 5 franc coin the ministers made several efforts during the war to work out a suitable agreement with leopold iii they sent pierlot s son in law as an emissary to leopold in january 1944 carrying a letter offering reconciliation from the belgian government in exile the letter never reached its destination however as the son in law was killed by the germans en route the ministers did not know what happened either to the message or the messenger and assumed that leopold was ignoring them citation needed leopold wrote his political testament in january 1944 shortly after this failed attempt at reconciliation the testament was to be published in case he was not in belgium when allied forces arrived the testament which had an imperious and negative tone considered the potential allied movement into belgium an occupation not a liberation it gave no credit to the active belgian resistance the belgian government in exile in london did not like leopold s demand that the government ministers involved in the 1940 crisis be dismissed the allies did not like leopold s repudiation of the treaties concluded by the belgian government in exile in london the united states was particularly concerned about the economic treaty it had reached with the government in exile that enabled it to obtain congolese uranium for america s secret atom bomb program which had been developed for use against germany although as it turned out germany surrendered before the first bomb was ready citation needed the belgian government did not publish the political testament and tried to ignore it partly for fear of increased support for the belgian communist party when pierlot and spaak learned of its contents in september 1944 they were astonished and felt deceived by the king according to andré de staercke they were dismayed in the face of so much blindness and unawareness 19 churchill s reaction to the testament was simply it stinks 20 in a sentence inspired by a quote of talleyrand about the bourbons after the restoration of the french monarchy in 1815 churchill declared he is like the bourbons he has learned nothing and forgotten nothing 21 exile and abdication edit deportation and exile edit on 7 june 1944 heinrich himmler ordered leopold deported to germany princess lilian followed with the family in another car the following day under an ss armed guard the nazis interned the family in a fort at hirschstein in saxony from june 1944 to march 1945 and then at strobl austria citation needed the british and american governments worried about the return of the king charles w sawyer us ambassador to belgium warned his government that an immediate return by the king to belgium would precipitate serious difficulties there are deep differences even in the royal family and the situation holds dynamite for belgium and perhaps for europe 22 the foreign office feared that an increasing minority in french speaking wallonia would demand either autonomy or annexation to france winant the american ambassador to the court of st james s reported a foreign office official s concern regarding irredentist propaganda in wallonia 23 and that the french ambassador in brussels is believed to have connived in the spreading of this propaganda 24 leopold and his companions were released by members of the united states 106th cavalry group in early may 1945 because of the controversy about his conduct during the war leopold iii and his wife and children were unable to return to belgium and spent the next six years in exile at pregny chambésy near geneva switzerland a regency under his brother prince charles had been established by the belgian legislature in 1944 citation needed resistance to leopold s return edit belgian propaganda poster about king leopold iii with the title my destiny will be yours the kgf on the coat stands for kriegsgefangener german for prisoner of war published in 1950 in response to the royal question frans henri van den dungen rector of the free university of brussels wrote to leopold on 25 june 1945 about concerns for serious disorder in wallonia the question is not if the accusations against you are right or not but that you are no longer a symbol of belgian unity 25 robert gillon the president of the belgian senate told the king that there was a threat of serious disorder if there are only ten or twenty people killed the situation would become terrible for the king 26 the president of the belgian chamber of representatives frans van cauwelaert was concerned that there would be a general strike in wallonia and revolt in liège he wrote the country is not able to put down the disorders because of the insufficient forces of the police and a lack of weapons 27 in 1946 a commission of inquiry exonerated leopold of treason nonetheless controversy concerning his loyalty continued and in 1950 a referendum was held about his future fifty seven per cent of the voters favoured his return the divide between leopoldists and anti leopoldists ran along the lines of socialists and walloons who were mostly opposed 42 favourable votes in wallonia and christian democrats and flemish who were more in favour of the king 70 favourable votes in flanders citation needed general strike of 1950 edit on 31 july 1950 after the fusillade of grâce berleur liège and other municipalities of wallonia replaced the belgian flag with the walloon flag main article royal question his return to belgium on 22 july 1950 was met with one of the most violent general strikes in the history of belgium three protesters were killed when the gendarmerie opened fire with automatic weapons the country stood on the brink of civil war and belgian banners were replaced by walloon flags in liège and other municipalities of wallonia 28 to avoid tearing the country apart and to preserve the monarchy leopold decided on 1 august 1950 to delegate his powers and duties to his 20 year old son baudouin making the latter regent at the urging of the government leopold abdicated on 16 july 1951 in favour of baudouin if he had remained king until the day of his death he would have ruled for 49 years surpassing leopold ii as longest reigning monarch of belgium 29 30 post abdication life edit leopold and his wife continued to advise king baudouin until the latter s marriage in 1960 some belgian historians such as vincent delcorps speak of there having been a diarchy during this period 31 in retirement he followed his passion as an amateur social anthropologist and entomologist and travelled the world collecting zoological specimens two species of reptiles are named after him gehyra leopoldi and polemon leopoldi 32 leopold died in 1983 in woluwe saint lambert sint lambrechts woluwe following emergency heart surgery he was interred next to queen astrid in the royal vault at the church of our lady of laeken leopold s second wife the princess de réthy was later interred with them citation needed see also edit crown council of belgium kings of belgium family tree royal trust list of covers of time magazine 1930s 1940s notes edit french léopold philippe charles albert meinrad hubert marie michel dutch leopold filips karel albert meinrad hubertus maria miguel german leopold philipp karl albrecht meinrad hubert maria michael references edit geais pierrick 12 february 2021 l histoire d amour du roi léopold iii qui a scandalisé la belgique vanity fair in french retrieved 26 july 2024 evelyn graham albert king of the belgians roger keyes outrageous fortune the tragedy of leopold iii of the belgians orsouw michael van 30 august 2021 the tragic death of queen astrid swiss national museum swiss history blog in german archived from the original 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