KING ALBERT OF BELGIUM
The greatness of kings is not always proportionate to the size of the
kingdoms they rule, and their fame does not run in accord with the
breadth of their dominions, or the number of subjects who serve them.
This has been proved many times in history,--but never more
conclusively than in the little kingdom of Belgium, whose present
ruler, Albert the First, has already won glory equal to that of any
hero-king of any age.
Until he was a young man it was never expected that Albert would ever
be King, for he was the younger son of the younger brother of King
Leopold the Second. Much would have to take place before he could win
the throne, and Albert, in consequence, was not trained for the severe
duties of a ruler. But in the end this worked good rather than harm,
for Albert received so thorough a military education that by practical
advice and prompt action he was able to save his country in the
terrible ordeal through which it passed. And as he had expected to be
no more than one of the King's subjects, he had learned the ways of the
people more intimately than he could have done if he had always been
hemmed in with the restrictions of royalty.
When Albert was seventeen years old, his brother Baldwin died, and it
was then seen that he might indeed become King, for Leopold had no
direct male heirs. But this was not yet sure, for under certain
conditions the King had the right to appoint his successor, and he did
not decide to make Albert the heir to the throne until the Prince
married and had two sons who would ensure the permanence of the royal
Belgian family.
Albert was born in 1875 on the Eighth of April. His father was Count
Philippe of Flanders who was Leopold's youngest brother. As a boy the
young prince received an education such as would be given to any
cultivated well bred gentleman, but as it was customary for younger
sons of princes to enter the army particular attention was paid, as we
have said, to his military training.
The young prince attended military school, was drilled as a common
soldier and gradually worked his way up through the different grades to
the rank of Major. He was intensely interested in the profession of
arms and gave more than the required zeal and attention to its pursuit,
following his training in a regiment of Grenadiers, and instructed by
the most experienced officers.
Albert was not only studious, but fond of all sorts of athletic sports
and exercises. He frequently visited the Tyrol for mountain climbing,
and later tried his skill on the most rugged Alps. He was fond of
shooting and shot well; he was an excellent horseman and his tall
figure was frequently to be seen astride his hunter, which he managed
with great skill.
The possibility that he might become King had effected a change in the
young man's character, who became more reserved and serious, ardently
devoted to his studies and eager to find out as much as possible about
the lives of the people that one day he was to rule. He often lectured
on military topics. He visited the mines and viewed the working
conditions of the men that toiled incessantly underground. He watched
the fishermen at work and even accompanied them on their trips; he
worked in machine-shops and ran locomotives himself. To learn the
secrets of modern shipping he visited foreign countries and traveled in
disguise as a reporter of a newspaper, paying calls on various
shipyards and taking notes on what he saw there.
In the year of the war between America and Spain, 1898, Albert came to
the United States and saw President McKinley, and in his travels
through our great country he paid a visit to the great financier James
J. Hill with whom he talked about the problems that confronted Belgium
and from whom he doubtless received valuable advice. He was much
impressed by his visit to America, and often talked about it afterward,
and thought out means by which the modern improvements he saw in
America might be applied to the people of Belgium.
All this time, however, the Prince remained unmarried, and King
Leopold, who was growing old, was worried about the succession to the
throne. Finally he decided that as long as Albert was without issue he
must choose a different heir which was a royal privilege in such a
contingency, and his choice fell upon the Duc de Vendome, who had
married Albert's sister.
But Albert, who had given no signs of attraction toward any one of the
various beautiful ladies he might have married, was soon to fall in
love and make a marriage that would gladden the heart of old King
Leopold, and please the Belgian people.
Among other things that he had studied in his young manhood was the
science of medicine, and a year after he came to America he went to
Germany to see the clinic of a Bavarian duke named Charles Theodore,
whose skill as an occulist had made him famous throughout Europe.
Albert visited this Duke and was presented to his daughters, with one
of whom, the Duchess Elizabeth, he promptly fell in love. The passion
was mutual, and as the match was a good one from all points of view the
young couple were married in Munich on October 2, 1900, where a
celebration was held in honor of the event. When the newly wedded
couple returned to Belgium no one less than King Leopold was waiting at
the railroad station to receive them and offer his congratulations.
Leopold was now more predisposed in favor of Albert, and when a son was
born he was delighted. On the birth of a second son, the King made a
speech in which he publicly confirmed Albert's claim to the throne, and
public attention was now focussed on the Prince who was to be King.
Albert had no intention of meddling with political affairs until he
actually should become the ruler of Belgium, and he gave scant
encouragement to those who sought to sound him and find out what his
future policies would be. While he surveyed all public affairs with a
keen eye and attentive mind, he kept the public from knowing what he
thought of them, and his mind seemed now as much of a mystery as his
personality had seemed obscure before it had been known that he was to
come to the throne.
Albert was greatly interested in the Belgian colony in Africa and asked
permission from King Leopold to visit it and make a tour of inspection.
The King was unwilling to have the heir to the throne take so long and
presumably so dangerous a journey, but at last he consented and Albert
departed for Africa and the Congo, where he spent three arduous months
in which time, it is said, he walked more than fifteen hundred miles.
The colonists took a great liking to the tall, reserved young man who
studied all their interests and doings with such careful attention, and
the impression that Albert made upon this part of his future kingdom
was more than favorable.
He had not been at home long before King Leopold died, and on the 23rd
of December, 1909, Albert came into his capital as King of the
Belgians. After taking the oath to guard the constitution and preserve
the territory of the Belgian nation, he made a carefully prepared and
well thought out speech, in which he declared that the Belgian monarch
must always obey the laws of the country and preserve the law with the
utmost respect and care. And the first public appearance of Albert as
King added to the good impression with which he was regarded
everywhere.
His liberty and privacy were now over, and he was absorbed with the
affairs of his country. He had become so interested in the Congo colony
that he gave a great deal of his own money to better conditions there
and to further medical research. The Queen was busy also. With her
medical skill she visited the various hospitals and engaged in many
charitable enterprises that endeared her to the hearts of the common
people. It seemed that she could not do enough to relieve the
sufferings of others, and the humblest of her subjects came to look on
her as a member of their family, and almost literally worshipped the
ground she walked on.
The threat of war was still far off, but Albert, who was greatly
concerned over the state of the Belgian army, did all he could to
increase its efficiency. He was not only concerned with the military
preparedness of Belgium, but observed that the Germans seemed to be
taking a firmer and firmer grip on his country. German merchants and
business men swarmed in Brussels, and it was not hard to see too that
German military experts were studying the topography of Belgium and
sending reports back to the Fatherland.
The position of Belgium was peculiar in many ways. Not only did it lie
as a little and weak nation between the great armed powers of France
and Germany, exposed to the advance of an invading army in case of war,
since it was the most convenient way from one country to the other, but
its position on the coast made it a favorable vantage ground from which
Germany might launch an attack on England. This geographical situation
of Belgium has caused it throughout history to be the scene of some of
the greatest battles that have ever been fought, and has gained for it
the name of "the cockpit of Europe."
Even for its size, Belgium was in a woeful state of military
unpreparedness for war, because it was supposed to be exempt from
conflict through an agreement of the great powers. All the great
nations of Europe had decided that it was safer and better to make
Belgium neutral ground, and one and all they had promised to protect
the neutrality of this little state with force of arms if necessary.
This, as we have said, had given the Belgians a feeling of security.
They believed that even if war broke out, Belgium would not be forced
into the conflict, but sinister signs of danger, like the distant
warnings of a hurricane, gradually obtruded themselves before King
Albert's clear sighted vision. He received letters, not from one but
from many sources, warning him that the Germans had decided in secret
council to send their invading armies across Belgium in case of war
with France, and he had seen only too clearly that German spies and
military experts were mapping out the country for their own secret
ends. So Albert struggled to increase the army and secured the passage
of a favorable bill in October, 1913.
But the iron forces of Germany were forged and ready; the uniforms and
equipment of her invading hordes were packed away in her storehouses
and arsenals. Only the stroke of a pen was needed to loose the blind
forces and mighty armaments of a war greater than any that history has
known. King Albert's efforts in behalf of the Belgian army were too
late, although he did not know it at the time.
In the summer of 1914, Albert went to Switzerland on a vacation, but
his fear that Germany was preparing for speedy war forced him to return
to Belgium in the middle of his holiday. And events soon proved that he
was justified. War leaped up over night like a devouring flame, and
immediately the German Government sent to Belgium a threat which
declared that it was the purpose of the German High Command to move
German troops across Belgium, and that the Belgians would resist at
their own peril.
Many a ruler would have acceded to the terms that Germany gave. If a
small boy is confronted by a trained pugilist of great weight and
gigantic stature, surely none can blame the boy for consenting to the
pugilist's demands. None could have blamed King Albert if he had
yielded to such force and accepted the tyrant's terms. But the King
determined to defend his country to the last drop of Belgian blood, not
sparing his own, and the Belgians sent the following reply back to the
German war lords:
"The German ultimatum has caused the Belgian Government deep and
painful astonishment, and Belgium refuses to believe that her
independence could only be preserved at the cost of violating her
neutrality."
And Albert grimly added to some of his followers, "Germany appears to
believe that Belgium is a road, not a country."
The German armies entered Belgium, and soon the roar of the guns was
heard almost from one end of the little nation to the other. King
Albert at once put on his uniform and took to the field with the
Belgian army. The Germans laid siege to the Belgian fortress of Liege,
expecting to overpower it easily. They advanced against it in mass
formation, only to be met with such a hail of machine gun fire that
they numbered their dead by thousands. The little Kingdom of Belgium
had thrust a stick between the cogs of the great German war machine,
and by doing so saved the world from a German victory. By delaying the
Germans at Liege they allowed the French the vital time to organize
their army and mobilize on the frontier, and by the splendid and
stubborn resistance that the Germans encountered in Belgium the English
too were given a breathing space. On the breast of this weak nation
fell the whole weight of the mailed fist, and while the result was
inevitable the burden was bravely supported.
Liege fell at last, and the Germans moved onward, in spite of attacks
by the Belgians that temporarily halted them. With their great 42
centimeter howitzers the Germans pulverized the forts that held out
against them and soon compelled King Albert to shift the seat of
Belgian Government to Antwerp. Albert himself, however, stayed in the
field with his army and when it fell back he was among the brave men
that covered the retreat. He seemed to be everywhere that he was
needed, and often in the front line the Belgian soldiers would be
cheered by the sight of their King loading and firing a rifle by their
side, in the place of some wounded comrade.
The King combined shrewdness with bravery. He ordered Brussels not to
resist the German horde, but he fought to the knife wherever resistance
would be effective. While the British were yet far away and the French
were unable to help, Belgium alone held the enemy in check, and Belgium
was animated more by the spirit of their King than by any other cause.
It has been said in turn that each one of the Allied Nations won the
war. And this is true of them all. Without the aid of the British navy,
the bravery of the French army, the fresh strength that America lent to
the fight, the Germans must have conquered. But it is practically
certain that they would have won if Belgium had not withstood them.
With their forces once in Paris and the French and British forces
separated no human power could have triumphed against the Kaiser--and
it remained for little Belgium to delay him to such an extent that
Joffre was able at last to beat the Germans at the Marne and save the
world.
Then the Germans turned their guns against the city of Antwerp and soon
the giant shells from the monster howitzers were picking up whole
buildings in the force of their blast and scattering bricks and timbers
broadcast in crashing explosions. Queen Elizabeth had remained with the
King, serving as a nurse in the hospitals and doing what she could to
relieve the suffering of her people, but when it was seen that Antwerp
must fall she decided to take her children to a place of safety. King
Albert's eldest son served as a private with a Belgian regiment, but
his brother and little sister were too young for any service and were
taken to England by the Queen. She refused to remain, however, but
returned to the stricken country to take her place with the remainder
of her subjects who had not yet received the yoke of German slavery.
Albert refused to allow his army to be driven from Belgian territory.
"It would be better to die here," he declared, "than in a foreign
land." And always he was with the army, directing its strategy or
wielding a weapon himself. "My place is with my brave soldiers," he
declared.
All through the sinister days of the war the King's spirit did not
weaken. When the Germans were pushing on again toward Paris in the
spring of 1918, he kept his head cool and his heart composed. Then the
gray lines broke, and the tide turned. The Allied Armies swept onward
and the Germans retreated pell mell to save themselves from utter ruin.
Back from the ruined villages and the oppressed and tortured
countryside the German hordes retreated, and King Albert and Queen
Elizabeth triumphantly took possession once more. Their children had
returned and the royal family had passed the last year of the war
within sound of the guns on the Nieuport front. Their hour of triumph
was now come and they entered Brussels after four years of exile.
Their entry was planned to be as glorious and beautiful as possible and
it is needless to say with what rejoicing they were received. Allied
troops marched past in review, and the King and Queen were accompanied
by the most famous generals of the Allied armies. The soldiers of the
Belgian army were crowned with flowers when reviewed by the King that
so bravely led them.
Peace terms were drawn up and the Germans compelled to repay the
Belgians to the last penny for the havoc and vandalism they had
wrought. And it is a kind of poetic justice that Albert was reigning,
while the Kaiser fled from his own country to cling to the skirts of
another weak little power that he would surely have violated as
remorselessly as he violated Belgium if it had chanced to stand in his
way.
In 1919, twenty-one years after his first trip to this country, King
Albert with Queen Elizabeth came to the United States again. They
received a warm welcome from one end of the country to the other and
the good wishes of all Americans have gone back with them to the
wrecked and devastated land that they are striving to restore. Whether
King Albert will perform as great work in reconstruction as he has
already performed as a soldier and a King the future will decide, but
he has already gained an immortal place in the history of the world.