King leupold 2 biography of martin

Internet Arcade Console Living Room. Open Library American Libraries. Search the Wayback Machine Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. Sign up for free Log in. It appears your browser does not have it turned on. Please see your browser settings for this feature. Determining how many people died is difficult as accurate records were not kept.

Smallpox and sleeping sickness decimated the population. By the sleeping sickness had killed up to 5, Africans in the village of Lukolela on the Congo River. The mortality figures were gained through the efforts of Roger Casement, who found only survivors of the disease in Lukolela in Reports of outrageous exploitation and widespread human rights abuses led to an international protest movement in the early s.

The campaign under the auspices of the Congo Reform Association to report on Leopold's "secret society of murderers," led by British diplomat Roger Casement, and former shipping clerk E. Morel, became the first mass human rights movement. Supporters included American humorist Mark Twain, who wrote a stinging political satire entitled King Leopold's Soliloquy, in which the King supposedly argues that bringing Christianity to the country outweighs a little starvation.

Leopold's rubber gatherers were tortured, maimed and slaughtered until the turn of the century, when the conscience of the Western world forced Brussels to call a halt. It should be noted that, as Adam Hochschild describes in King Leopold's Ghost, France, Germany and Portugal were quick to adopt the Congolese methods in those parts of their colonies where natural rubber occurred, imposing a similar death toll on the natives.

Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary once described his fellow ruler as a "thoroughly bad man. Leopold II is still a controversial figure in the Democratic Republic of Congo; in his statue was taken down just hours after it was re-erected in the capital, Kinshasa. They would shoot and capture the women of the village, and tell the men that if they did not each bring back 15kg of rubber by the end of the day, they would kill their wives and daughters.

The Congo Free State was anything but free. King Leopold II believed that all of these people were his personal slaves, and he could do whatever he wanted with them. King Leopold personally handed out bonuses to the commanders if they could produce more rubber, by any means necessary. Leopold began to grow his own private army in the Congo called The Force Publique.

When his men were destroying a village, they would pick out the tallest and strongest-looking young men to recruit them as soldiers. These captured soldiers were instructed to systematically kill anyone who disobeyed the orders of the governor generals. They were told that they were not allowed to waste any ammunition, and that they must kill a man with a single bullet.

They were required to bring back one severed hand for every bullet fired.

King leupold 2 biography of martin: King of the Belgians

If they did not, they would be killed by their general. This lead to the soldiers cutting the hands off of people that were still alive, whenever they wasted ammunition. Meanwhile, in Europe, people had no idea what was actually king leupold 2 biography of martin on. After a while, these men became desensitized to the killing. Some of the governor generals wrote letters to King Leopold II about these scenes, because they were actually proud of the brutality.

They believed that the worse they treated the Congolese people, the harder they worked. Even though he had promised that the rest of the world could visit The Congo whenever they wanted, King Leopold II became very nervous when he learned that Arabian merchants were coming to gather some rubber for themselves. This sparked the two year Congo-Arab War.

Inan English merchant named Charles Stokes was on a mission for the Germans to travel to the Congo to purchase rubber. He was hung by The Force Republique without receiving a trial. Germany and Britain were outraged that he was killed without ever committing any crime. Leopold was forced to pay substantial fines to both governments for violating the treaty, and the incident was called The Stokes Affair.

However, paying this fine was just a drop in the bucket. Leopold II hired a team of propaganda writers to publish books and articles about what a great job he was doing. Derivate work by: Vberger on fr. He wrote an open letter to King Leopold II, recounting the horrors he witnessed while visiting the country. The King never replied. Belgian ships would come and go delivering rubber to Liverpool from The Congo.

He began investigating, and when he discovered the horrors about what was actually happening, he wrote several anonymous articles for a British newspaper called The Speaker, exposing the truth about what he saw. Inthe shipping company offered Morel a job to manage the shipments of rubber to and from The Congo. They were willing to pay him a huge salary in exchange for his silence.

He turned it down, and became a full-time journalist instead. He became so passionate about the cause, that he began publishing his own newspaper called The West African Mail with any new information he found. Inhe published a book called Red Rubber. Another journalist named Roger Casement was sent to interview people of the Congo to get their testimonies about the human rights abuses in the country.

While it has proven difficult to accurately estimate the pre-colonial population and the amount by which it changed under the Congo Free State, estimates for the Congolese population decline during Leopold's rule range from 1 million to 15 million. The causes of the decline included epidemic disease, a reduced birth rate, and violence and famine caused by the regime.

Leopold was born in Brussels on 9 Aprilthe second child of the reigning Belgian monarch, Leopold Iand of his second wife, Louisethe daughter of King Louis Philippe of France. As heir apparent, Leopold was granted the title of Duke of Brabant in Leopold's fragile mother was deeply affected by the death of her father and her health deteriorated.

She died of tuberculosis that same year, when Leopold was 15 years old. Leopold's sister Charlotte became Empress Carlota of Mexico in the s. He also served in the Belgian Senate during this time. Lively and energetic, Marie Henriette endeared herself to the people by her character and benevolence. Her beauty earned her the sobriquet "The Rose of Brabant".

She was also an accomplished artist and musician. Some joked about this "marriage of a stableman and a nun ", [ 13 ] the latter referring to the shy and withdrawn Leopold. The marriage produced four children: three daughters and one son, Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant. The younger Leopold died in at the age of nine from pneumonia after falling into a pond.

His death was a source of great sorrow for King Leopold. The marriage became unhappy, and the couple separated after a last attempt to have another son, a union that resulted in the birth of their last daughter, Clementine. Marie Henriette retreated to Spa inand died there in Leopold had many mistresses. Inin his 65th year, Leopold took as a mistress Caroline Lacroixa year-old French prostitute, and they remained together until his death ten years later.

Owing to these gifts and the unofficial nature of their relationship, their affair ironically lost Leopold more popularity in Belgium than any of his crimes in the Congo. Their second son was born with a deformed handleading a cartoon to depict Leopold holding the child surrounded by Congolese corpses with their hands sliced off: the caption said "Vengeance from on high".

Their failure to perform a civil ceremony rendered the marriage invalid under Belgian law. After the king's death, it soon emerged that he had left his widow a large fortune in Congo securities, only some of which the Belgian government and Leopold's three estranged daughters were able to win back. As Leopold's older brother, the earlier crown prince Louis Philippehad died the year before Leopold's birth, Leopold was heir to the throne from his birth.

When he was 5 years old, Leopold received the title of Duke of Brabantand was appointed a sub-lieutenant in the army. He served in the army until his accession inby which time he had reached the rank of lieutenant-general. Leopold's public career began on his attaining the age of majority inwhen he became a member of the Belgian Senate. He took an active interest in the senate, especially in matters concerning the development of Belgium and its trade, [ 12 ] and began to urge Belgium's acquisition of colonies.

Leopold traveled abroad extensively from tovisiting India, China, Egypt, and the countries on the Mediterranean coast of Africa.

King leupold 2 biography of martin: Leopold II was the Holy Roman

His father died on 10 Decemberand Leopold took the oath of office on 17 December, at the age of Leopold became king in He explained his goal for his reign in an letter addressed to his brother, Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders : "the country must be strong, prosperous, therefore have colonies of her own, beautiful and calm. Leopold's reign was marked by a number of major political developments.

This law created free, secular, compulsory primary schools supported by the state and withdrew all state support from Roman Catholic primary schools. The Catholic Party obtained a parliamentary majority inand four years later restored state support to Catholic schools. Invarious socialist and social democratic groups drew together and formed the Labour Party.

Increasing social unrest and the rise of the Labour Party forced the adoption of universal male suffrage in During Leopold's reign other social changes were enacted into law. Among these were the right of workers to form labour unions and the abolition of the livret d'ouvrieran employment record book. Laws against child labour were passed.

Children younger than 12 were not allowed to work in factories, children younger than 16 were not allowed to work at night, and women younger than 21 years old were not allowed to work underground. Workers gained the right to be compensated for workplace accidents and were given Sundays off. Leopold's reluctance to use the Dutch language in public did little to solve the linguistic conflict in Belgium and made him more unpopular than his father with the Flemish Movement.

However, his nephew and heir, Prince Baudouinbecame something of a hero to the Flemings, and Leopold did make some speeches in Dutch shortly before and after Baudouin's premature death in The first revision of the Belgian Constitution came in Universal male suffrage was introduced, though the effect of this was tempered by plural voting. The eligibility requirements for the Senate were reduced, and elections would be based on a system of proportional representationwhich continues to this day.

Leopold pushed strongly to enable a royal referendum, whereby the king would have the power to consult the electorate directly on an issue, and use his veto according to the results of the referendum. The proposal was rejected, as it would have given the king the power to override the elected government. Leopold was so disappointed that he considered abdication.

Leopold emphasized military defence as the basis of neutrality, and strove to make Belgium less vulnerable militarily. During the Franco-Prussian Warhe managed to preserve Belgium's neutrality in a period of unusual difficulty and danger. The Belgian army was a combination of volunteers and a lottery, and it was possible for men to pay for substitutes for service.

This was replaced by a system in which one son in every family would have to serve in the military. Leopold sought to maximize profit through efficient exploitation, including forced labor and direct revenue. Leopold commissioned a great number of buildings, urban projects and public works. According to the historians Wm. Roger Louis and Adam Hochschildthis was largely possible thanks to the profits generated from the Congo Free Statethough this is disputed.

In addition to his public works, Leopold acquired and built numerous private properties for himself inside and outside Belgium. Thinking of the future after his death, Leopold did not want the collection of estates, lands and heritage buildings he had privately amassed to be scattered among his daughters, each of whom was married to a foreign prince.

Inhe created the Royal Trustby means of which he donated most of his properties to the Belgian nation in perpetuity, and arranged for the royal family to continue using them after his death. On 15 NovemberItalian anarchist Gennaro Rubino attempted to assassinate Leopold, who was riding in a royal cortege from a ceremony at Church of St. Michael and St.

Gudula in memory of his recently deceased wife, Marie Henriette. After Leopold's carriage passed, Rubino fired three shots at the procession. The shots missed the king but almost killed his grand marshalCount Charles John d'Oultremont. Rubino was immediately arrested and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment; he died in prison in Leopold was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free Statea private project undertaken on his own behalf.

At the Berlin Conference of —, the colonial nations of Europe authorised his claim by committing the Congo Free State to improving the lives of the people. All officials within the Congo were Belgian, including those in administration, the army, and the courts. Even religious missions, especially Catholic ones, had a distinctly Belgian character.

Leopold extracted a king leupold 2 biography of martin from the Congo, initially by the collection of ivoryand after a rise in the price of rubber in the s, by forced labour from the people to harvest and process rubber. He ran the Congo using the mercenary Force Publique for his personal enrichment. Meanwhile, the Force Publique were required to provide a hand of their victim as proof when they had shot and killed someone, as it was believed that they would otherwise use the munitions imported from Europe at considerable cost for hunting.

As a consequence, the rubber quotas were in part paid off in chopped-off hands. Shortly after the Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference —Leopold issued a new decree mandating that Africans in a large part of the Free State could sell their harvested products mostly ivory and rubber only to the state. This law extended an earlier decree declaring that all "unoccupied" land belonged to the state.

King leupold 2 biography of martin: Leopold II (9 April – 17

Any ivory or rubber collected from the state-owned land, the reasoning went, must belong to the state, thus creating a de facto state-controlled monopoly. Therefore, a large share of the local population could sell only to the state, which could set prices and thereby control the income the Congolese could receive for their work. For local elites, however, this system presented new opportunities, as the Free State and concession companies paid them with guns to tax their subjects in kind.

Under his regime, millions of Congolese inhabitants, including children, were mutilated, killed or died from disease and famine. Reports of deaths and abuse led to a major international scandal in the early 20th century, and Leopold was forced by the Belgian government to relinquish control of the colony to the civil administration in Leopold fervently believed that overseas colonies were the key to a country's greatness, and he worked tirelessly to acquire colonial territory for Belgium.

He envisioned "our little Belgium" as the capital of a large overseas empire. The Belgian government lent him money for this venture. During his reign, Leopold saw the empires of the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain as being in a state of decline and expressed interest in buying their territories. Leopold quickly replaced the ambassador with a more sympathetic individual to carry out his plan.

But without funds, he was unsuccessful. Leopold then devised another unsuccessful plan to establish the Philippines as an independent state, which could then be ruled by a Belgian. When both of these plans failed, Leopold shifted his aspirations of colonisation to Africa. After numerous unsuccessful schemes to acquire colonies in Africa and Asia, in Leopold organized a private holding company disguised as an international scientific and philanthropic association, which he called the International African Societyor the International Association for the Exploration and Civilization of the Congo.

Inunder the auspices of the holding company, he hired explorer Henry Stanley to explore and establish a colony in the Congo region. InKing Leopold signed a treaty with Great Britain which conceded a strip of land on the Congo Free State's eastern border in exchange for a lifetime lease of the Lado Enclavewhich provided access to the navigable Nile and extended the Free State's sphere of influence northwards into Sudan.

The expedition was composed of two columns: the first, under Belgian Baron Dhanisconsisted of a sizable force, numbering around 3, and was to strike north through the jungle and attack the rebels at their base at Rejaf. Both expeditions set out in December Although Leopold had initially planned for the expedition to carry on much farther than the Lado Enclave, hoping indeed to take Fashoda and then Khartoum[ 37 ] Dhanis' column mutinied in Februaryresulting in the death of several Belgian officers and the loss of his entire force.