Leopold II Of Belgium - The King Who Committed Genocide

In today's video we'll talk about Leopold II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Some of the pictures in this video might be considered to be disturbing, so viewer discretion is advised. Leopold II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was born in Brussels on April 9, 1835. He was the second son of the reigning Belgian king Leopold I and his second wife Louise d'Orléans, who was a daughter of Louis-Philippe I, king of the French. Through his mother, Leopold was a descendant of Louis XIII of France and of Philippe d'Orléans, and through his father, he was a cousin of the British queen Victoria, as his father and Victoria's mother were siblings. On August 22, 1853, Leopold married Marie Henriette Anne of Austria. The couple had four children together, Louise of Belgium, who married Philippe of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Leopold of Belgium, duke of Brabant, who died at the age of nine, Stéphanie of Belgium, who married Rudolf of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria. After his death, she remarried Elémer Longier, and Clémentine of Belgium, who married Napoléon Victor-Jérôme Frédéric Bonaparte, the head of the Bonaparte family. Leopold suffered from weak health and from 1853, until his accession to the throne, he therefore embarked on multiple long sea voyages during which he visited Egypt and the Middle East. Even before his accession, Leopold pursued the idea of making Belgium, a country insignificant in the European power structure, gain wealth and power by acquiring colonies. His father, Leopold I, had at times pursued similar ideas, but after failing at establishing a colony in South America, however, Leopold I had abandoned the idea. Leopold I of Belgium died in 1865, after which Leopold II became the king of the Belgians. As a constitutional monarch, Leopold II had little power to enforce his policies, including his idea of developing Belgium into a colonial power. Neither the Belgian government nor his subjects were interested in building colonies, the development of which seemed cost-intensive and hardly feasible. The regions of the world where this was promisingly possible were already largely divided among the existing colonial powers. Leopold II, however, was one of the wealthiest men in Europe. This gave him the leeway to implement as a private citizen what was impossible for him as a monarch. Exploration of the interior of sub-Saharan Africa began in the second half of the 19th century. Leopold II followed all voyages of discovery in the African continent with great interest. The news of the first explorers proved that the region south of the Sahara was not desolate and empty. Immeasurable treasures in the Congo basin were reported. Leopold II now began to concentrate on founding a colony in Africa. In 1878, Leopold commissioned Henry Morton Stanley to carry out investigations toward creating a colony. While the mission officially was called scientific and philanthropic, Leopold secretly instructed Stanley to acquire land and return ivory to Belgium. Stanley founded a number of settlements, including Leopoldville, which is now known as Kinshasa, and began building a railway track. During the construction of the railway track, many of the forcibly recruited indigenous people perished. Stanley also tricked about 450 tribal chiefs to sign over their land to Leopold II. In 1884, during the Conference of Berlin, organized by Otto von Bismarck, it was decided that the Congo would become the property of the International Congo Society. However, since Leopold was the sole owner of the society, the entire land de facto became his private property. At around 2.34 million square kilometers, the area was over 70 times the size of the Kingdom of Belgium. In 1885, Leopold dissolved the International Congo Society, created the formerly autonomous and independent Congo Free State, and had himself confirmed by the Belgian Parliament as the sovereign king of the state. The Congo now also belonged by law to Leopold II. The first years from 1876 to 1885 of the Free State are considered the more tolerable years during the existence of the state. Leopold invested his large fortune in the construction of mission stations as well as in the expansion of the new capital, Boma. Congolese inhabitants freed from slavery by East African slave traders were taught in schools. Thus, in a short amount of time, Leopold created loyal, European-oriented native helpers who supported the Europeans in education and administration in trading posts and the mission stations. In 1888, he issued three decrees. The first banned the dealing of arms, the second laid down conditions for the employment of native workers, and the third formed the basis for the creation of the Force Publique, which was basically a colonial army. He convinced the Belgian Parliament to advance him 10 million francs for the development of various major infrastructure projects. But Leopold needed further financial resources. Bartering was the norm in the country, so it was not possible for Leopold to collect monetary taxes, but instead the Congolese people were required to pay their taxes in kind. Initially, ivory was shipped to Europe. Soon, rubber was added, as in 1844, Charles Goodyear had obtained a patent for the vulcanization of rubber which had made it possible to produce tires. This invention had increased the need for rubber and when 44 years later, after Goodyear's patent, John Boyd Dunlop invented the pneumatic tire, once again the demand for rubber increased significantly. Thus, Leopold's Force Publique started to invade villages, threatening the inhabitants to burn down their villages unless they would collect certain amounts of rubber. Anyone who tried to flee was shot. In order to check whether the troops had used their bullets sensibly, they had to present the hands of the people shot for fleeing to their superiors in order to account for their spent ammunition. Thus, any wasted bullet resulted in the hands of living people being chopped off. Furthermore, those who did not supply enough rubber would also have their hands chopped off. In addition, the pressure on the local people to constantly collect rubber meant that they were less and less able to work their fields. In some areas, 60 to 90 percent of the population starved to death or fled their villages to escape the grip of the state. Moreover, the way the Congo Free State was structured favored the abuse of power. Most of the vast country, which was the size of Western Europe, was controlled by around 3,000 Europeans and was to be administered as cheaply as possible. Many Belgian officers came from the petty bourgeoisie and were unfamiliar with Africa and its living conditions. Assigned to a lonely outpost far from any familiar surroundings, plagued by malaria and humidity, fears, melancholy to the point of complete madness, and fantasies of omnipotence often developed among the officers, which eventually ended in numerous massacres. There was also virtually no legal system at all. The absence of courts, laws of even a separation of powers, opened the floodgates to the abuse of power by officers and officials residing there. There are different estimates of how many inhabitants of the Congo Free State were murdered under Leopold's rule or how many died or were displaced by the consequences of his policies. Between 1818 and 1920, the population of the Congo fell by at least half. In 1891, for example, the village of Lukolela still had 6,000 inhabitants. In 1903, it was less than 400. Some sources speak of 10 million deaths. Leopold's wealth also benefited Belgium, where Leopold undertook numerous building projects such as the Parc du Cinq Antennaires and the Royal Museum of Central Africa. Thanks to Leopold's investments, Belgium experienced an economic and cultural boom during these years. In the Congo, Leopold created a state that was built like a pyramid. Leopold, his henchmen and the 3,000 or so European officials profited while the broad masses of the Congolese inhabitants became destitute or died. Slowly though, voices of protest started to be heard. From 1904 onwards, the campaigns of some missionaries and newspapermen who publicly condemned the crimes against the inhabitants of the Congo showed success. Major newspapers reported regularly and the churches condemned the treatment of the people. In 1908, the governments of Britain and the USA condemned Leopold's system of rule. Put under pressure, Leopold II had to agree to an act of the Belgian Parliament, whereby the Belgian state bought the Congo Free State from the king. The colony now became known as the Belgian Congo. When Leopold II of Belgium died on December 17, 1909, he was largely isolated from the other European rulers. He was succeeded by his nephew Albert I. Leopold II was buried in the crypt of the Church of Our Lady in Laken in Brussels. Today, there are a few statues dedicated to Leopold II still present in Belgium. The monuments were erected to arouse popular support for the colonial enterprise in the Belgian Congo as it was still quite profitable for the Belgian state. However, particularly because of Leopold's controversial policies in the Congo, proposals to remove the statues from public places have been made on several occasions. Until 2020, such proposals were not very successful. During the international protests after the death of George Floyd, several statues of Leopold II were vandalized, while several petitions were signed by many Belgians demanding the removal of the statues. Thank you for watching.