Royal question
The royal question was a major political crisis in Belgium that lasted from 1945 to 1951, coming to a head between March and August 1950. The question at stake surrounded whether King Leopold III could return to Belgium and resume his constitutional role amid allegations that his actions during World War II had been contrary to the provisions of the Belgian Constitution. The crisis brought Belgium to the brink of a civil war. It was eventually resolved by the abdication of Leopold in favour of his son Prince Baudouin in 1951.
The crisis emerged from the division between Leopold and his Government, led by Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot, during the German invasion in May 1940. Leopold, who was suspected of authoritarian sympathies, had assumed command of the Belgian Army at the outbreak of war. Considering his constitutional position as commander-in-chief to take precedence over his civil role as head of state, he refused to leave his defeated troops and join the Belgian government in exile in France. Leopold's refusal to obey the Government marked a constitutional crisis and he was widely condemned after negotiating his army's surrender on 28 May 1940. He spent most of the occupation under house arrest in German-occupied Belgium. Shortly before the Allies liberated the country in 1944, Leopold was deported to Germany by the Nazis.
With Belgium liberated but the King still in captivity, Leopold was declared officially "unable to rule" in accordance with the constitution and his brother, Prince Charles, Count of Flanders, was elected regent. The country was divided along political lines over whether Leopold could ever return to his functions, and with a dominantly left-wing government in Belgium, Leopold went into exile in Switzerland. In 1950, a national referendum was organised by a new centre-right government to decide on whether Leopold could return. Although the result was a victory for the Leopoldists, it produced a strong regional split between Flanders, which was broadly in favour of the King's return, and Brussels and Wallonia which generally opposed it. Leopold's return to Belgium in July 1950 was greeted with widespread protests in Wallonia and a general strike. The unrest culminated in the killing of four workers by police on 30 July. With the situation fast deteriorating, on 1 August 1950 Leopold announced his intention to abdicate. After a transition period, he formally abdicated in favour of Baudouin in July 1951.
Background
Monarchy and the constitution
gained its independence from the United Netherlands in 1830 and was established as a popular and constitutional monarchy under a bicameral parliamentary democracy. A liberal Constitution was written in 1831 which codified the responsibilities and restrictions imposed on the monarch. As head of state, the King's acts were not valid without the countersignature and approval of a government minister. However, he was vested with full control of military matters in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief. Which responsibility would take precedence if they became incompatible was left ambiguous and this uncertainty would lie at the heart of the royal question.The first King, Leopold I, accepted the terms of the Constitution but attempted to use its ambiguities to subtly increase his own powers. This was continued by his successors, although with little real success.
King Leopold III
came to the throne in 1934 after his father, Albert I, died in a mountaineering accident. Albert, known as the "Knight King", had been hugely popular in Belgium after commanding the Belgian army during World War I while much of the country was under German occupation. Leopold's reign was marked by economic crisis in the wake of the Great Depression, and political agitation by both far-left and far-right parties. Amid this period of crisis, Leopold attempted to expand the powers of the monarch. He was widely suspected of holding authoritarian and right-wing political views. From 1936, Leopold was a strong supporter of Belgium's "independence policy" of political neutrality in the face of Nazi Germany's increasingly aggressive territorial expansion.German invasion and occupation, 1940–44
On 10 May 1940, German forces invaded neutral Belgium without a formal declaration of war. King Leopold III headed immediately to Fort Breendonk, the headquarters of the Belgian army near Mechelen, to take control of the army. He refused to address the Belgian parliament beforehand, as Albert I had famously done at the outbreak of World War I. The speed of the German advance, using the new Blitzkrieg approach, soon pushed the Belgian army westwards despite British and French support. On 16 May, the Belgian government left Brussels.Break between King and Government
Soon after the outbreak of war, the King and Government began to disagree. While the Government argued that the German invasion had violated Belgian neutrality and made Belgium one of the Allies, Leopold argued that Belgium was still a neutral country and had no obligations beyond defending its borders. Leopold opposed allowing British and French forces into Belgian territory to fight alongside Belgian troops, as a breach of its neutrality.On 25 May 1940, Leopold met senior representatives of his Government for a final time at the Kasteel van Wijnendale in West Flanders. The meeting is frequently cited as the start of the royal question and the moment of the decisive break between King and Government. Four ministers were present: Hubert Pierlot, Paul-Henri Spaak, Henri Denis and Arthur Vanderpoorten. By the time of the meeting, against the backdrop of the bloody Battle of the Lys, the Belgian government was preparing to continue the fight against Germany from exile in France. They urged the King to join them, following the examples of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands and Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg. The King rejected their arguments and hardened his own position. He refused to leave Belgian territory and his army in Flanders at any cost. The ministers suspected that Leopold's aides were already negotiating with the Germans. The meeting broke up with no agreement and the Belgian Government left for France.
King Leopold negotiated a cease-fire with the Germans on 27 May 1940, and the Belgian armed forces officially surrendered the following day. Leopold became a prisoner of war and was placed under house arrest at the Royal Palace of Laeken, near Brussels. Furious that the King had both ignored the Government and negotiated a surrender without consulting them, Pierlot gave an angry speech on Radio Paris, condemning the King and announcing the Government's intention to continue fighting alongside the Allies. French politicians, notably Paul Reynaud, blamed Leopold for the growing disaster of the Battle of France and angrily condemned him as a "criminal king".
King Leopold during the German occupation
With the Belgian surrender on 28 May 1940, Belgium was placed under German occupation and a military administration was established under General Alexander von Falkenhausen to govern the country. Belgian civil servants were ordered to remain at their posts in order to ensure the continued functioning of the state and to attempt to protect the population from the demands of the German authorities.With France's defeat and the installation of the pro-German Vichy regime, it was widely believed that Germany was about to win the war. King Leopold was hailed as a "martyr" or a symbol of national resilience, in contrast to a Government that appeared to place its ideology above the interests of the Belgian people. On 31 May 1940, the senior representative of the Catholic Church in Belgium, Jozef-Ernest Cardinal van Roey, circulated a pastoral letter calling for all Belgians to unite around the King. Other figures in the King's entourage, particularly the authoritarian socialist Henri de Man, believed that democracy had failed and that the end of the war would see the King as the ruler of an authoritarian Belgian state.
File:0 Château Royal de Laeken.JPG|thumb|left|Modern view of the Royal Palace of Laeken, where Leopold was detained during the occupation
Imprisoned, the King continued to follow his own political programme. He believed that after the German victory, a "New Order" would be established in Europe and that, as the senior Belgian figure in occupied Europe, he could negotiate with the German authorities. King Leopold corresponded with Adolf Hitler and tried to organise a meeting with him. Hitler remained uninterested and distrustful of the King, but on 19 November 1940, King Leopold succeeded in gaining an unproductive audience with him at Berchtesgaden.
Popular support for Leopold in Belgium declined sharply in December 1941 when news of Leopold's remarriage to Lilian Baels was made public. The marriage was deeply unpopular with the Belgian public. The image of the "prisoner-king", sharing the suffering of the Belgian prisoners of war, was undermined and his popularity fell sharply, especially in Wallonia, the home of the majority of the Belgian prisoners still detained. Popular opinion also turned on the king for his perceived unwillingness to speak out against German occupation policies.
Amid German defeats against the Russians on the Eastern Front after 1942, the King prepared for the end of the war. He ordered the preparation of a document, known as the Political Testament, which would justify his behaviour under the occupation and detail his interventions on behalf of Belgian prisoners of war and deported workers. Leopold, however, continued to condemn the action of the Belgian government in exile. On 7 June 1944, following D-Day, he was deported to Germany. He was finally liberated by American forces on 7 May 1945.
Regency and the early crisis, 1944–49
Leopold declared "unable to reign", 1944
After the Allied landings in Normandy, Allied troops advanced eastwards and crossed the Belgian frontier on 1 September 1944. German forces offered little resistance and, by 4 September, the Allies were in control of Brussels, although the last occupied parts of Belgian territory were only liberated in February 1945. On 8 September 1944, the government in exile returned to Brussels and was greeted with general indifference. Although the King was no longer in the country, his Political Testament was presented to the returned Government as he had wished and was soon circulated publicly. At the same time, a copy was presented to the British King, George VI, and was seen by the Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. The text reignited the divisions within the Government which had been largely hidden since earlier in the war.Since the King was still in German custody, there was no opposition to the creation of a regency in his absence. On 20 September 1944, a meeting of both chambers of Parliament was called. Article 82 of the Constitution was invoked, declaring the King "unable to reign". Leopold's reclusive brother, Prince Charles, Count of Flanders, was elected regent and took the oath the following day. Further action on the royal question was pushed aside by more pressing economic and political issues that occupied most of the Government's time. With Belgium under partial Allied military administration until the restoration of the government services, British hostility to Leopold's return also complicated the issue.