Royal question

Considering his constitutional position as commander-in-chief to take precedence over his civil role as head of state, he refused to leave his army and join the Belgian government in exile in France.

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.

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.

Belgium gained its independence from the United Netherlands in 1830 and was established as a popular and constitutional monarchy under a bicameral parliamentary democracy.

Although the King, as head of state, was prevented from acting without the approval of a government minister, he was allowed full control of military matters in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief.

Albert, known as the "Knight King" (roi-chevalier or koning-ridder), had been hugely popular in Belgium after commanding the Belgian army during World War I (1914–18) 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.

[4] 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.

[6] The speed of the German advance, using the new Blitzkrieg approach, soon pushed the Belgian army westwards despite British and French support.

[8] 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.

[10] French politicians, notably Paul Reynaud, blamed Leopold for the growing disaster of the Battle of France and angrily condemned him as a "criminal king" (roi-félon).

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.

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, Cardinal Jozef-Ernest van Roey, circulated a pastoral letter calling for all Belgians to unite around the King.

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.

[24][26] With Belgium under partial Allied military administration until the restoration of the government services, British hostility to Leopold's return also complicated the issue.

[30] Under the early regency, both the Pierlot and subsequent Achille Van Acker governments attempted to avoid confronting the issue of Leopold's return despite calls from Communists, some Socialists and trade unionists for the King's abdication in April and May 1945.

At a series of meetings between 9 and 11 May 1945, Van Acker insisted that the King publicly announce his support for the Allied cause and his commitment to parliamentary democracy.

[31] In the meantime, Leopold took up residence in Pregny (near Geneva) in Switzerland under the pretext that heart palpitations made further negotiations or thoughts of a return to political life impossible.

[33][34] In Belgium, political debate about the royal question continued and grew after the war, and remained a polemical topic in the popular press, notably in the Francophone newspaper Le Soir.

The result confirmed the worries of some, including Spaak, that the vote would not be sufficiently decisive in either direction and could divide the country along regional and linguistic lines.

André Renard, a Walloon trade union leader, called for "insurrection" and "revolution" in the newspaper La Wallonie shortly after the King's return in July 1950.

[43] Modern historians have noted that "the smell of revolution was on the air" as Walloon nationalists called for the immediate secession of Wallonia and the creation of a republic.

[44] As the situation escalated, the National Confederation of Political Prisoners and their Dependents (Confédération nationale des prisonniers politiques et des ayants droit, Nationale Confederatie van Politieke Gevangenen en Rechthebbenden, or CNPPA–NCPGR), the organisation representing political prisoners detained during the German occupation, offered to act as intermediaries between the different parties because of their respected status.

In the afternoon of 1 August, Leopold publicly announced his intention to abdicate in favour of his eldest son, Baudouin, to avoid further bloodshed.

[44] On 11 August 1950, as Crown Prince Baudouin was taking the oath of allegiance (as regent) to the Constitution in front of the Parliament, an unidentified individual in the Communist benches shouted "Vive la république!"

[50] Although no-one was ever prosecuted for the murder, it was widely attributed to clandestine Leopoldist militia like the Ligue Eltrois or the Bloc anticommuniste belge who operated with the knowledge of the security services.

[52] Negotiations about the European Defence Community followed and, by the mid-1950s, Belgium was immersed in a new political crisis, known as the Second School War, surrounding the secularisation of education.

[54] Modern historians describe the royal question as an important moment in Belgian recovery after World War II.

[56] The Lahaut assassination was not solved, and it remained contentious as the only political murder in Belgian history until the death of the socialist politician André Cools in 1991.