Rexisme and Leon Degrelle

I have wanted to talk about Rexisme for a long time but always hesitated to do so because it is a thorny issue and brings up so many other thorny issues and has so many controversial associations that I always drew back. However, as to being controversial, at this point, why not? And, I do think the history of Rexisme and its charismatic and very controversial leader Leon Degrelle, has much to teach us that is pertinent to this day and age. Rexisme or the Rexist Party was founded on November 2, 1935 by Leon Degrelle in the Kingdom of Belgium. The term “Rexisme” is my preference rather than “Rexist Party” as Degrelle did intend for Rexisme to be a national movement rather than only a political party, which is fine by me as I generally detest political parties. It remains even now a rather ‘rare bird’ in the world of Belgian politics in that it was a Belgian nationalist party. As most know, Walloon nationalist parties and certainly Flemish nationalist parties in Belgium are extremely common but a broader *Belgian* nationalist party is hard to come by. However, it was never very pan-Belgian in terms of its support, attracting very few members or voters from the Flanders region.

Rexisme was the brainchild of Leon Degrelle, a native of Bouillon, Belgium born in 1906. His life reads like a boys adventure novel, at least up until the ‘hardcore Nazi’ part. Nonetheless, though he ended his life an ardent and unrepentant Nazi, anyone who says he was not at extremely exceptional individual is being dishonest. Degrelle was Jesuit educated (back when that meant something), studied law but ultimately turned to journalism, writing for a Catholic periodical. During that period of his life, he was sent to cover the “Cristero” rebellion in Mexico, something which would have a profound impact on his life. The Cristeros were Mexican Catholics who rose up against the anti-Catholic persecution of the Marxist PRI government (which is back in power today) and which proved surprisingly successful. However, the Mexican bishops never really supported it and finally came to an agreement with the Mexican government and told the Cristeros to lay down their arms and disperse. They did so, being loyal Catholics, at which point the government massacred most of them.

The example of the Cristeros caused Degrelle to become more militant in his Catholicism and he also became very much influenced by the writings of the French royalist Charles Maurras and the Belgian Jean Denis. From these sources, and others, he began publishing his own periodical for the Catholic Party in Belgium called “Editions de Rex”, taking his inspiration for the name from the Cristero battlecry of “Viva Cristo Rey” (Long live Christ the King). Soon, however, his views came to be at odds with the mainstream Catholic Party and in 1935 he split from them to form his own movement, which he called “Rexisme”. His goal was to lead not only a political movement but a social movement across Belgium, a revival of Catholic morality, Catholic social teachings and greater national unity. Rexisme opposed liberal democracy and promoted corporatism, envisioning a new type of government for Belgium that would do away with the usual democratic process in favor of a more robust monarchy and political representation based on occupation.

It was also very much a Belgian nationalist party in that Degrelle pressed for the unity of all Belgians, regardless of class differences or language differences and putting greater emphasis on the position of the King was part of that, as was Catholicism in a way since the monarchy and the Catholic Church were two things that traditionally united all Belgians.

There have been, of course, obvious parallels drawn between Rexisme and other parties or movements which are today all classified as “far-right”. Jean Denis, himself soon elected to office for Rexisme, had influenced the corporatist regime of Antonio Salazar in Portugal. The year after forming his party, Degrelle met with Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, leader of the Falange in Spain, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu of the Iron Guard of Romania, the leader of Fascist Italy Benito Mussolini and, yes, Adolf Hitler of Germany. However, the influence of Hitler and the National Socialists was not great in the beginning. Both Hitler and Mussolini donated money to Degrelle and his movement, but Mussolini donated more and Rexisme had more in common with Italian Fascism as it was then than it had with the Nazi Party in Germany. Race was not really an issue for Rexisme as there were no appreciable racial minorities in Belgium nor did they have much to say about the Jews. Their movement was all about Catholics and the Jews did not really come into it.

To the surprise of many, and the horror of some, Rexisme shot to considerable popularity from the very start. In the May 1936 general elections, after only one year in existence, Rexisme won a stunning string of electoral victories, winning 21 seats in the lower chamber and 8 seats in the Senate. The Belgian King Leopold III offered Degrelle a seat in the cabinet as a result of this success but, buoyed by his victories, Degrelle turned down the offer, thinking that rather than settle for a small part in government, he could build on his success and soon win it all. However, the success of Rexisme also alerted others to the threat he posed to the established order. His call for national unity largely seems to have fallen on deaf ears as almost all of his political support came from Wallonia and Brussels with only a tiny fraction from Flanders. The Catholic hierarchy in Belgium also came out strongly against his movement and would ultimately even find themselves willing to make common cause with the Communist Party in order to oppose him. One cannot help but wonder if Degrelle was reminded of the actions of the Catholic bishops in Mexico to a militant Catholic movement in their country.

Degrelle and Rexisme were shunned by the political mainstream as well as the Catholic bishops as being too extreme, too radical, too militant, too nationalistic and so on. The result, however, of this attitude was to push Degrelle and the members of Rexisme even further away. As time went on, rather than Portugal or Italy, Rexisme became ever more heavily influenced by National Socialist Germany. The periodical of the movement became noticeably more anti-Semitic, a rather inevitable result of their noticing how disproportionately represented the Jews were among their enemies. This is a lesson many today in North America and western Europe would do well to take notice of. By shunning and vilifying Rexisme as simply the Belgian version of the Nazi Party, the result was to push the two closer together. The political fortunes of Rexisme played out like a rocket going off. It shot to great heights very quickly but then plummeted just as quickly in the face of the united opposition of the political and even religious establishment. In the general election of April 1939 Rexisme lost all but 4 of their seats with Leon Degrelle himself losing the Brussels election to Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland.

The Belgian members of Rexisme thus became even more extreme out of bitterness to the whole political system. They had played the game fairly, played by the rules, had not been threatening or violent, yet they had been vilified, castigated and saw the political establishment unite to block them from electoral success. Why play the game if the other side is not going to play fairly? How things would have gone from there, we cannot know as a little thing called World War II intervened. Despite what some might think given his life subsequently, Leon Degrelle was not a cheerleader for Nazi Germany. He supported the position of King Leopold III that neutrality was the best policy. As in the last war, however, that neutrality was soon violated and after eighteen days of gallant resistance, King Leopold III surrendered to the Germans and was taken prisoner. The members of Rexisme were, to a degree, split by these events. As proud Belgian nationalists, some joined the underground to oppose the German occupation. Others, however, asked why they should support a regime that had opposed them to fight against men like Hitler and Mussolini who had consistently supported them? Many chose to join with the Axis.

Leon Degrelle was one of these, though he did first spend some time in a concentration camp in France, which, again, some may be surprised to know. Degrelle decided to join the Axis war effort, first as a member of a volunteer legion with the German army. As a prominent political personality from an occupied country, Hitler offered Degrelle an officer’s commission, however, Degrelle refused it. Instead, he began as a simple enlisted man and worked his way up through the ranks, very quickly. Degrelle proved to be an amazing soldier, skillful and fearless, which is something no one can take away from him regardless of political opinions. He and his men of the Walloon legion proved so outstanding that they were deemed worthy of transfer to the elite armed formation of the National Socialist Party, the Waffen-SS. In time, Degrelle would rise to the rank of Colonel of reserves in the SS-Sturmbrigade “Wallonie” as part of the “Wiking” division. His exploits on the Russian front were incredible and by the end of his career Degrelle had earned the Iron Cross first and second class, the Knight’s Iron Cross with oak leaves, the Close Combat Clasp in gold and the Infantry Assault Badge in Silver. Hitler famously said that if he had a son, he would wish him to be like Degrelle.

It may also surprise some, given how the local hierarchy had opposed him, that Degrelle always remained a practicing Catholic. A famous photo shows him receiving communion on the eastern front which is not at all unusual given that, as can be seen by his uniform, this was during his service with the regular German military. What is unusual is that, when he and his men were transferred to the Germanic-SS by Heinrich Himmler, they retained their Catholic chaplain. Other than the Imams for Muslim units, the SS did not “do” chaplains at all. Himmler preferred SS men not to have any strong religious ties so that the National Socialist Party and Adolf Hitler would become the sole focus of their devotion. However, Degrelle evidently insisted enough and his unit was impressive enough that Himmler made an exception for him and a Catholic priest was provided to attend to them for the rest of the war.

In the end, of course, Nazi Germany was defeated and the “Wallonie” brigade was effectively wiped out on the west bank of the Oder. Survivors were evacuated to Denmark where Degrelle was able to escape to Norway and fly to Spain where he was given sanctuary. Condemned and sentenced to death by the Belgian government after the war for his collaboration, Generalissimo Franco refused to hand him over and Degrelle lived on until 1994, to the very end defending and praising Adolf Hitler and National Socialism. His hero-worship of Hitler and National Socialism had, it must be pointed out, eclipsed even his own movement, Rexisme, for Degrelle in the end. By that time, he had devoted himself to writing defenses of himself and more so Adolf Hitler, National Socialism and the German vision of a pan-European super-state in which there would be no place for individual countries. He did lose one court battle and was fined for what amounted to Holocaust denial, after the fall of the Franco regime, but was always unapologetic. He famously said that the only thing he regretted about World War II was that Germany had lost.

Considering all of that though, it is important to remember where Degrelle had started and what Rexisme had been all about. Rexisme had been about the social kingship of Christ, a corporatist state, a more revered monarchy and far from erasing Belgium from the map, wanted to strengthen it. The Flemish nationalists who collaborated with the Nazis, dreamed of uniting with their Dutch Protestant neighbors to form a “Greater Netherlands” but Degrelle wanted Belgians to be the core of a revived Burgundy, even adopting the Burgundian cross, today most associated with Spain, as the second symbol of the Rexisme movement. Degrelle referred to this as the “Great Burgundian Renaissance” and it is frankly amazing that he remained adamant about being a Catholic even when the local bishops were so zealously opposed to him. Archbishop Jozef Van Roey of Mechelen and Brussels tried to have him excommunicated though, thanks to Mussolini speaking up for him at the Vatican, this did not happen though Rexisme adherents claimed that Roey was responsible for the threats of excommunication for anyone who voted for them coming from the pulpits prior to their 1939 electoral downfall. Given all of that, it would be hard to explain Degrelle’s continued insistence to be a devout Catholic other than that he firmly believed it to be true. In 1943 he was excommunicated by the Bishop of Namur after coming to mass in his SS uniform but this was lifted by the German Catholic bishop who oversaw the chaplaincy as Degrelle was within his jurisdiction. Whether he was or was not in full communion with the Church remained a controversial subject up to the time of his death, many in the Church saying he was not but Degrelle insisting that he was.

There is a lesson here for those who choose to take it. Necessarily, any view of Rexisme will depend on your view of Catholicism as the Rexists saw everything through a Catholic lens. What is important to keep in mind is that, while increasingly unfashionable, Rexisme did not advocate anything that was really out of line with traditional Catholic teachings, be it their disdain for democracy, their corporatist model (a more sophisticated version of the guild system), their support for the monarchy and opposition to things like freedom of religion or separation of Church and state. All of these were positions which the Church, at the time, was still supposed to hold. In other words, nothing the Rexists were calling for should have been considered extreme or radical.

Nonetheless, they were and the liberals, proving the founder of Fascism right about them, swiftly set aside all of their high-minded ideals about freedom and fair play to stop Rexisme from gaining power through the political process. The result was that many saw no reason not to align themselves with the Germans when they arrived. This is happening in many countries today. The liberals know of no greater evil than the Nazis and since just about the whole world agreed that Nazis are bad, the Nazis became their favorite bogey man. However, they eventually found Nazis to be thin on the ground and so have started to create Nazis by expanding the definition of the term. This behavior was reinforced by the fact that whenever they shouted “Nazi!” their opponent would shut up and back away. Naturally, finding how well that works, every enemy of the liberals became a Nazi. Then, after broadening the term to absurd proportions, they also began pushing people toward the Nazi camp by suppressing all opposition to their viewpoint.

I talked about this before in the article about liberals proving Mussolini was right about them by their own actions. The only people not offended by being called Nazis are, of course, actual Nazis. So, after using the term to silence all other opposition, they leave the Nazis as the last man standing, which they probably think is fine because almost the entire world already thinks Nazis are the worst thing ever. However, just as happened with Rexisme, they are pushing people into the Nazi camp who otherwise would never have been with them. Thus, as we are seeing in the western world right now, when people are told that everyone else has a right to their own country for their own people, except for *your* people, when everyone else has a right to the most vitriolic speech, except for *your* people, when everyone else has the right to hold demonstrations and identity-group advocacy except for *your* people, you are probably going to catch on that this is unfair, will find no refuge in the law or the constitution and will either shrink away or drop all reason and moderation and go totally extremist. And, when that happens, the stage has been set for you to find no other open arms but those of Hitler. Such was the case with Rexisme and that is the way the enemies of our civilization want it because, again, they figure the battle against Hitler has already been won.

To close, I will say then that my hope is the defenders of traditional authority, faith, family and folk, will stand up for their people and provide an alternative with deep historical and spiritual roots in western civilization. You will of course be called a Nazi if you do, but don’t help out the enemy by proving them right. Prove them wrong, don’t make it easy for them. It’s not about what they call you, it is about what you believe and what you know is right. I think Rexisme got more right than it did wrong, and I know that saying Rexisme sounds pretty good to me, given what many members later did, will cause some to call me a Nazi. I'm not, I know that, so I don't care. They would call me that anyway so, if they want to categorize things that way, I cannot stop them. Wanting to preserve your people, your faith and your heritage in your own countries is not wrong, letting all the blood, toil and tears of your ancestors be in vain is what is wrong, and to my mind unforgivable. Take your stand and do what is right, that is your only duty. As General Robert E. Lee once said, “You can never do more, you should never wish to do less.”

Should the Low Countries Have Fought World War II?

Should the Low Countries have fought World War II? Obviously, that is a somewhat silly question. They had no choice. They were attacked, invaded and occupied so it is only natural that they would resist and fight to liberate their lands and populations from foreign domination. However, one of the requirements of a “just war” according to the School of Salamanca (building on the works of St Thomas Aquinas) is that it is just to fight a war of self-defense as long as there is a reasonable possibility of success. Otherwise, to do so, would be a futile sacrifice of life that would be immoral. Not a few people would look at the vast disparity in the military capabilities of the Kingdoms of the Netherlands, Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg compared to Nazi Germany and conclude that there was no reasonable chance of success, that any resistance would be futile and thus it was wrong to fight and the Dutch, Belgians and Luxembourgish should have simply submitted peacefully to German domination. After all, we can see with the benefit of hindsight how overwhelming the Nazi blitzkrieg was; Luxembourg was occupied in a day, the Netherlands surrendered in four days, Belgium in eighteen.

Dutch East Indies colonial troops

Yet, there is more to it than that. In the First World War, the Belgians resisted fiercely and, indeed, the Germans never managed to conquer quite all of Belgium. In World War II, even after their homelands were conquered, the Netherlands and Belgium carried on fighting. Dutch forces made a significant contribution to the war against Japan in the Dutch East Indies and colonial troops from the Belgian Congo participated in the Allied conquest of Italian East Africa. Even tiny Luxembourg was not left out of the eventual Allied counter-attack in Europe. None of these countries ever expected to be fighting alone. Regardless of what neutrality pacts they had in place, the only powers that any of these countries could reasonably expect to face hostilities from was France or Germany and in all probability they themselves would not be the target. None would certainly be isolated. If, for some reason, France invaded to get at Germany, they could count on German support whether guaranteed or in any way obligated or not. As did happen, when Germany invaded, they had the support of the French, and eventually the British, in the overall struggle that ensued.

Field Marshal Montgomery & Dutch Prince Bernhard

On their own, neither the Netherlands, Belgium or Luxembourg could hope to defeat the Germans. However, they did not need to be able to in order to have at least a reasonable chance of success (still not considerable, but at least “reasonable”). Going back to the First World War, the only reason to strike the Low Countries was because the low, flat terrain offered a faster route to France for the Germans than to attack directly across the heavily fortified French frontier. Of course, in that conflict, as it turned out, the Germans did extremely well against the French on the Franco-German border even when greatly outnumbered. However, this overall strategic situation meant that neither the Dutch nor the Belgians would have to defeat the Germans outright but rather simply be able to offer enough resistance so that any gain in time that was to be had by advancing through the Low Countries was eliminated or even simply severely mitigated for the Germans. This would make conquering these countries unfeasible even if still totally possible. It was possible for the Low Countries to at least defend themselves sufficiently so that an invading power, while being able to conquer them, would gain no advantage from doing so and thus would choose to avoid them or, if determined to attack, at least be held off long enough for assistance from stronger powers to arrive to assist.

Belgian Congolese colonial troops in Ethiopia

It is rather bewildering that this logic could be lost on those who would argue that any resources devoted to defense for the Low Countries are resources wasted. They have hardly been the only ones to adopt such a strategy. Canada, for example, previously had defense plans in the event that war broke out with the United States. These were made in the Twentieth Century when, obviously, in isolation, there is no doubt that the United States could easily roll over and crush Canada with little trouble. Yet, Canadian resistance would not have been futile as they could conceivably have held off American forces long enough for the British to bring in support from the U.K. and across the empire, along with what was, at that time, a Royal Navy that was stronger than that of the United States so that such resistance could have been offered that any attack on Canada would not have been worth the cost. Likewise, when the Japan Self-Defense forces were first organized, a “shield and sword” strategy was adopted as part of the alliance with the United States. Originally, this was aimed at the possibility of Russian aggression. Today, the overall strategy has not changed but with China as just as if not more likely adversary. The Japanese Self-Defense Force acts as the shield and the American military as the sword, offering sufficiently fierce resistance to delay a Russian or Chinese attack until the massive strength of the American armed forces can be brought to bear to destroy the invader. This is not significantly different from the strategy the Low Countries did or could have adopted prior to both World Wars.

Dutch troops on guard, 1939

The reasons for the swift defeat of the Low Countries must be understood on a case by case basis. Little Luxembourg actually did have a defense strategy seemingly based on that above, with a series of roadblocks and iron gates to slow an invading army until help could arrive, but it was not pursued fully and, when the attack came, the small military corps was confined to barracks. There was little to no resistance to speak of. For the Dutch, too much trust had been put in the notion that Germany would respect Dutch neutrality as they had in the first war. The Netherlands could have made itself a much tougher nut to crack if proper resources had been devoted to the military and if defense plans had been taken more seriously. Even as it was, even surrendering after four days of fighting, the Dutch had held out three days longer than the Germans expected. They could have held out much longer if the army and air forces had not been so neglected by the government and if defensive flooding had been enacted sooner. The hope of neutrality also prevented the establishment of sophisticated plans for allied cooperation and so no significant help could reach Holland in time. Likewise, in the Dutch East Indies, naval defenses could have been stronger and the colonial forces on land had a mentality based almost completely on providing internal security rather than repelling a foreign invader due to the fact that the Dutch never considered any other regional power an enemy that would wish to attack them.

Belgian troops at the start of war

The Belgians, of course, had the most recent experience at fighting a world war. King Leopold III himself had served in the trenches with the small but tenacious Belgian army in the brutal Flanders sector. Defense was taken much more seriously in Belgium, in fact the Belgians had, along with the French, invaded Germany in the Weimar era due to the Germans not being prompt with reparations payments. However, more was obviously still needed in making Belgium fully prepared for another war but it is easy to see why this was lacking. The country had been devastated in the First World War and naturally the priority was in recovering from that. There were also those that thought, or at least hoped, that such an invasion would never happen again, a sort of ‘lightening cannot strike the same place twice’ mentality. The events of the last war had also forced Belgium to abandon neutrality and the kingdom was firmly in the Allied camp. Yet, that was a camp that hardly presented a united front.

Belgian troops in retreat

Relations with Britain and France were very close and the Belgian and Italian monarchies had been linked by the royal marriage of Princess Marie Jose to Prince Umberto of Piedmont, heir to the throne of Italy. However, when Hitler began to seem a menace, the alliance seemed to come apart. Mussolini was angered at having stood alone against Hitler in the first Nazi attempt to grab Austria and later the French and British pushed Italy into the German camp by sanctioning Italy over the war in Ethiopia. There was further alarm when Britain came to a naval agreement with Nazi Germany so that it seemed France and Britain were isolating Italy and reconciling with Germany rather than the reverse. Belgium, not unreasonably, began to lose faith in the Allies to oppose Hitler and so decided, at the last minute, to try going back to the previous policy of neutrality. King Leopold III announced this policy change in 1936 and the following year Hitler pledged to respect Belgian neutrality in any future war -a promise he had no intention of keeping of course. When the war started, defenses were strengthened and Belgium was by far the most militarily powerful of the Low Countries (in fact, the Belgian army was four times larger than the British army sent to France, which goes to show how woefully unprepared the British were if nothing else).

Belgian troops in the field

However, it was too little, too late. Belgium held out longer than the Netherlands and even the Germans remarked about how well the Belgians fought but the neutrality policy had left them quite ill-equipped for serious conflict. There was also poor coordination with the other Allies when the attack on Belgium came so that, in a reverse of the strategy outlined above, it was the Belgians who were basically sacrificed to buy time for the British to retreat from the continent amidst a rapidly crumbling French war effort. The Belgians did not trust the French (partly because of the Franco-Soviet pact that existed prior to Stalin cozying up to Hitler), the Maginot Line was not extended across Belgium because of Dutch-Belgian neutrality and the British, in whom the Belgians placed most of their hopes, had subordinated their own forces to the French whose plans proved to be almost totally ineffective against the ultimate German onslaught. Because of the policy of neutrality, there were no meetings between the French, British and Belgian military leaders prior to the war to make detailed plans for cooperation and, as a result, their forces were poorly coordinated. In the end, Belgium held out for 18 days before the King, seeing the French coming apart and the British about to abandon the continent, decided to save the lives of his remaining soldiers and surrender. He felt the war was over, the Allies defeated and, given the situation at the time, such a view is totally understandable.

Queen Wilhelmina with U.S. President Roosevelt

Obviously, there were numerous reasons for the lack of readiness that led to the Low Countries being so swiftly defeated in the German blitzkrieg to the west. There is also the rather significant fact that the German armed forces comprised a fantastic fighting machine. Putting aside the regime that was giving them orders, the military itself performed with great ability and would have been an extremely formidable opponent for even the most militarily robust nations on earth. They more than once were able to handily defeat the Russians and Americans as well as the French and British so that is clearly a very large part of this equation. However, the Low Countries were not wrong to resist the German invaders to the utmost. The only possible exception is Luxembourg and tiny Luxembourg really didn’t try to resist, knowing that it would be futile. The same was true for Denmark. The Danes, had they better prepared themselves, could have made more of a fight but, as it was, they were pretty much powerless to resist and so they didn’t. For the Dutch and Belgians, however, they were at least capable of making the Germans work hard for their victory and had different decisions been made, would have been able to have done better still. It doesn’t mean that they could have stopped the Germans cold but given what weaknesses they did have and what strengths (though squandered) the Allies had, they could have mounted a defense of their countries that would have, at the very least, had at least some chance of success.

What World War II Did to the Belgian Monarchy

The history of the Belgian monarchy could easily be seen as alternating between extreme high and low points. King Leopold I saw the country emerge as an independent, sovereign state with friendly ties and even considerable influence on some of the most powerful courts in Europe. Then there was King Leopold II who, while leaving Belgium better than he found it, had lost the admiration of his people due to his vilification over the Congo Free State. However, after Leopold II died, mourned by few, he was succeeded by the handsome, young King Albert I who rose to international fame for his staunch defense of his country in World War I. He was loved at home, respected abroad and seemed the embodiment of what a good king was supposed to be. Sadly, another downturn would come with the reign of his son King Leopold III. However, in his case, he was perfectly placed to break the cycle had it not been for the intervention of World War II. King Leopold III had every quality to make a beloved and successful monarch and yet, because of events beyond his control, he has become the most unjustly controversial of Belgian monarchs. Forced to deal with situations none other of his dynasty have had to deal with, the war was ruinous and the Belgian monarchy has never been the same since.

Leopold III & the Minister of War

After the last war, national defense was taken somewhat more seriously but the huge cost of rebuilding still left the generals wanting more. Neutrality had been abandoned but as the French and British adopted a policy of appeasement, King Leopold III became convinced that they would not stand firm against Nazi aggression and so Belgium reverted back to her previous policy of neutrality. The hope was that any war would bypass them but, after the events of 1914-18, everyone knew it was a slim hope. Starting on May 10, 1940 the Battle of Belgium raged for eighteen days. King Leopold III, a veteran of World War I, was in command, in accordance with the Belgian constitution which required the King to take charge of the army personally in time of war. As in the last war, the Belgian soldiers offered heroic resistance and gained the respect of their German enemies who did not fail to remark on their “extraordinary bravery”. However, this was a new type of war for which Belgium was woefully unprepared. Tanks, air power and airborne invasion were all loosed on the Kingdom of Belgium and its fortresses. The first airborne attack in history was against a Belgian fort, the largest tank battle up to that time, was fought in Belgium. With only 22 divisions against 141 divisions for the Germans, there was simply no way for the Belgians to hold out on their own.

Help did come but coordination with the Belgian army was unpracticed and poor. Moreover, the Battle of Belgium was one aspect of the wider Battle of France and that fight was going very poorly indeed. Most, by now, know the story. Morale low, society divided, France tried to fight the Second World War with a mindset from the First. Despite having a large army and heavier tanks than the Germans, the French military was not deployed properly and though it took six weeks for the Germans to conquer France, the issue had been settled even sooner than that. The Germans succeeded brilliantly in swiftly cutting off the Allied armies from each other and it soon became clear to the British that they would have to pull back to the Channel and evacuate or else they would be destroyed or captured entirely by the German onslaught. Despite what many would say later, King Leopold III was very much a “team player” and he and his troops fought to the best of their ability.

King Leopold III at the front

Unfortunately, the Belgians were encircled and it became clear to the King that to carry on would mean the sacrifice of his army, or what was left of it, to no purpose. As even Churchill himself admitted privately, the Belgians were buying time with their lives for the British to escape even though he later publicly castigated the King of the Belgians for giving up the fight. On May 27, King Leopold III requested an armistice to the fury of the British and French governments. Just as controversial was his decision to remain with his army rather than follow the Belgian government into exile in England. For the King, it was a matter of principle. As commander-in-chief in the field, for him to leave before the surrender would have been, to him, an act of desertion. Instead, he chose to stay, to surrender with his army and remain in Belgium in the hope that he might somehow mitigate the effects of the German occupation. On May 28 the Belgians were surrendered, King Leopold III saying, “The cause of the Allies is lost”. That remark has often been used against him, but at the time and place there was no other conclusion to come to. This was not the First World War. France was about to fall and soon German troops would be goose-stepping down the boulevards of Paris. Britain continued to hold out, but if the Germans had not attacked Russia or if the Japanese had not attacked Pearl Harbor, few doubt that the capitulation of Britain would have been simply a matter of time.

Staf de Clerq, Flemish Nazi

During the war and afterwards, the actions of King Leopold III were grossly misrepresented, portraying him as a traitor and a collaborator with the Nazi occupiers. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was kept under virtual house arrest by the Germans. Unlike Denmark, where the King and government continued to operate under German “protection” the Kingdom of Belgium, there was no government, collaborationist or otherwise, in Belgium for the duration of the war. Of course, there were those who were willing to collaborate with the Germans but the King was certainly not at all in sympathy with them as most were those opposed to the continuation of the Kingdom of Belgium in any form. The most prominent were the Flemish nationalists who wanted to unite Flanders with the Netherlands and then there were the mostly Walloon Rexists led by the remarkable soldier Leon Degrelle. Originally, these were Catholic, monarchist, Belgian nationalists who advocated a fascist-style organization of the country and economy but Degrelle became so taken with the Nazis that he quickly came to embrace the idea of a pan-European Nazi super-state that would have no place for small countries. King Leopold III, of course, hoped to maintain the Kingdom of Belgium as it had always been or at least with as little diminishment as possible.

There was no equivalent of Petain, Mussert, Quisling, Laurel or Wang Jingwei in Belgium. Hitler never ultimately decided what the fate of Belgium was to be and in some ways it served his purposes better that way, keeping collaborationist factions in competition for his favor. Rather, Belgium was placed under military rule led by the aristocratic General Alexander von Falkenhausen, nephew of the last military governor of Belgium in the Imperial German army. He was a former advisor to the Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and had only returned from China after the Nazis had threatened the safety of his family when the Nazis decided to abandon nationalist China in favor of Japan. In understanding the relationship between King Leopold III and General von Falkenhausen, it is essential to understand what kind of man the German general was. He was no Nazi Party loyalist but a veteran of the Kaiser’s army, a man who resented the Nazi betrayal of China and who was close friends with the anti-Nazi monarchist Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben. Both these men were ultimately executed for plotting against Hitler and von Falkenhausen himself finally offered the anti-Nazi plotters his support. General von Falkenhausen was arrested, put in a concentration camp and doubtless would have been executed had not his camp been liberated by the U.S. Army in early May, 1945.

Gen. Alexander von Falkenhausen

The fact that King Leopold III was able to be cordial with such a man should, obviously, not be taken as a sign of the King’s collaboration as the General himself was opposed to the Nazi regime. The King was widely respected in Belgium and the Germans would have certainly been pleased to have him cooperate, but he refused to. He, as a constitutional monarch, could not perform his duties as monarch without his legitimate government and so he regarded himself as a prisoner-of-war. What he could do and which he did throughout the years of occupation was to intervene with the Germans whenever possible to save the lives of his people and to prevent them from being taken away as slave labor in Germany. The King made his case to General von Falkenhausen in person and wrote many letters to Hitler protesting against the kidnapping of Belgian civilians for forced labor. Needless to say, Hitler was unmoved and the deportations went ahead. Yet, because of the King’s persistent efforts, he did at least convince the Germans to desist in deporting women, which all were certainly thankful for. He also worked tirelessly to try to obtain the release of political prisoners, proper treatment for prisoners-of-war, stopping German confiscation of food supplies and so on and so on. He did absolutely everything that it was in his power to do to help his people in their darkest hour.

The question then becomes why, with so many Belgians knowing of his work on their behalf and even the ranking German commander testifying to his efforts, did King Leopold III become so controversial? It basically comes down to a classic case of making him the scapegoat for others. He might have survived such an effort from one quarter but it was heaped on him from several. Hubert Pierlot, the Prime Minister, broke with the King over Leopold’s decision to stay with his army and remain in Belgium while the government went into exile. He thus had a vested interest in substantiating his original position by continuing to hold that the King had been wrong (this also caused a damaging split within the Catholic, conservative political bloc in Belgium). The Allies, in the wake of the defeat of France and the withdrawal of the BEF from the continent also found it convenient to blame their military disasters on the Belgian monarch, even though they knew their story to be a false one. Likewise, the radical political elements in Belgium, whether the Flemish nationalists or the Walloon socialists, also found it convenient to vilify the King in order to further their goals of either breaking up the country or turning it into a Marxist republic.

Prince Charles Theodore

Those with an agenda against the King also made much of his wartime marriage to Lilian Baels, a woman who has also suffered immense and undue criticism based on salacious rumors with absolutely no basis in fact. What is ironic is that, after the war, when the King had to go into exile in Switzerland (he and his family had been arrested and taken to Germany in the last days of Nazi rule), the man chosen to take his place as regent was his brother Prince Charles, Count of Flanders who himself had a rather irregular private life, though it conveniently did not become public knowledge until many years after his death. He and his brother did not get along and the vilification of Leopold III certainly did him no harm as he became, effectively, King in all but name. The communists were the first to demand Leopold’s abdication, which is no surprise as they will seize on any opportunity to oppose a monarch, but the King and his government, after the war, did seem to be on the verge of a compromise but the politicians kept changing their terms. The socialists also began to organize strikes and demonstrations to prevent the King from returning home and resuming his reign as normal.

The abdication

King Leopold III was then declared “unfit” and so Prince Charles became regent in his place until the issue could be resolved. The socialists led the opposition to the King just as they opposed putting the question to the people in a referendum on whether or not the King should resume the throne. Nonetheless, a referendum was held and, as expected, the more conservative Flanders voted by a large majority for him to return while socialist Wallonia voted by a narrow margin against the King, giving him an overall majority to return, which he did in 1950. However, the socialists were not prepared to accept defeat and began organizing more strikes and demonstrations in opposition to Leopold III. These soon turned violent and the threat of a Belgian civil war loomed as a very real possibility. Disgusted by the whole process and unwilling to be the cause of violence after all the trauma already suffered in World War II, King Leopold III decided to abdicate, passing the throne to his son, King Baudouin, in 1951. Threats of civil war and Walloon secession subsided and eventually King Baudouin was able to restore the prestige of the monarchy but things would never be quite the same again.

So it was that World War II did lasting damage to the Belgian monarchy as an institution. It was not anything that Leopold III did. Some actions could certainly be viewed, in hindsight, as impolitic but he certainly did nothing fundamentally wrong. Rather, the war presented an opportunity that leftist enemies of the monarchy gleefully seized upon to further their own agenda for political power. Looking at the Belgian kings before and after Leopold III, one can easily see that Leopold I, Leopold II and Albert I exercised far more influence, played a much more central role and had effectively more authority than Baudouin, Albert II or the current Philip. Leopold III was essentially forced to abdicate, King Baudouin was actually deposed for a day and Albert II was hounded until he felt he had no choice but to abdicate for the good of the monarchy. None of this would have happened as it did were it not for the war. The seeds were already there of course, but the war and occupation gave these seeds the opportunity to flourish.

Why has the legacy of this injustice outlived King Leopold III himself? Because it has continued to serve the interests of certain people to propagate the lies. The spread absolute falsehoods and distort the truth because they are enemies of Belgium and enemies of the monarchy because it is the guarantor of Belgian unity. So, the old whispers are repeated; he surrendered precipitously, he was cowardly, he didn’t really want to resist, he’s half Bavarian remember, he collaborated with the Nazis, he didn’t want the Allies to win and on and on. The only difference today is that the people pushing these lies and distortions have changed from one side of the linguistic divide to the other. After the war it was Wallonia which was threatening to secede and which most opposed the King. Today, the old lies about Leopold III are more likely to come from Flemish nationalists now that Flanders is threatening to secede. In either case, the damage done to the Belgian monarchy persists because it served the interests of those who spread it. It started out of political bickering and the desperation of Britain and France to blame someone for their lost military campaign and it was taken up by the domestic enemies of the Kingdom of Belgium, first the Walloon socialists and then the Flemish nationalists, because they want to see Belgium destroyed and they know that bringing down the monarchy is the way to make that happen. It is also why loyal monarchists must refute their falsehoods with facts, because this is not simply an historical issue relating to the past but one which continues to have an impact on the monarchy today.

Queen Fabiola of the Belgians

Queen Fabiola of the Belgians

1928-2014

RIP

The Belgian Army in World War I

Among the countries involved in the outbreak of the First World War, each must bear some measure of blame for the disaster. That is, all but the Kingdom of Belgium who was guilty of no more than being a victim of geography. Belgium was a neutral country and took that neutrality seriously. Caught between the feuding peoples of France and Germany, the Belgians had no reason to trust one side more than the other. The Germans may have seemed the more intimidating but, in the past, it had been the French who seemed most eager to take Belgium for themselves. The Germans and Belgians had had their differences but their King, Albert I, had also married a Bavarian princess and she was quite popular. In matters of defense, the Belgian government trusted in its scrupulous observation of neutrality to protect the country and was extremely reluctant to spend money on the military. As usual, the Belgian government would have been much wiser to have listened more closely to the advice of their monarchs.

During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 King Leopold II had mobilized the Belgian army as a precaution in case either side violated Belgian sovereignty. Fortunately, neither did but many esteemed military figures, such as General Brialmont, were concerned enough to support King Leopold II in calling for military reforms. The most pressing was the need to do away with the old system of filling the ranks of the army by a lottery and replacing it with national conscription. The politicians saw this as unnecessary but there was finally sufficient support to get the appropriate bill passed which King Leopold II signed into law on his deathbed. Unfortunately, the planned enlargement of the army would not be completed by the time war came in 1914. The new monarch, King Albert I, was just as concerned as his uncle had been and was also just as frequently brushed aside. National defense was something the King naturally took more seriously as Belgian law stipulated that, in the event of war, it was the duty of the King to take command of the army. Also of concern was how rapidly military technology was changing. When the Belgians began building new, impressive fortifications at strategic points throughout the country, particularly the “National Redoubt” of Antwerp, the massive stone fortresses were already obsolete by the time they were completed due to the rapid advance in artillery technology.

In 1914 the Belgian national defense consisted of one field army made up of six divisions as well as garrisons for the fortified zones of Liege, Namur and Antwerp. The military plans in place for Belgium called for the army to fight defensively in these fortified zones and behind the three major rivers until such time as the larger military forces of those powers pledged to defend Belgian neutrality could arrive to turn the tide against the invader. The critical moment came on August 2, 1914 when the German ambassador informed the Belgian government that Luxembourg was being occupied and that German troops would soon be entering Belgium. The Germans pledged to respect Belgian property if no action was taken against them but that if the Belgians resisted that they would be treated as enemies. King Albert I did not hesitate, he would defend his country against any invader no matter how hopeless the situation seemed, famously saying that, “Belgium is a country, not a road”. On August 4, the King informed the British, French and Russians that German forces had crossed the Belgian border and appealed to them to come to the aid of Belgium in resisting the invader. The Belgians braced themselves for the first blow from the most advanced, heavily armed military on earth.

General Leman

The German First and Second Armies that crossed into Belgium expected that the Belgians would either not resist or that, if they did, could be easily pushed aside. Neither assumption was to prove correct. King Albert I deployed his forces as best he could; the 3rd and 4th Divisions were posted on the right along the Meuse River at Liege and Namur, the remaining four divisions would hold the gap between the Gette and Dyle Rivers to block the German advance on Brussels in the center and Antwerp to the north. As the Germans marched into Belgium the first major obstacle they encountered was the fortress of Liege, defended by General Gerard Leman, a tough Belgian soldier who had tutored King Albert I in the art of war. He faced 130,000 German troops with massive artillery support all under the command of General Otto von Emmich. When Leman refused to surrender, von Emmich launched a massive attack, sending nine brigades into the gaps between the Belgian forts. To his shock, every attack was repulsed with such heavy losses for the Germans that several divisions had to be withdrawn back to the Fatherland. There was even some panic in Aachen that the Belgians might counter-attack and invade Germany.

However, the German generals kept their cool, brought in immense numbers of reinforcements and outflanked the Belgians guarding the gaps, forcing them to retire. The forts continued to hold out and fire at the German lines and the Germans proceeded to the frustratingly slow task of reducing these forts one by one with their superior heavy artillery. It was not until August 17 that the last Belgian fort was destroyed. General Leman had been knocked unconscious in the rubble and made it clear that this was the only reason he had been captured and that he had not surrendered. General von Emmich was so impressed by the tenacity of his Belgian foe that he returned the generals’ sword to him and General Gerard Leman became the first bona fide hero of the Great War for the Allies. Fortress Liege had fallen but it had taken precious time that the Germans desperately needed for their plan to conquer France to work and the tenacious Belgian defenders had inflicted 42,712 casualties on the German invaders.

The next area of resistance was the Belgian forces assembled at the Gette River, 20 miles behind the Meuse. For the most part, they kept watch but when the Germans ventured too close the Belgians made them pay for it. The most famous battle in this sector was fought at Haelen in Limburg where four regiments of the German cavalry corps were soundly beaten by the Belgian cavalry division (including one battalion on bicycles) on August 12. It became known as “the Battle of the Silver Helmets” because of the numerous German cavalry helmets that littered the field when the fight was over. Ultimately, however, there could be only one outcome with the Belgians having what amounted to two army corps up against eleven corps for the Germans. Hard-pressed on their front and being encircled on each flank, the Belgians were forced to fall back toward Antwerp or risk being cut off from the “National Redoubt”. Fighting numerous rearguard actions, the Belgians fell back and the Germans marched into Brussels on August 20. That same day the siege of the fortress of Namur began which was isolated by the retreat of the army. Again, the Germans began the methodical task of blasting the Belgian forts to pieces one by one. Outranged by the German and Austrian guns, the Belgians could simply endure. The last fort at Namur was destroyed on August 24.

The Germans, already behind schedule, decided to bypass Antwerp and rush forward, ultimately meeting the British for the first time at Mons. However, they had to leave behind a considerable number of troops to watch the Belgians who had withdrawn behind the stout but outdated fortifications. Again, the Belgians had deprived the Germans of time and men at a crucial moment. King Albert I was not content to sit and wait and, although it cost his army, ordered two raids outside the city walls against the Germans in an effort to support the Allies fighting at the Marne. The Germans were forced to divert three divisions that were supposed to reinforce General Alexander von Kluck’s 1st Army. Once the German plan was finally frustrated at the battle of the Marne, they turned back toward Antwerp to finally deal with the Belgians once and for all. Again, huge guns were brought forward and a massive bombardment began on September 28, 1914.

It was clear immediately that Antwerp could not hold out and what help came from the Allies was too late to make any difference. King Albert gave the order to retreat in order to save his army. The forts would have to hold out to the last man, supported only by some Belgian artillery, British infantry and French marines while the army escaped up the coast toward the French border. The defenders fought like heroes, saving the army and the hope of their country in the process. Finally, on the last patch of unoccupied Belgian soil, King Albert I stopped his army at the Yser River and determined to retreat no more. It was a miserable, soggy place to fight a war. “Trenches” had to be built above ground because digging only uncovered water as little as 2-3 feet below the surface. The Belgian army was tattered, exhausted and disorganized but they fell into line and fought like heroes as the inevitable German attack came. This coincided with the famous “Race to the Sea” as the Germans and Allies tried to outflank each other, moving ever northward, to prevent a stalemate. Thanks in no small part to the tenacious Belgian defenders of the Yser, it was a race the Allies would win. Throughout October the Germans attacked again and again until finally, the Belgians were forced to flood the countryside but ultimately, against all odds, the Belgian army held its ground and the Germans finally gave up and began moving their attack southward toward the British at Ypres.

For the next three years the Belgians stood guard on the Yser, skirmishing with the Germans while rebuilding their army until it was even stronger than it had been before the war. It was a sector of waterlogged misery where perpetual dampness took a heavier toll than the enemy, leaving many men crippled for life. And so the war went on. King Albert I met to discuss strategy with the other Allied commanders, Queen Elizabeth cared for the wounded and Crown Prince Leopold served in the trenches alongside his future subjects. The little Belgian air force made its presence known with the ace Willy Coppens gaining fame with 37 victories and a reputation as the preeminent Allied “balloon buster” of the war (which is a more respectable feat than most realize as observation balloons were heavily guarded). In central Africa the Belgian Force Publique, operating out of the Congo under General Charles Tambeur, drove the Germans out of Rwanda and Burundi and captured the outer capitol of Tabora in German East Africa. In a gesture of solidarity with her allies, Belgium sent a contingent of troops, equipped with armored cars that had first seen action at Antwerp, to the Eastern Front to aid the Russian war effort.

In April of 1918 the Belgian right wing came under attack during the famous “Kaiser’s Offensive” or Operation Michael which was Germany’s last, desperate gamble to win the war at a stroke. Breaking through the point where the French and British lines came together, the Germans pushed outward to expand the breach, eventually making contact with the Belgians. A captured German soldier was found carrying orders which included the optimistic note that, “The Belgians are not used to being attacked in force; success is certain. They will be overthrown before they know we are there.” Once again, the Germans would pay dearly for underestimating the resolve of the Belgian army. On April 17, 1918 the Germans struck; the first Belgian outposts fell quickly, though it took considerable effort and much hand-to-hand fighting to accomplish this. The Germans reached the Belgian support line by mid-day but were halted by heavy Belgian artillery fire. Then, under a moving barrage, the Belgian infantry counter-attacked and began regaining their lost trenches. The Germans were stunned and the attack fell apart, some units retreating and others fighting on in isolated pockets. By nightfall the Belgians had recovered almost all of the lost ground and taken 800 German prisoners.

This engagement surprised observers on both sides as the Allies realized that the Belgians could attack as well as defend. Marshal Ferdinand Foch, supreme Allied commander, arrived to decorate the Belgian heroes and to confer with King Albert about the coming counter-offensive against the Germans. The Belgian King was made commander of the Flanders Army Group, responsible for the northernmost sector of the Allied advance that would carry on through November of 1918. Aside from the Belgian army, his command included the British II Army and French VI Army. From September 28-30 the Belgian divisions broke through the German lines, at one point advancing up to eleven miles. At the beginning of October, the Belgians attacked again and forced the Germans back another eight miles. The second phase of the Flanders offensive, later known as the battle of Thourout-Thielt was launched by King Albert on October 14, 1918. The engagement saw the Germans pushed out of Flanders for good. Supported by the French on one side and British naval fire from the coast, the Belgians steadily drove the Germans back. By October 17 the Belgians reached Ostend and the outskirts of Bruges.

King Albert I

On the Lys the Germans put up heavy resistance, showing that despite their weakened condition by this time, they were still a formidable foe. The Allied advance stalled but eventually began to gain ground again. After heavy fighting the Belgians gained a foothold on the east bank of the Lys and moved on to meet up with the French at Ghent. It was in that area that the Belgians remained until the Germans agreed to an armistice, ending the war. The Kingdom of Belgium had lost 44,000 men in the war as well as 9,000 civilians, far less than other powers, but a heavy toll for so small a country. However, the Belgian armed forces had done their country proud by their plucky resistance against unspeakable odds. The well-known phrase amongst the Allied countries of “Brave Little Belgium” was certainly well-deserved and no Belgian was more widely respected around the world than King Albert I for his calm, steady and courageous leadership during the greatest crisis his country had faced up to that time. He had been steadfast in the defense of his country and yet never vindictive. In fact, he was the only Allied leader to support the call by the Pope for making peace and had tried to arrange such a peace with Emperor Charles I of Austria-Hungary, but no avail.

After the war there was talk of Belgium being given Luxembourg or even control of Palestine but, in the end, Belgian territorial acquisitions were modest. In addition to reparations Belgium received mandates of Rwanda-Burundi in central Africa and the addition of the German territories of Eupen, St Vith and Malmedy, adding German as the third official language of the Kingdom of Belgium. Today, many remember the Belgians as some of the most unfortunate victims of the Great War, the small, peaceful country caught between warring powers. This was certainly true but the great accomplishments of the Belgian army should not be ignored. Faced with a hopeless situation, the Belgians mounted a stubborn defense that proved very costly to the Germans, throwing off their timetable and giving the Allies the chance to beat them at the Marne. Again, in the “Race to the Sea” it was Belgian tenacity that ensured the Germans did not gain a strategic advantage by turning the Allied flank. The Belgian army may have been small but it fought with immense courage, endured incredible hardships and played a decisive role in the ultimate Allied victory.

Royal Friends of Texas: Belgium

The Kingdom of Belgium has had an impact on the world far out of proportion to its size and it has a long history of association with Texas. The Kingdom of Belgium was among the first powers to recognize the independence of the Republic of Texas but Belgians had been involved in Texas history even back in the colonial period. Much of the exploration of the New World was driven by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who was also King Carlos I of Spain and a Belgian by birth. For a time both Texas and Belgium were part of the same Spanish Hapsburg Empire. The first Belgians to visit Texas were three priests who came with the expedition under Robert de LaSalle in 1685 that claimed Texas for the Kingdom of France and attempted to establish a colony. Born in Hainaut, they were Zenobius Membre, Maximus le Clerq, and Anastasius Douay. When Ft St Louis was attacked by Indians, Membre and le Clerq were killed, but Douay lived to tell Europe about the death of the intrepid French explorer.

Juan Banul

Probably no Belgian Texan is as well remembered as Juan Banul, a master blacksmith from Brussels who for some time was the only blacksmith in all of Texas. Banul made the journey to New Spain and traveled north to Texas in 1719, settling in San Antonio. The French incursion had prompted Spain to settle and fortify Texas and the Marques de Aguayo recruited Banul to accompany him on an expedition to East Texas to build six missions and two presidios (Spanish forts) and Banul stayed until 1723. In San Antonio, Banul did most of the ironwork and much of the woodwork at Mission San Jose, the largest of them all and known as the "Queen of the Missions" as well as Mission San Antonio de Valero, better known to history as the Alamo. In 1730 Banul and Maria Adriana Garcia, a Flemish widow, were married. They lived in the Alamo where Banul worked as a blacksmith and operated the sawmill.  Another Belgian Texan involved with the Alamo arrived in the 1850's. He was a stonemason named Theodore Vander Straten. By this time Texas had joined the United States and Straten helped repair the Alamo walls so the building could be put to use by the U.S. Army. However, the army designers were not interested in an exact restoration and so they added the now-famous curve to the church facade to hide the new roof.

In the 1830's there was almost an effort to establish a Belgian colony in Texas. The Belgians were anxious to establish formal relations with the young Republic of Texas, but since Mexico still refused to recognize Texan independence they feared offending the Mexican government. King Leopold I of the Belgians sent an official to Texas to observe and report back as to the viability of establishing a Belgian colony. Strapped for cash, the Texas government asked Belgium for a large loan as a prerequisite to a diplomatic treaty. The Belgian government refused to grant the loan and so the dream of a colony ended then and there. However, there were many Belgians who accompanied French colonists in La Reunion and they eventually tried to establish their own Belgian colony at Louvain but frequent flooding meant that most of these people moved on to Dallas and Ft Worth.

Dutchover Family

Like all Texans, the Belgian Texans included some very colorful characters. One of these was Anton Diedrick. His story starts in Antwerp where he was walking sometime in the 1840's and came across a murder in progress. Hoping to eliminate the witness, the murderers took Diedrick and sold him as an impressed seaman. When the ship he was on put in at Galveston, Texas Diedrick escaped  just in time for the war that was breaking out over the U.S. annexation of Texas. Poor Diedrick could only speak Flemish, but this did not deter two eager recruiters for the U.S. Army. When asked for his name, Diedrick tried to explain his situation, in Flemish, but was stopped by one of the soldiers who said, "Ah, he's Dutch all over," which is what they decided to call him.

With his new name, Anton Dutchallover fought in the Mexican-American War, surviving unscathed except for the loss of the "all" from his new name and he was known thereafter as Anton Dutchover. He adapted quite well to his new life in Texas and became a frontier scout. He even joined the legendary Texas Ranger Big Foot Wallace as shotgun rider on his runs between San Antonio and El Paso. In spite of the hostile climate of West Texas, along with even more hostile Indians and violent Mexican bandits, Anton Dutchover decided this was the place for him. He settled down and started a sheep ranch at Limpia Canyon and supplied soldiers at nearby Fort Davis with food. Dutchover remained at the fort during the Civil War, carrying on as usual whether under Union or Confederate rule. Dutchover started a family and they, along with four others, hid during a violent attack on the fort by Apache Indians. They stayed on where they were until 1867, when Federal troops reoccupied Fort Davis and stopped all further Indian attacks. The descendants of the Belgian soldier, scout, rancher and Indian fighter still live in West Texas today.

Another famous Belgian who came to Texas was Jean-Charles Houzeau, an astronomer and naturalist. He worked at the Belgian Royal Observatory before his radical liberal opinions brought about his removal and he moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. From there he came to Texas in 1858 and  worked as a surveyor before moving to Uvalde where he lead scientific expeditions. His politics still caused him trouble though. A firm enemy of slavery, when the Civil War broke out he helped prominent Unionists in San Antonio escape the Confederate authorities. Ultimately he was found out and had to escape to Mexico disguised as a peon. Eventually he returned to New Orleans, which had been taken by Union forces and ran a pro-Union newspaper. He also lived on Jamaica for eight years before returning to Europe, where his liberal opinions were no longer out of fashion, and returned to his old job as director of the Royal Observatory in Brussels. Texas continued to call him though, and in December of 1882 Houzeau returned to lead a scientific expedition to San Antonio to observe a locally visible transit of Venus across the face of the sun - in those days a method of measuring time and gravity.

Another wave of Belgian immigration came following dramatic events in Mexico. In 1864 the Austrian Archduke Maximilian became Emperor of Mexico. His wife, the Empress Carlota, was a Belgian princess, the daughter of King Leopold I, and many Belgians accompanied her to Mexico. Some came to settle, others with the Belgian military corps that gained quite a reputation for their victories over vastly superior revolutionary forces. However, by 1866, the French, who had supported Emperor Maximilian, withdrew their troops and with the United States backing the liberal forces, the Mexican Empire soon collapsed and most of the Belgians in Mexico were forced to flee across the Rio Grande to south Texas. In fact, for a time there was hardly a town in the Rio Grande Valley without a Belgian community.

Empress Carlota

In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries many Belgians moved to Galveston and Houston. Some were businessmen, others were farmers, cooks, bakers, candle and soap makers, restaurateurs and musicians. San Antonio though was the center of Belgian settlement in Texas and most there worked as farmers. Their business endeavors were successful as well. The Houston Supply Company, which once provided water for the city of San Antonio sold 90% of its stock to Belgian investors. After taking over the business they expanded it and turned it into a great success. Before 1947 St John Berchmans in San Antonio was the Belgian national parish with all services conducted in Flemish. In 1952 it was remodeled and renamed St Stephen's. Belgian farmers in Texas also made many advances in vegetable cultivation and irrigation techniques. It was the Belgian Texans who first made year-round vegetable production a widespread and successful business. Since the end of the 19th century, Belgian families and their descendants founded the famous vegetable farms in western San Antonio. Year-round growing was pioneered by such Belgian families as Van de Walle, van Daele, Persyn, and Baeten. The Belgian Texans raised common crops and introduced new ones, including cauliflower and kohlrabi. Today, harvests range from flowers to picante sauce.  

King Baudouin in Texas

One of the unique cultural features of the Belgian Texans was the observation of the "Kermess", a national fall harvest festival held in mid-August and in mid-November, if the harvest was good. Belgian Texans also celebrate Belgian independence day on July 21, the day Leopold I, the first King of the Belgians was enthroned. The Belgium Inn, the Belgian Village, and the Flanders Inn, among several other places, provide the settings for many a gathering, traditional or friendly and informal. Until recent years, the Belgian sport of bolling was played and a version of the game is still demonstrated annually at the Texas Folklife Festival in San Antonio. Today, the center of Belgian culture in San Antonio is still the Belgian Inn. Texas has also been proud to play host to Belgian royalty. In 1959 King Baudouin of the Belgians became the first Belgian monarch to visit the Lone Star State, visiting El Paso and Houston. King Baudouin was given a pair of cowboy boots and made an honorary citizen of Texas. King Baudouin may have been a repeat visitor and he may not have been the only Belgian monarch to visit Texas but records are hard to find. A Belgian government website has the King visiting Texas in 1959 and a photo of him with his boots and citizenship certificate (held by a private owner) is dated 1959 but other photos of the King visiting Rice University are dated 1969 or 1970. King Leopold III and Princess Lilian may have visited Texas in 1978 to dedicate a bust at Methodist Hospital in Houston, commissioned by Princess Lilian, of the heart surgeon who had previously operated on the former Belgian monarch. Unfortunately, exact details about that visit have proven hard to find. In any event, Texas and Belgium have had a long history together, will hopefully always remain fast friends and, of course, Texas would be pleased to welcome King Philip and Queen Mathilde anytime they would like to come down for a visit.