Benutzer:Studiosus iurisdictionis/Royale Frage
The General strike against Leopold III of Belgium broke out on 26 July 1950, mainly in Wallonia, a few days after Leopold III of Belgium returned to the throne on 22 July 1950 after a five years' exile in Switzerland. Eventually, during the night from 31 July to 1 August, the king was forced by the Belgian government of Jean Duvieusart to offer to abdicate in favour of his son. The Jean Duvieusart government was obliged to pressure the king into doing so under the exiguity of events. A march to Brussels was announced for 2 August. In Liège leaders of the General Federation of Belgian Labour (as for instance André Renard), of the Walloon Movement, of the Belgian Socialist Party wanted to form a provisionnal government in Wallonia that would declare Walloon independence.[1]
Results of the Consultation populaire
In May 1945 the communists demanded that Leopold abdicate. The king had been liberated by the US Army in Strobl, where he was a prisonner. Achille Van Acker's government met the just liberated king and negociated his return: Leopold had to publicly praise the Allied forces, his entourage had to be purged and he had to renew his commitment to parlementary democracy. At first, an agreement remained out of reach. After Van Acker's return from Strobl, the split over the monarchy deepened and when negotiations resumed in June, the king's commitment to meet the conditions was no longer sufficient for an agreement. The government no longer wanted to take the responsibility for a royal return and offered to resign. Leopold III did not succeed in replacing the government, and decided against returning before a referendum on the Royal Question had been held. He moved to Prégny in Switzerland instead.[2]
The Belgian Socialist Party bureau and the socialist trade union came out against a return of the king in June 1945.
But there was other political resistance to this return. Gillon, the President of the Belgian Senate, told the king that there was a threat of serious disorder: "If there are only ten or twenty people killed, the situation would become terrible for the King."[3] The President of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, the Catholic Frans Van Cauwelaert, a member of the Flemish movement, was concerned that there would be a General strike in Wallonia and revolt in Liège. He wrote, "The country is not able to put down the disorders because of the insufficient forces of the police and a lack of weapons."[4]
After many difficulties, the Catholics won a majority in the Senate during the election of 26 June 1949. The Catholics formed a government with the Liberals. The date of the consultative referendum (Consultation populaire) the king wanted also was set for 12 March 1950. Socialist Leader Paul-Henri Spaak opposed holding a referendum. He foresaw that the vote for Leopold might fall in the indecisive area between 55% and 65%, and that the King would carry Flanders and lose Wallonia. In that case, said Spaak, "the government would not only have on its hands the King's abdication or return, it would also have to appease the anger, acerbity and rancor of Flanders or Wallonia." [5] A majority voted in favour of his return (57.6%), but the YES in Flanders were 72% of the vote, the NO in Wallonia were 58% of the vote and in Brussels the NO a little more than 50%.
Leopold III's return
On 18 July 1950 Leo Collard, future Mayor of Mons and future president of the Belgian Socialist Party, made this statement in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives: "An uncontrollable and irrational movement is threatening to break in Wallonia which will have a moral and psychological nature."[6] The first bomb attack happened in Mons, against a secondary rail track, on 21 July morning.[7] Then before the king's return. The king himself came back to Belgium on 22 July in the early morning with a few people but 5,000 troops: "Even in 1960, Belgians speak of the "cowardly" return in the early morning when there would be few people on the streets." [8]
Beginning of the strike, bomb attacks and sabotages
Between 22 July and 26 July there were firstly attacks on bridges, buildings, hight-voltage lines and rail tracks [9], similar to the attacks of the Resistance against the nazis which had been hard in Wallonia and of exactly the same nature as the French Resistance (on the military plan). And then the General strike.
Borinage and Mons
La Dernière Heure wrote there was in the Borinage a civil war climate [10] The Borinage is similar to a fortified camp. There is no more traffic: the roads were cut off by barricades, for instance in Jemappes, Quaregnon, between Mons and Valenciennes, Mons and Ghlin; [11] There were also chekcpoints who were forbidding everybody to drive, excepeted for instance the doctors. In Mons on 29 July Leo Collard, alderman of the City, speaking from the balcony of the town hall, made a speech inviting 10,000 demonstrators to consider the Walloon Flag as the symbol of Wallonia's Resistance and to sing the Marseillaise.
Liège
As a leader of the General Federation of Belgian Labour in Liège, Renard made this statement for Le Soir: The strike will be general, indefinite, total. We will not care of the equipement. We will let the water drown the coal-mines. The blast furnaces have not been filled up ; the coke ovens are abandonned. We issued a stern warning. We have not been taken seriously. That is just too bad. From today , the words insurrection and revolution will have for us a practical sense. We will use them in our daily life vocabulary. We will go to the very end and we wil stop at nothing. Leopold III wanted the battle. He has it! [12] Near Liège, on 30 July, three protesters were killed when the gendarmerie opened automatic fire upon the protesters. With the country on the brink of civil war, and the Belgian banners in Wallonia being replaced by Walloon flags (in Liège and other municipalities of Wallonia[13]), in order to avoid tearing his country apart, and to preserve the monarchy, Leopold was forced to withdraw.
Charleroi
A possible Walloon provisionnal Government
Vive la République! and a Murder
On 31 july 1950, Leopold III must request his Government and the Parliament to approve a law delegating his royal powers to his son, Prince Baudouin, who took the constitutional oath before the United Chambers of the Belgian Parliament as Prince Royal on 11 August 1950. During this Baudouin's swearing ceremony a communist deputy shouted Vive la République!. Julien Lahaut was said to have called and he was murdered one week later.
External links
Réalisateur : Michel Vuillermet Film La Chute d'un roi 4/6
French-seaking but rather comprehensible library pictures in the flollowing order : 1. three strikers killed near Liège (30 July); 2. negotiations between the king and veterans (31 July 1950); 3. Allied nations' 'Victory in Brussels (May 1945); 4. Leopold III liberated by the US Army (May 1945); 5. the impossible return: negotiations in Strobl (May 1945); 6. Leopold III in Pregny (Switzerland) (May 1945); 7. support of a part of Flanders and of old collaborationists from both Wallonia and Flanders (1945-1950); 8. Attempts to take the king Belgium (e.g. from The Netherlands); 9. the referendum (Spaak's voice recommending to vote NO) (March 1950); 10. differences of the results between Wallonia, Brussels and Flanders; 11. Catholic victory at the general elections of June 1950, so that a pro-Leopold III majority was able to vote in the Parliament the end of the Leopold's impossibility to reign; 12. King's return; 13. riots in Wallonia and Brussels.
Réalisateur : Michel Vuillermet Film La Chute d'un roi 6/6
In French: Arthur Gailly's speech in Charleroi in favour of an independant Wallonia and, the most of these library pictures, the catholic Prime Minister Jean Duvieusart's political attitude on 31 July 1950.
Notes
- ↑ Page Gouvernement wallon de 1950 in Encyclopédie du mouvement wallon, Institut Jules Destrée, Namur, 2000, Tome 2000, pp. 740-752 ISBN 2-87035-019-8
- ↑ Els Witte, Jan Craeybeckx, Alain Meynen, Political History of Belgium: From 1830 Onwards, Academic and Scentific Publishers, Brussels, 2009, p. 240. ISBN 978-90-5487-517-8 .
- ↑ Dutch Al vielen er maar tien of twintig doden, de situatie van de koning zou vlug vreselijk worden Velaers en Van Goethem, Leopold III, Lannoo, Tielt, 1994, p. 968. ISBN 0-90-2092387.
- ↑ Dutch Het land zou de ontlusten niet kunnen bedwingen wegens een ontoereikende politie macht een een tekort aan wapens. Velaers and Van Goethem, Leopold III, p. 969
- ↑ "Belgium up in the air", Time, Monday, March 20, 1950
- ↑ French la Wallonie est menacée d'un mouvement incontrôlable et irrationnel de nature morale et psychologique in Annales parlementaires, session chambres réunies, 18/7/1950 citées par Paul Theunissen 1950, le dénouement de la question royale, Complexe, Bruxelles, 1986, p. 88. ISBN : 978-2-87027-182-7
- ↑ Reports of the Belgian State Security on the events of July 1 September 1950, quoted par Jean Duvieusart, La question royale, CRISP, Bruxelles, 1975, pp. 208-209.
- ↑ Arango, Leopold III and the Belgian Royal Question, The John Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1961, p. 9.
- ↑ According to the reports of the Belgian State Security , quoted by Jean DUVIEUSART, La question royale. crise et dénouement, CRISP, Bruxelles, 1975: 136 sabotages and among them 59 bomb attacks
- ↑ La Dernière Heure, 1er août 1950.
- ↑ Le Drapeau rouge, 1er aôut 1950.
- ↑ French La grève sera générale, illimitée, totale. Aucun soin ne sera pris de l'outillage. Nous laisserons npyer les charbonnages. Les hauts fourneaux n'ont pas été bouchés; les cockeries sont abandonnées. On ne nous a pas pris au sérieux. Tant pis! A partir d'aujourd'hui, les mots "révolution" et "insurrection" auront pour nous un sens pratique. Nous les emploierons dans votre vocabulaire de tous les jours. Nous irons jusqu'au bout et nous ne reculerons devant rien. Léopold II a voulu la bataille. Le voilà servi! in Le Soir, 28 july 1950.
- ↑ Philippe Destatte, L'Identité wallonne, Institut Destrée, Charleroi, 1997, p.235 ISBN 2-87035-000-7