I rule a nation, not a road!

[Xgentis]

Hello peoples I am thinking of starting a timeline on Albert I the POD would be that he avoid is mountaineering accident or make him survive with a broken leg.
He was the first king to have taken the royal accession oath in french and in dutch.

He reconnized the value of the air force during WWI the King changed his coat-of-arms, dropping the arms of Saxony completely and he also dropped the title and name of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha completely. Albert commanded the Belgian army throughout the war, despite constant requests from the French and British to hand it over to them. At the end of the war, as commander of the Army Group Flanders, consisting of Belgian, British and French divisions, Albert led the final offensive of the war that liberated occupied Belgium.

After the war pushed for the one man one vote universal suffrage and he succeeded in doing so. He also pushed for the creation of the National Fund for Scientific Research in Belgium. He was also the first monarch to visit the United States.

He was considered as a war hero and the most glorious king Belgium ever had was greatly loved by the entire country.

So what do you think should I write it?

[Xgentis]

No interest?

[Shawn Endresen]

Slightly less than an hour between post and surrender? Give it a little while

[Philadelphus]

Originally Posted by Xgentis

Hello peoples I am thinking of starting a timeline on Albert I the POD would be that he avoid is mountaineering accident or make him survive with a broken leg.
He was the first king to have taken the royal accession oath in french and in dutch.

He reconnized the value of the air force during WWI the King changed his coat-of-arms, dropping the arms of Saxony completely and he also dropped the title and name of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha completely. Albert commanded the Belgian army throughout the war, despite constant requests from the French and British to hand it over to them. At the end of the war, as commander of the Army Group Flanders, consisting of Belgian, British and French divisions, Albert led the final offensive of the war that liberated occupied Belgium.

After the war pushed for the one man one vote universal suffrage and he succeeded in doing so. He also pushed for the creation of the National Fund for Scientific Research in Belgium. He was also the first monarch to visit the United States.

He was considered as a war hero and the most glorious king Belgium ever had was greatly loved by the entire country.

So what do you think should I write it?

I'm a bit of a Belgophile; I'd be interested.
And Queen Elisabeth seems to have been totally fabulous, from what I know of her.

Can I assume your timeline has Albert I alive at the start of World War II?

[Xgentis]

Yes the Queen Elisabeth worked as a nurse during the great war.
I plan to make Albert I alive at the start of the World War II.
But for the most part the WWII won't change mutch from the OTL.

[Xavier]

Originally Posted by Xgentis

Yes the Queen Elisabeth worked as a nurse during the great war.
I plan to make Albert I alive at the start of the World War II.
But for the most part the WWII won't change mutch from the OTL.

Indeed, the main difference would be skipping the Royal Question after the war, which would have potentially large consequences for Belgian politics. Cooperation with the Allies might also improve in the run-up to 10 May 1940.

[My Username is Inigo Montoya]

Originally Posted by Xgentis

But for the most part the WWII won't change mutch from the OTL.

Yes it will! Albert won't be the one to surrender the country to the GERMANS, whom he already fought against 25 years before. Belgium holding longer and allowing the Allies to make a coordinated retreat might be a huge change in the battle of France.

[Xgentis]

Here the first part of my story I hope you will like it. Feel free to correct me if you find any mystake.

I rule a nation, not a road!




Little country of western Europe, Belgium is a constitutional monarchy, the royal family is from the house of Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha .
It is a young country created in 1830 and which independence and neutrality was guaranteed by the 1839 Treaty of London.



Leopold I helped Belgium to build it's economy first railway in continental Europe.

Leopold II controversial king gave it it's colony of Congo and international standing.

Albert I fought for it's peoples in two major conflict and is considered the most glorious king of Belgium
and a war hero, he was loved by the entire country, and admired abroad for his courage and determination.



The assassination on 28 June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary started what would be know later as the First World War or the Great war.


The 2 August 1914 the Germany posed an ultimatum on Belgium to grant Germany free passage trough
Belgium allowing them to encircle the French army massed on the Franco-German border.
Respecting it's neutrality the Belgian government refused to let the Germans pass.


King Albert I of the Belgians' Speech to the Belgian Parliament
In the name of the nation, I give it a brotherly greeting. Everywhere in Flanders and Wallonia,
in the towns and in the countryside, one single feeling binds all hearts together: the sense of patriotism.
One single vision fills all minds: that of our independence endangered. One single duty imposes itself upon our wills: the duty of stubborn resistance.
In these solemn circumstances two virtues are indispensable: a calm but unshaken courage,
and the close union of all Belgians.
Both virtues have already asserted themselves, in a brilliant fashion, before the eyes of a nation full of enthusiasm.
The irreproachable mobilization of our army, the multitude of voluntary enlistments, the devotion of the civil population, the abnegation of our soldiers' families, have revealed in an unquestionable manner the reassuring courage which inspires the Belgian people.
It is the moment for action.
I have called you together, gentlemen, in order to enable the Legislative Chambers to associate themselves
with the impulse of the people in one and the same sentiment of sacrifice.
You will understand, gentlemen, how to take all those immediate measures which the situation requires, in respect both of the war and of public order.
No one in this country will fail in his duty.
If the foreigner, in defiance of that neutrality whose demands we have always scrupulously observed,
violates our territory, he will find all the Belgians gathered about their sovereign, who will never betray his constitutional oath, and their Government, invested with the absolute confidence of the entire nation.
I have faith in our destinies; a country which is defending itself conquers the respect of all;
such a country does not perish!


War was declared on Belgium on the morning of 3 August .
King Albert, as prescribed by the Belgian constitution, took personal command of the Belgian army.
The 4 August 1914 the German army entered the country they launched an attack on Liége who managed to resist 10 day and earned the French cross of the légion d'honneur.



Unfortunately it wasn't enough to stop Germany and in the end the entire country ended occupied,
excepted for a little piece of Belgium in West Flanders the king decided to stay with his army and share the fate the soldiers and regularly visiting the trench earning him the name of "The Soldier King" or "King Knight".
His spouse Elisabeth of Bavaria despise being German of origin followed him and worked in a nurse unit taking care of the wounded. I was to be like this for the remaining time of the war.





At the end of the war in 1918 the country was crippled after a harsh occupation in 1920 the Treaty of Versailles gave Eupen-Malmedy, or the East Cantons to Belgium as war reparation.

[NHBL]

Please continue; I'll be looking forwards to it.

[SavoyTruffle]

So far nothing has really changed from OTL, this is pre-POD right?

[Xgentis]

Yes this is sort of an introduction.

[Landshark]

Would Albert I attempt to rearm the Belgian military in the late 30's as Britain and France did with their forces?

[Xgentis]

Yes the fall of the German republic could be a factor as well and the fact that Belgium cannot hide behind the Versailles for protection anymore.

[Xgentis]

At the end of the war Belgian official number of militatry deaths was about 58,637 deaths including missing in action and died of wounds and diseases. The official number of military wounded was 44,686 wounded.


These relatively small loss can be explaned by the fact that the military service was established in 1909 only five year prior the conflict.
Another factor was that the Belgian army didn't have the time to mobilse.

However the civilian popullation pay a heavier price with an estimated number of 62,000 deaths including death due of food shortage,disease and German reprisal.

But these rapports are largely considered incomplete.

But the country infrastructures and economy are the be completely reconstructed.

The city of Ypres/Ieper lay in ruins. Ypres/Ieper was the first place in human history were poison gas like chlorine and mustard gas was used on a large scale. In fact mustard gas is also known as Yperite. Unfortunately the destruction of Ypres/Ieper ony foreshadow the destruction of the next war.

Ypres/Ieper wasn't the only city in ruin.
Dinant in one of the worst atrocities of the First World War, German troops executed over 700 people in the Belgium town of Dinant, then sacked and burnt the town.
Nearly 700 Belgians, of whom 73 were women and 39 children, had been killed; and some 600 others who had been made prisoners had been sent to Germany, where they would be taught to live. Of the 1,400 houses which Dinant contained 1,200 were destroyed, burned from top to bottom, having first been pillaged; and the factories which had afforded a livelihood for several hundreds of hands, were now but heaps of ashes.

Louvain/Leuven The city itself fell to the German First Army on 19 August 1914 as part of the German strategy to overrun Belgium during the month of August 1914. Occupied therefore by the Germans the city was relatively peaceful for six days until 25 August. On that date German units to the rear of the city were attacked by an initially successful Belgian force advancing from Antwerp.
Panicked, those German troops under fire withdrew to Louvain, which in itself caused confusion to German soldiers stationed in the city. Shots were heard amid fearful cries that the Allies were launching a major attack.
Once it became clear however that no such Allied attack was underway or even imminent, the city's German authorities determined to exact revenge upon Louvain's citizenry, whom they were convinced that contrived the confusion that day.
The German form of retaliation was savage. For five consecutive days the city was burnt and looted. Its library of ancient manuscripts was burnt and destroyed, as was Louvain's university (along with many other public buildings). The church of St. Pierre was similarly badly damaged by fire. Citizenry of Louvain were subject to mass shootings, regardless of age or gender.




the destruction of Louvain/Leuven's university library, the oldest in Europe.

Albert I involved himself in the reconstruction of the country which was devastated by the four year long war and foreign occupation, gaining even more popullarity amon the peoples.

The Treaty of Versailles has two effect on Belgium:

1 It abolished the obligatory neutrality the 1839 Treaty of London imposed to Belgium allowing Belgium to enter a millitary alliance with France in 1920

2 Belgium gained the LoN mandate over Ruanda-Urundi.

The Belgian–Luxembourg Economic Union (Deutsch: Belgisch-Luxemburgse Economische Unie, French: Union économique belgo-luxembourgeoise) abbreviated to BLEU or UEBL was created by a treaty, signed on 25 July 1921 between Belgium and Luxembourg, and came into effect upon ratification by the Luxembourgian Chamber of Deputies on 22 December 1922. Under the terms of the treaty, the economic frontier was lifted and the Belgian franc and Luxembourgian franc were set at a fixed parity

The effects of the war had on the Belgian political life were huge.
In 1918, Albert I forged a post-war "Government of National Union" made up of members of the three main parties in Belgium, the Catholics, Liberals, and Socialists, he remembered the Belgian general strike of 1913 and the promise, after it, of a Constitutional reform in favour of an actual one man, one vote universal suffrage after hours of negotiation the amendment to the constitution was made and the one man, one vote universal suffrage was successfully implemented.

After this the Catholic party loss the majority in favor of the Socialists party in the 1919 election. But this was a temporaly victory for the Socalist party.

What most political parties failed to foresee was the creation of the De Belgische Dageraad/The Belgian Dawn/L'Aube Belge paty following the linguistic discontent. At first only the war veterans joined it but it rapidly gained popularity amon the working and midle class peoples with it's billingual and progressist policies. They surprised the old political class in wining the 1925 election. They could force to implemention their linguistic program the Dutch and French would be taught in every belgian school.

Logo of the Belgian Dawn.



The Belgian Dawn is my invention you could say that this is a PoD

[Xgentis]

So what do you think?

[My Username is Inigo Montoya]

I'm definitely interested. Keep posting.

[Xavier]

What most political parties failed to foresee was the creation of the De Belgische Dageraad/The Belgian Dawn/L'Aube Belge paty following the linguistic discontent. At first only the war veterans joined it but it rapidly gained popularity amon the working and midle class peoples with it's billingual and progressist policies. They surprised the old political class in wining the 1925 election. They could force to implemention their linguistic program the Dutch and French would be taught in every belgian school.

Some handwavium there I'm afraid, since the Walloons refused it twice in OTL. OTOH, we will be spared the current clusterfuck in your timeline and all Belgians will truly be able to speak with each other.
So go for it

[Xgentis]

Thanks, it took me a lot of time to write this.

[HereticAscendant]

Nice. i will love to see King Albert lead Belgians during the WW2.

[Koenig von Poposia]

I am interested in this...keep going with it. Isn't the Belgian Royal Family still known by the name Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha? What do they call themselves if not that?