Leopold II of Belgium

Biography

Leopold was born in Brussels in 1835, the eldest surviving son of King Leopold I and Louise of Orléans, and was styled Duke of Brabant as heir. As a young man he served in the Belgian army, reaching the rank of lieutenant-general, and sat in the Senate. In 1853 he married Marie Henriette of Austria.

He succeeded his father in December 1865 and reigned for 44 years, the longest reign of any Belgian monarch. At home he was known as the Builder King for the many buildings and public works he commissioned.

Determined to acquire a colony, he convened the Brussels Geographic Conference in 1876, which set up the International African Association, and engaged Henry Morton Stanley to stake claims in the Congo basin. The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 recognised his claim, and from 1885 he ruled the Congo Free State as its sole owner, though he never went there. Using the Force Publique, his regime extracted ivory and then rubber through forced labour enforced by torture, killings and mutilation; estimates of the population loss range from one to fifteen million. International outrage and criticism at home led the Belgian parliament to make him cede the Congo to Belgium in 1908, and Leopold died at Laeken the following year.