Queen Elisabeth Of The Belgians (1876-1965)


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There is no picture of her wedding with Prince Albert , Crown Prince of Belgium
 
Thank you An Ard Ri for sharing the very interesting video of the Queen's funeral.
I saw her in the Salon des Penseurs at the Royal Palace , on the little table next to her I saw her violin.
The Queen has asked the the surviving Nurses of the Ocean Hospital at la Panne , spend the night next to her dead body. So did my grandmother .
At the end of my grandmother's funerals I heard the Brabançonne , our National Hymn !
 
In Long to Reign, A. W. Purdue wrote:

Another queen with artistic and bohemian inclinations, Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians. rose to the challenge of war and became a national heroine. Based with her husband on the last strip of Belgian soil, she devoted herself to nursing the wounded and becoming a saintly figure to Belgian soldiers.
​

During the German occupation of Belgium from 1940 to 1944, Queen Elisabeth used her influence as queen and German connections to assist in the rescue of Jewish children from deportation by the Nazis.
After the war she was awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli government.
​

maria-olivia said:
Indeed , I don't understand why in this thread she is called the Red Queen ..
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Maria-Olivia, During the 1950s, Elisabeth evoked controversy abroad by visiting the Soviet Union, Poland, and China.
These trips prompted some people to label Elisabeth as the "RED QUEEN." :queen3::belgiumstandard:
​
 
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Indeed , I don't understand why in this thread she is called the Red Queen ..
 
This was just at the end.
What we remember for ever is her attitude during the first War and the "Concours de Musique Reine Elisabeth".
 
The Red Queen: Elisabeth Of The Belgians

CyrilVladisla said:
During the German occupation of Belgium from 1940 to 1944, Queen Elisabeth used her influence as queen and German connections to assist in the rescue of Jewish children from deportation by the Nazis.
After the war she was awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli government.
​
Click to expand...


She's one amongst several royal ladies to get that award. Both Helen, Queen mother of Romania and Princess Alice of Greece (mother of the Duke of Edinburgh) RATN for saving Jews during the Holocaust. Queen Giovanna of Bulgaria also did a lot to save Jews but I don't think she became a RATN.


Sent from my iPhone using The Royals Community mobile app
 
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What she did during for the injured soldiers during the first WW was really great and un unique example. Queen Mary , the Empress of Prussia and other royals stayed in their royal palaces
 
Queen Elisabeth reviewed Belgian troops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12SA93pB3hs

Queen Elisabeth helped organize a fleet of military ambulances in the First World War to ferry the wounded between the Front and field hospitals. By the end of the war she was known as Queen Nurse.

In 1928 and in 1932 Queen Elisabeth accompanied King Albert I on tours of the Belgian Congo where the city of Elisabethville was named in her honor.
 
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In WWI we were missing nurses and the Queen who was Lord Curzon's friend could provide a lot of British Nurses who stayed 4 years in the Hopital Ocean, formely a Hotel that the Queen asked to be a Hospital.
They received the Queen Elisabeth 's Medal such as my Aunt who was a belgian Nurse working 4 years at the Ocean.
 
"On 18th of Feb 1923, Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians paid a visit to the tomb of Tutankhamun accompanied by Belgian Egyptologist Jean Capart. Lord Carnarvon noted the Queen could not stop asking all sorts of questions"


https://twitter.com/x/status/1325525261719400458
 
King Albert asked Jean Capart to take care of the Queen... because..
Sge died whe she was I the eighties so there is no "Madelection ".
 
The First World War was painful for Queen Elisabeth as some of the men leading the Bavarian regiments of the German army were her own family.
 
On Monday 11th January Secret d' Histoire about our Queen in France 2 and Stephane Bern. A first time for a belgian Royal.
 
:previous:

2,1 million viewers tuned in to the programme on Monday. King Albert II, Pss Esmeralda and Pss Marie-Gabrielle of Italy also participated in the documentary.

The France 3 broadcast can not be re-viewed abroad directly but the station has uploaded the brodcast to youtube:


The couple met at the funeral of the Dss of Alençon, who died at the ball de la Charité in Paris. The historians who speak say that Elisabeth fell in love right away (coup de foudre even). Pss Esmeralda added that at the same funeral Albert fell in love with Isabelle d'Orléans (later Dsse de Guise), which was opposed by Leopold II. Esmeralda says that this story bothered Elisabeth all her life. Much later in life she would still frown when the name of Isabelle was uttered.

After Isabelle was vetoed Albert's sister Henriette, Dsse de Vendôme took matters into her hands. At the funeral she had noted Elisabeth's natural air and her lively character, two qualities that would perfectly complement her [more timid] brother. Two meetings were arranged in Fontainebleu. They were allowed to walk without a chaparone, to get to know each other better.

Later Pss Esmeralda tells about the unconventional father. Duke Karl Theodor worked as a doctor for people who could not afford one. It was something that formed Elisabeth and explains her interest in social issues and justice. It was this model that followed Elisabeth all her life and who she wanted to impress most. Another big influence was her aunt, the legendary Empress Elisabeth, who fascinated the young Elisabeth. Pss Esmeralda sees many simularities: the slightly provocative side and both were somewhat fantasists.

A historian calls Albert's father, the count of Flanders, a 'sinister personage who made a very, very bad marriage'. Some say the count was to blame for the bad marriage, others say that it was the countess' fault as she never agreed with anybody. Pss Esmeralda says that one day Albert said: 'my mother is a saint but a saint made of ice', which shows the atmosphere in the family. Family dinners at the palace of the counts of Flanders lasted 15 minutes, as Albert once measured. That was a good thing for him because the atmosphere was not pleasant, so he wanted it to be over quickly.

Prince Baudouins death came as a great shock. Albert never expected and was not prepared well to take over the throne. Neither did he look forward to it later. He suffered all his life from the imposter syndrom. Esmeralda says that he became more closed and sad after this, until the moment he met Elisabeth.

The wedding took place in Munich on the 2nd October 1900. It was attended by Leopold II. At first they lived in the palace of the Counts of Flanders, under constant surveillance of her parents-in-law, which quickly became sufficating for Elisabeth and she felt like a bird in a cage. Pss Esmeralda says that Albert often called Elisabeth 'mein kind' (my child in German), which indicated he wanted to protect her. He knew Belgian society well and wanted to protect her from criticism, which is why he gave her advice often. Shortly afterwards they rented the palace of the Marquess van der Noot d'Assche in the Rue de la Science, where their 3 children were born.

When Leopold II died Albert had to prepare for his oath. He got frozen with doubts and he repeated to himself 'I will not do it' over and over again. His wife was able to calm & encourage him and together they practiced the speech over and over again. Pss Esmeralda says: it was an extrordinary thing, she prepared him and gave him strength, courage and inspiration to go there [to parlament]. The king did his oath in French and -for the first time- also in Dutch. It showed that they wanted a more progressive and egalitarian monarchy. This resulted in 1918 in the Castle of Loppem near Brugges, in universal sufferage for men and in the equalisation of the two languages. Some called it 'the coup of Loppem' as it violated the constitution.

Princess Marie-Gabrielle of Italy tells about the changed image of the monarchy after Leopold II. She laughs: 'they went on a moterbike to vitis the cities and towns. imagine the president of the French republic doing that. No that did not exist yet!' Elisabeth understood the use and usefulness of communication and understood the importance of images. They showed a video of the pair in a train, where she smiles to the camera and tells Albert to remove his cap. Pss Esmeralda explains that a media campaign started, the images of the RF were to be seen everywhere, they became extremely popular. For the first time the Belgians referred to 'our Queen' instead of 'the queen'.

The Queen went to Egypt to be one of the first ones to see the opened tombe of Tutanchamon. Pss Esmeralda tells that world press was there and the Queen arrived in the heat wearing a fur coat because she was afraid to catch a cold. A day later the press wrote: 'it seemed the queen thought she would inaugurate the tombe of an Eskimo'. She would never forget this visit and always talked about what she saw with great emotion. She stayed there for weeks to look at the archeologists at work and to admire new discoveries, getting on the nerves of some of them.

She liked new things, practised meditation after a visit to India. She also quickly adopted the latest fashioned, cut her long hairs and was seen in creations of Coco Chanel. Her sense of liberty was reflected in her clothes: she wore jackets with pockets, which was new... women could now put a key there or money, without asking a man to keep it for them. She went skiing, mountainering, and was a great fan of Charles Lindbergh. In 1919 she flew in an aeroplane and encouraged the pilot to fly vertical and in loops.

[...]
 
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Thank you to Marengo for recapping the program for those of us who are not French speakers.

Marengo said:
A historian calls Albert's father, the count of Flanders, a 'sinister personage who made a very, very bad marriage'. Some say the count was to blame for the bad marriage, others say that it was the countess' fault as she never agreed with anybody. Pss Esmeralda says that one day Albert said: 'my mother is a saint but a saint made of ice', which shows the atmosphere in the family. Family dinners at the palace of the counts of Flanders lasted 15 minutes, as Albert once measured. That was a good thing for him because the atmosphere was not pleasant, so he wanted it to be over quickly.
Click to expand...

This in particular was interesting to to learn, as in general it is the family life of King Leopold II which tends to be denounced for its unpleasantness, with the family life of his brother the Count of Flanders shining in the comparison.
 
Nothing new for the Belgians axcept great views from the Castle of laeken we are nor allowed to visit . We never visit the Archives at the Royal Palace where they showe a letter Queen Elsabeth wrote to Staline ...
But for the french People this Queen was uknown they were very interested !
 
When the Queen passed away I saw her dead body at the Salon des Penseurs at the Royal Palace. I quite remember her violin next to her. I did not know she played badly!

The Queen's wish was that the Nurses of l' Ocean à la Panne stayed the whole night.
So my Grand Mother who was one of the survivors receive a call from the Royal Palace. A Car came to her home and they passed the whole night kneeling and in the morning my grandmother asked an Officier to help her to stay up.!
 
In 1958 Queen Elisabeth of Belgium became the first royalty received at the Kremlin.
 
And the then Minister of Foreign Affairs said to Her ." You don't need to ask the autorisation I know you will go ".
 
Queen Elisabeth's arrival in Moscow in 1958
 
I understand Elisabeth's curiosity and desire for diplomacy, but... why did she think this was a good idea, again?

Also, was Khrushchev busy? I didn't see him in that video.
 
Her visits to Russia, Poland and other countries in Eastern Europe were officially considered 'private'. The Queen was a pacifist and in this period the intellectual elites in Western Europe perhaps had a naive and romantic view of the nature of these communists regimes. The queen was convinced that science and art could bring people closer together.

Before the visits the Belgian communist party started a wide range of cultural activities, concerts etc. They founded several Belgian-Russian, Belgian-Polish, Belgian-Chinese etc. friendship groups, of which the queen sometimes became an honorary member. She apparently learned the basics of the Russian language as a child in Bavaria. In this period she continues her studies. In 1954 she hosts a meeting at Stuyvenberg between writers from East and West, among them Jean-Paul Sartre and Bethold Brecht.

Conservative voices at court thought that the queen had allowed herself to be manipulated by people like baron Antoine Allard (peace activist, later chairman of the NGO Oxfam) of Kamiel Huysmans (former mayor of Antwerp, socialist politician). Others thought she simply enjoyed shocking her conservative relatives. Her granddaughter Pss M. Gabrielle of Italy said that her grandmother told her 'I want to see the world with my own eyes', so it could be simply curiosity.

Note that in the late 40-ties and early 50-ties among a large part of the public in Western Europe the Soviet Union was not unpopular (yet). The country had made the greatest sacrifises and won the biggest victories against the Nazis. All over Europe the communist resistance fighters were among the bravest. The crimes of Stalin were not as widely known yet as they are today.

The government always tried to stop the Queen from going - without success. Ministers wrote letters - which she ignorned. Sometimes they were disregarded as she remembered that one or two of the letter writers had collaborated with the Nazis.

The royal family was not happy with the visits at all, esp. King Baudouin was already known to be very conservative. This was perhaps underlined by his marriage to Fabiola, whose family was rather sympathetic to the Spanish fascist dictator Franco.

After a trip to China the Queen arrived at Zaventem airport near Brussels. Courtiers hurried to make sure she would immediately get into the limousine and did not speak to any journalists. The Queen was not amused. The same evening she invited a group of journalists at Stuyvenberg castle to tell them all about her trip, while wearing a red cocarde in the buttonhole of her vest and a portrait of Mao Zedong in a silver frame next to her. The Belgian government had no official relations with China at the time and did not recognise the communist regime.

It was noted that the Queen did visit these countries while she refused to attend the wedding of her grand daughter Maria Pia of Italy to a prince of Yugoslavia. The reason was that the wedding was held in Portugal where semi-fascist dictator Salazar was still in power. It was only 10 years after the war of course.
 
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How interesting Marengo . This was possible at that time
No Belgian Family Member attend the Wedding of Maria Pia at Cascais !
 
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