Why does the monarchy of Belgium still exist after Leopold 2?

Question

I was browsing the internet and came across the post Which Dictator Killed the Most People. It seems that Leopold 2 had a lot of people killed. This got me thinking, I don't see for example heirs of Hitler (or related to him) rule Germany, that would be absurd. Though in case of Leopold 2, his lineage is still the royal family currently in Belgium. How is this possible ? Is it because they are not direct descendants ? Or are these killings not comparable to other killings under dictators ?

I know the information I saw is not from the history books and so on. I don't know a lot about history, normally I'm not even remotely interested in this stuff, though this I find very strange and intriguing. If someone could shed some light and clarify what I am missing ?

Answer 1

As a starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State#Humanitarian_disaster - which is a reason why Leopold was put in the "ranking " you've pasted.
There's a simple reason Belgium is still a monarchy: because there was no political reason for changing the state of affairs - this idea did not occur neither to public opinion nor to international community (other states' diplomacy) of that time. What's more, as a King of Belgians, Leopold is generally regarded positively. Also after his death, there never was a need for republic, Belgians were content enough with their royalty. And why did Leopold got away with all these atrocities?

They happened in Africa, in wild, no-man's land. What would be the legal base for the prosecution? What's more, to organize the investigation and trial, unprecedented diplomatic action would have needed to be taken, action for which you'd need approval of diplomacies of all other colonial powers. None of these diplomacies did ever conceive such idea - most of the colonial states were monarchies - and who except the revolutionaries have ever put the kings on trials? Putting things simply, all European monarchs are related to each other, in the monarchical times it was simply unthinkable to organize such a lawsuit for a king.

So summing up:

1. Belgium is still a monarchy, because Belgians were always content enough with their monarchs (despite the atrocities commited in the overseas collonies).
2. Leopold was never held responsible for Congo disaster because:
   • there was no legal basis for accusing him of anything,
   • other states diplomacies had no reason to trouble him

Answer 2

The killings to which they are doubtless referring occurred as part of his ownership of the Congo Free State. They all happened in Africa, and the deaths seem to have been the result of a rather abusive form of slave labor that was employed to keep productivity there high. The wikipedia page says that estimates range from 2 to 14 million deaths, but there's really no certianty involved in those numbers, as no records were kept, and Congo in the 19th century wasn't eactly the kind of place prone to gather census figures.

However, this was all completely aside from the fact that Leopold happened to be the king of a European nation. The CFS was owned by Leopold personally, and the profits went to enrich himself, not his country.

That particular graphic seems to have taken a very high estimate and used it as an absolute number. If they did that with everybody on the list, I suppose you can at least get a good relative sense, but still I find that a little dishonest.

If you truly "don't know a lot about history", there is one thing I'd like you to take away from this: be careful, because everybody has an angle. History is little better than politics in this regard.

Answer 3

My relatives are Belgian, and you might want to note that they are very fond of their current monarch. The question seems a bit insensitive.

Putting that aside, why would you end a monarchy because one of the monarchs performed atrocities? What relationship is there between the monarch's morality and the legitimacy of the monarchy? Would you end the US government if one of the presidents were discovered to have colluded with press to deceive the American public about his fitness to rule (Roosevelt), or if the President's cabinet had conspired to fix the outcome of the Electoral College (Washington), or if the President invited a foreign power to establish armed forces inside the United States with the goal of overthrowing the government (Jefferson)?

I think if we explore any royal lineage we'll find some monsters; Leopold may be a bit in the extreme, but StackExchange has recently examined Henry V. I thought I'd find other SE examples, but a quick search didn't reveal any. (Ivan the Terrible comes to mind). Most royal lines also include a few heroes. Leopold III's decision to remain in Belgium during the Nazi occupation comes to mind, or Baudoin's day long abdication to avoid a personal crisis over abortion rights. Please note that I'm not trying to assert any sense of scale or comparison, nor am I trying to defend Leopold II in any way.

Ultimately the legitimacy of a royal line does not depend on the morality of the predecessors. (Discussion of what constitutes legitmacy of a royal line is probably out of scope for SE).

Answer 4

"The gentleman will never notices what happens on the backyard of another gentleman". The victims were not Europeans, so they were not taken into account. Leopild II was not alone - all colonial powers behaved the same. Vietnam, Boer republics, Sudan and so on.

But Leopold was not a dictator. He was a constitutional monarch and the quilt is on the whole nation and its elite, of course. So, it is not as if he alone killed or even ordered to kill these 15mil. personally.

If at the end of XIX cent the killing of blacks were considered a crime, it would be very probable that Belgians would accuse their king of being a cruel dictator - in order not to be accused themselves. But the simply didn't have any need in it. So they let the dynasty be.

As for the second reason, Belgians won. All crimes are timed out very fast, when it is convinient for winners. And who would ask for the opinion of these, who lost? At maximum, to make them quiet, the history would be cottected and recalling of unconvenient truth would be considered as "a bit insensitive". Excellent formulation, really!

What were the numbers of victims of British and French colonizators? I think, it was Leopold there instead of Victoria, for example, only because Belgium is such a small country.