In June 1791, the King made an ill-fated attempt to flee the country ( flight to Varennes ), but was apprehended short of his goal on the Austrian Belgian border and was forced to return under guard to Paris.

King William I was also given rule over Belgium, but this lasted only until the conclusion of the Belgian Revolution in 1831.

Albert II of Belgium | Albert II, King of the Belgians inspecting Belgian Armed Forces | troops on Belgium's national day in 2011.

Here the French, the Belgian King Leopold II and the Portuguese, in close cooperation with the British, fought for control of this area.

* November 15 – King Leopold II of Belgium formally relinquishes his personal control of Congo ( known as Congo Free State ) over to Belgium ( becoming Belgian Congo ).

** WWII: King Leopold III of Belgium orders the Belgian forces to cease fighting.

") is an obvious parallel to the French " Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité "-with the republican sentiment of the original replaced in the Belgian version by the promotion of constitutional monarchy ( the combination of " The King " and "( the ) Law " is what produces " Liberty ").

Actually, a slogan similar to the Belgian one-" la Nation, la Loi, le Roi " (" The Nation, The Law, The King ")-had been used in the early days of the French Revolution, when that revolution was still considered to be aimed toward constitutional monarchy rather than a republic.

King Leopold had been the principal shareholder in the Belgian trading company which established trading stations on the lower Congo between 1879 and 1884.

* Prince Charles, Count of Flanders ( 1903 – 1983 ), former Belgian regent, second son of Albert I, King of the Belgians and Duchess Elisabeth

The speech of Belgian King Baudouin praised developments under colonialism, his reference to the " genius " of his great-granduncle Leopold II of Belgium glossing over atrocities committed during the Congo Free State.

In contrast to the relatively harmless speech of President Kasa-Vubu, Lumumba's reference to the suffering of the Congolese under Belgian colonialism stirred the crowd while simultaneously humiliating and alienating the King and his entourage.

A prominent figure in the starvation of many Africans around the turn of the 20th century was Belgian King Leopold II who is credited with the forming of the Congo.

William I, King of the Netherlands, would refuse to recognize a Belgian state until 1839, when he had to yield under pressure by the Treaty of London.

Belgian euro coins feature only a single design for all eight coins: the portrait or effigy of King Albert II of the Belgians and his royal monogram.

Belgian euro coins dated 1999 – 2007 have the portrait of King Albert II.

After Belgium asserted its independence from the Netherlands on 4 October 1830, the Belgian National Congress considered several candidates and eventually asked Leopold to become King of the newly-formed country.

He was the second child of the reigning Belgian monarch, Leopold I, and his second wife, Louise, the daughter of King Louis Philippe of France.

Criticism from both Social Catholics and the Labor party caused the Belgian parliament to compel the King to cede the Congo Free State to Belgium in 1908.

In Belgium, the title of Duke of Brabant ( historically the most prestigious in the Low Countries, and containing the federal capital Brussels ), if still vacant, has been awarded preferentially to the eldest son and heir presumptive of the king, other male dynasts receiving various lower historical titles ( much older than Belgium, and in principle never fallen to the Belgian crown ), such as Count of Flanders ( King Leopold III's so-titled brother held the title when he became the realm's temporary head of state as prince-regent ) and Prince of Liège ( a secularised version of the historical prince-bishopric ; e. g., the present King Albert II until he succeeded his older brother Baudouin I ).

The King notified King George VI by telegram on 25 May 1940 that Belgian forces were being crushed, saying " assistance which we give to the Allies will come to an end if our Army is surrounded ".

Shortly before his accession to the throne in 1909, Albert undertook an extensive tour of the Belgian Congo, which had been annexed by Belgium in 1908 ( after having been previously owned by King Leopold II of Belgium as his personal property ), finding the area in poor condition.

By 1908 public and diplomatic pressure led Leopold II to the annex the Congo as the Belgian Congo colony.

In 1908, under international pressure, Leopold ceded administration of the colony to the government of Belgium as the Belgian Congo.

On November 15, 1908 the Belgian parliament annexed the colony, the reign of Leopold II over Congo being discredited.

Leaders of the Belgian government on French territory declare Leopold deposed.

Stanley was approached by the ambitious Belgian king Leopold II, who in 1876 had organised a private holding company disguised as an international scientific and philanthropic association, which he called the International African Society.

In Belgian domestic politics, Leopold emphasized military defense as the basis of neutrality, but he was unable to obtain a universal conscription law until on his death bed.

Neither the Belgian people nor the Belgian government was interested, however, and Leopold eventually began trying to acquire a colony in his private capacity as an ordinary citizen.

In 1866, Leopold instructed the Belgian ambassador in Madrid to speak to Queen Isabella II of Spain about ceding the Philippines to Belgium.

Leopold then devised a plan to make the Philippines be independent and ruled by a Belgian.

On December 17, 1909, Leopold II died at Laeken, and the Belgian crown passed to Albert, the son of Leopold's brother, Philip, Count of Flanders.

* Leopold II also engaged in a religious ceremony with Blanche Zélia Joséphine Delacroix, also known as Caroline Lacroix, a prostitute, on 14 December 1909, with no validity under Belgian law, at the Pavilion of Palms, Royal Palace of Laken, in Brussels, five days before his death.

Image: Leopold II gent. jpg | Leopold II with the coat of arms of the Belgian Congo in Ghent, Belgium.

Crown Prince Leopold fought as a private during World War I with the 12th Belgian Regiment while still a teenager, but was sent by his father to Eton College in the United Kingdom, in 1915.

* 1943 – World War II: American bomber aircraft accidentally cause more than 900 civilian deaths, including 209 children, and 1300 wounded among the civilian population of the Belgian town of Mortsel.

Elements of the FP were also used to form Belgian colonial units that fought in the East African Campaign during World War II.

Despite these improvements, a second invasion by the former Katangan gendarmerie, known as Shaba II in May – June 1978, was only dispersed with the despatch of the French 2e régiment étranger de parachutistes and a battalion of the Belgian Paracommando Regiment.

The progenitor of the A9 / A10 was the German V-2 rocket, also designed by von Braun and widely used at the end of World War II to bomb British and Belgian cities.

A suppressible revolver design does exist in the Nagant M1895, a Belgian revolver used from 1895 through World War II.

These huge guns were the decisive weapon of siege warfare in the 20th century, taking part at Przemysl, the Belgian sieges, on the Italian Front and Serbian Front, and even being reused in World War II.

* 1944 – World War II: the British 11th Armoured Division liberates the Belgian city of Antwerp.

* October 22 – Johan Hendrik Weidner, Belgian World War II resistance fighter ( d. 1994 )

* Belgian armoured fighting vehicles of World War II

Following World War II, Ruanda-Urundi became a United Nations Trust Territory under Belgian administrative authority.

Upon his initiative, a Belgian College in Rome was opened in 1844, where 100 years later, in 1946, Pope John Paul II would begin his Roman studies.