World War II
When World War II broke out in September 1939, the French and British governments immediately sought to persuade Belgium to join them. Leopold and his government refused, maintaining Belgium's neutrality. Belgium considered itself well-prepared against a possible invasion by Axis forces, for during the 1930s Leopold had made extensive preparations against an invasion of his country, historically a battlefield in wars between French and Germans.
On 10 May 1940 the German army invaded Belgium. On the first day of the offensive the Belgian fortifications were penetrated before any French or British troops could arrive and the country was overwhelmed by the numerically superior Germans.
Nevertheless, the Belgian perseverance prevented the British Expeditionary Force from being outflanked and cut off from the coast, enabling the evacuation from Dunkirk. After his military surrender Leopold stayed on in Brussels to face the victorious invaders, while his entire civil government fled to Paris and later to London.
| Leopold I |
|---|
|
| Leopold II |
|
| Albert I |
|
| Leopold III |
|
| Baudouin |
| Albert II |
|
Read more about this topic: Leopold III Of Belgium
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
“It was not that she was out of temper, but that the world was not equal to the demands of her fine organism.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“I have agreed to go into the service for the war ... [feeling] that this was a just and necessary war and that it demanded the whole power of the country; that I would prefer to go into it if I knew I was to die or be killed in the course of it, than to live through and after it without taking any part in it.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)