Princess Elisabeth took her oath as an officer on Tuesday evening, following in the footsteps of future Belgian monarchs before her.
The Belgian Royal Palace shared photographs of the future queen taking her oath as an officer in front of King Philippe and Queen Mathilde, Prince Emmanuel and Princess Eléonore, swearing that: “I swear allegiance to the King, obedience to the Constitution and the laws of the Belgian people!”
Princess Elisabeth joined her 95 classmates of the 160th Promotion of Social and Military Sciences and the officer students of the 175th Polytechnic Promotion the Royal Military Academy in swearing their oaths on Tuesday. She was the first to take the oath and did so in Dutch, French and German.
The future queen’s brother, Prince Gabriel, was part of the ceremony as a student at the Royal Military Academy.
After swearing the oath, Princess Elisabeth received the commissioned rank of Deputy Lieutenant of the Belgian Army.
Princess Elisabeth followed in the paths of nearly all of Belgium’s monarchs by swearing the oath of an officer. Her father took the same oath on the same day in 1980; her grandfather, King Albert II, did so on 18 May 1953; and her great-great-grandfather, King Leopold III, did so on 1 September 1923.
King Baudouin, her great-uncle, did not take the oath of an officer due to being a prisoner of war in Nazi Germany during the Second World War and due to his father’s exile in the period immediately following the end of the war.
Princess Elisabeth began her military training in the summer of 2020, doing a full year at the Royal Military Academy before moving to the United Kingdom to continue her post-secondary education.
She has returned to Belgium on several occasions for summer camps to get more military training, most recently spending time this past summer commanding fellow troops and learning the use of complex weapons.
