Amidst the final years and recovery from World War II, Belgium had a regent who is rarely talked about.
From 20 September 1944 – 20 July 1950, Prince Charles, Count of Flanders, served as regent of Belgium while the Belgian government was investigating his older brother, King Leopold III, for cooperating with the Nazis.
Charles was born on 10 October 1903 as the second son of King Albert I and Queen Elisabeth. He and his siblings spent World War I in the United Kingdom while his father stayed behind; Charles was educated at the Royal Naval College and Dartmouth before returning to Belgium to study at the Royal Military School of Brussels.
At 40-years-old, Prince Charles was named regent after the German occupation of Belgium ended.
The Belgian government was suspicious of King Leopold III’s role in World War Two. It became a huge controversy, and it was debated whether or not Leopold would be allowed to return to the throne as there were fears he had acted contrary to the Belgian constitution during the Second World War.
After Germany invaded Belgium, Leopold (as commander-in-chief) refused to leave the front lines and join the Belgian government in exile in France. He helped negotiate the surrender to the Nazis in 1940 and was widely condemned. The Germans held the King under house arrest at the palace until the Nazis deported him and his family to Germany before the Allied liberation.
While the debate raged along political lines, Charles took up the role of regent, leading Belgium in reviving its economy, giving women the right to vote, and Belgium joining the United Nations. The Benlux customs union was also created during his regency, which is a cooperation between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
His regency came to an end once a plebiscite was held, allowing King Leopold III’s return to the country. Charles’s role as regent ended on 20 July 1950.
Charles lived to the age of 79 and died just a few months before his older brother in 1983. He’s buried at the Church of Our Lady of Laeken in Brussels.
