Obituary Cont'd
" In May, 1940, when Nazi troops rolled into Belgium, he placed himself at the head of Belgium's poorly equipped armed forces, but they were unable to withstand the German attack. His ministers advised him to flee abroad & set up a government in exile. Instead, he surrendered to the Germans on May 28, 18 days after the invasion & was held prisoner in Belgium, Germany & Austria during the war, until Allied forces freed him in Austria. While a captive he married Mary Liliane Baels, a London-born commoner 15 years his junior, in a civil ceremony in Laeken Palace near Brussels. The marriage, King Leopold's second, made Liliane a princess without claim to the throne. She was pregnant at the time of the civil ceremony, but it was later revealed that the couple had been married in a church ceremony three months earlier. The end of the war brought a bitter debate in Belgium over Leopold's desicion to surrender. The debate was aggrivated by Leopold's second marriage because in heavily Roman Catholic Belgium, a civil marriage ceremony must precede the church rite. King Leopold in Switzerland, refused to return to Belgium because of the controversy and his younger brother, Prince Charles, was named as regent. He returned in 1950, after a referendum showed 58 percent of Belgians in favor of his return. Rioting broke out, however, and as the violence worsened, King Leopold abdicated in favor of his son, Baudouin on Aug. 1."
