Belgium Banknotes 1000 Francs banknote 1945 King Albert I
National Bank of Belgium - Nationale Bank van België - Banque nationale de Belgique
Obverse: Portrait of King Albert I pictured in his monogram Adrian helmet and military uniform as a reminder of his bravery during the First World War. Alongside the King is the Congress Column and the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Brussels. On the back, a view of the Flemish commune of Veurne that was chosen, because of the severity of the fighting that was raging there and which largely destroyed it.
Reverse: The Grand market square in Veurne, Belgium. Veurne is a city and municipality in the Belgian province of West Flanders.
Belgian banknotes - Belgium paper money
1944-1948 Dynasty series
100 Francs 500 Francs 1000 Francs
King Albert I
Albert I (born April 8, 1875, Brussels, Belgium — died Feb. 17, 1934, Marche-les-Dames, near Namur), king of the Belgians (1909–34), who led the Belgian army during World War I and guided his country’s postwar recovery.
The younger son of Philip, count of Flanders (brother of King Leopold II), Albert succeeded to the throne in 1909 — Leopold’s son and Albert’s father and older brother having died earlier. Before World War I Albert worked to strengthen the army, gaining passage in 1913 of a military conscription bill. He reaffirmed Belgian neutrality to France and Germany in the summer of 1914 and rejected the German emperor William II’s ultimatum of Aug. 2, 1914, demanding free passage of German troops across Belgian territory. A German invasion followed two days later.
Albert assumed leadership of the Belgian army at the outset of the war but was forced to retreat beyond the Yser River after the fall of Antwerp in October 1914. German troops then occupied the entire country except for the southwestern districts of Flanders. During the whole of the war Albert remained with his troops, making continual visits to the front-line trenches from his headquarters at De Panne on the Belgian coast. When the general Allied offensive of September 1918 was undertaken, he commanded the Franco-Belgian northern army group, which captured Ostend and Brugge and forced the passage of the Lys River.
Following the Armistice, Albert appealed to the Allies to abolish Belgian neutrality, formalized by European treaties in 1839, and gained passage in Parliament of universal male suffrage. For the next 15 years he guided the nation’s rebuilding effort, which included public-works construction and redevelopment of industries destroyed by the German occupation. In 1926 he helped introduce a new monetary system. Albert was killed by a fall while rock climbing in 1934.
Congress Column
The Congress Column (French: Colonne du Congrès; Dutch: Congreskolom) is a monumental column situated on the Place du Congrès / Congresplein in Brussels, Belgium. It commemorates the creation of the Belgian state and constitution by the National Congress between 1830-1831. It was erected on the initiative of Charles Rogier, according to a design by Joseph Poelaert, between 1850 and 1859 and was inspired by Trajan's Column in Rome. It was restored from 2002 to 2008.
The column, with the statue of King Leopold I of the Belgians surmounting it included, has a total height of 47 metres (154 ft). A spiral staircase of 193 stairs in the interior of the column leads to a platform surrounding the pedestal of the statue of Leopold I.
The statue of Leopold was made by Guillaume Geefs. The important dates in the struggle for Belgian independence are engraved on the pedestal of the column, together with the names of the members of the National Congress and the Provisional Government and important passages from the liberal Belgian constitution of 1832. The four sitting statues surrounding the pedestal represent the major constitutional liberties; the 'Liberty of Union' by Charles Fraikin, the 'Liberty of Worship' by Eugène Simonis, the 'Liberty of Press' and the 'Liberty of Education' both by Joseph Geefs. Two monumental bronze lions by Eugène Simonis are placed in front of the monument.
The first stone was laid down in presence of King Leopold I on 24 September 1850 and was inaugurated on 26 Septembre 1859.
Monument to the Unknown Soldier
As a memorial to the Belgian victims of World War I, five unknown soldiers were buried at the foot of the monument on 11 November 1922. Their tomb is surmounted by an eternal flame. After World War II, a second memorial plaque was added to the monument to honour the Belgian victims. In 1998, a third memorial plaque was dedicated to the Belgian soldiers killed in the service of peace since 1945.