Belgium Banknotes 1000 Francs banknote 1950 King Albert I
National Bank of Belgium - Nationale Bank van België - Banque nationale de Belgique
Obverse: King Albert I in civilian outfit is represented on the left part of the note. On his left shoulder the number of the note can be read. The middle part of the note of which the background is decorated with the heraldic lion is reserved for a whole series of mentions, such as the issuer’s name, the value in wording, the mention payables à vue (or paid to the bearer), the issuing date, the signatures of the Bank’s governor and its treasurer and article 173 of the penal code: Le contrefacteur est puni des travaux forcés (the forger will be punished with convict labour). The King’s portrait, the heraldic lion and the mentions are represented in a greyish rectangular. The white strip on the right of the note hosts the effigy of King Leopold I as watermark, the serial number as well as the value, printed in red ink in the upper corner and on a background of a guilloches pattern in the lower corner. The watermark strip on the reverse represents, apart from the watermark, the value of the note as well as the warning against forgery in Dutch. Within a rectangular frame the bust of Hendrik Geeraert is reproduced in front of the Newport locks. The mentions represented on the obverse in French are copied on the reverse in Dutch.
Reverse: Lockmaster Hendrik Geeraert, Nieuwpoort.
Size: 170 x 85 mm.
Belgian banknotes - Belgium paper money
1950-1959 Issue
100 Francs 500 Francs 1000 Francs
King Albert I of Belgium
Albert I (born April 8, 1875, Brussels, Belgium — died Feb. 17, 1934, Marche-les-Dames, near Namur), king of the Belgians (1909–1934), 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.
Lockmaster Hendrik Geeraert
Hendrik Geeraert (Newport, July 15, 1863 - Bruges, January 17, 1925) is a Belgian folk hero of the World War I, during the interwar period the personification of the civil resistance against the German invader. During the first World War Hendrik Geeraert became famous amongst the Belgian soldiers behind the river Ijzer as the Newport skipper who opened the floodgates in Newport in October 1914 and so halted the German army.
Henry was born in Langestraat 40 in Newport, the son of skipper Augustine Gheeraert and Anna Veranneman, a housekeeper and lce-maker. Henry was also a skipper. At the age of 24 he married in Furnes Melanie Jonckheere and the couple had eight children.
In mid-October 1914 Geeraert got in contact with the Belgian genius detachment Sapeurs Marines that guarded the locks in Newport. To protect the endangered bridgehead Lombardsijdelaan the command ordered the Polder Nieuwendamme to be flooded. Here the engineers were aided by Geeraert.
This was a temporary respite and on 26 October it was decided to flood the entire region between Newport and Diksmuide. The first attempt (the "Plan B" proposed by Cogge - the "Plan A" Cogge originally encountered veto of the army leadership) did not produce the expected results. On October 29, the Supreme Command decided nevertheless to implement the "Plan A" Cogge: to open the spillway of the North Vaart Ganzepoot in Newport. This Geeraert delivered his assistance. After this success, the 51-year old remained with the company that operated the locks for the rest of the war.
At the end of the war he became ill. On his deathbed on December 25, he was appointed 1924 Knight of the Order of Leopold and he is also called "Legendary figure of the Field Army from 1914 to 1918". King Albert I of Belgium is the only other person to carry this title.
He also recived medals and fought at seven front lines. He died in St. Julius Hospice (Brothers of Charity) in Bouveriestraat in Bruges on 17 January 1925.