Albert Joseph Goblet d'Alviella place of birth Tournai
Career
Born in Tournai, Goblet attended the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr. He became an engineer officer in the French Imperial Army, but joined the Royal Netherlands Army in 1815, rising to the rank of captain.
At the moment of the Belgian insurrection on 16 November 1830, he joined the revolutionary forces, and was given the rank of colonel by the provisional government. He went into politics in the newly independent Belgium, where he became Minister for Foreign Affairs (de facto prime minister) between 1832 and 1834. Though no formal party structures existed at the time, he was considered politically Liberal. He was appointed as inspector-general of the Belgian Army in 1834.
In 1837, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and raised to nobility. He was the grandfather of Eugene Goblet d'Alviella, a famous historian.
He died in Brussels aged 82 in 1873.
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