The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-10-02
KING OF BELCIANS FIRST REPORTER
 10 BE RULER 3: Worked on Newspapers In France, Britain and
 United States.
WENT ON FIRING
 LINE WITH MEN
Arrives For Visit In This Country With Queen
 Elizabeth.

arch, IS A years old ana IS one o1 the most picturesue figures of the Great War.
 The King took postgraduate course in newspaper training in 1908 when, somewhat like Peter the Great, he visited the shipyards of France, Great Britain, Italy, Ger many and Scandinavia, to learn everything possible regarding ocean carriers with the expectation at some future time of putting Belgium high in the class of maritime powers. Sev- eral years previously, it is said, when merely the son of the Count of Flanders, a nephew of King Leopold, he came to the United States and worked as a, reporter on one or two newspapers in the Northwest.
 Succeeding to the crown on Dec. 23, 1909, Albert I. endeared himself to the 7,5O0,000 people of his little king dom. The abuses of the Congo, which had brought upon the head of his aged uncle Leopold, the con iemnation of the civilized world, were abolished and the King and his beau tifuI consort faced the prospect of a long and happy reign in a country where "tramps, idIers and soup houses are unknown
 
 the Belgtans might have yielded and escaped much of the hardship and suffering that was the lot of himself and his people for more than four years. Heeding not the spacious promises of the German to pay Bel gium huge sums for the privilege of crossing her soil to attack France, the gallant King rallied his army of 35O,- 900 men and placed himself at their head to fight the invader When the German armies violated at Wise the neutrality of the little nation they were pledged to protect, they met with the most stubborn resistance from the valiant but numerically in ferior Belgians at the forst of Liege and Namur.
 During the great conflict King AL bert spared himself none of the rig ors of the soldier. Often he exposed himself to shell fire and aviators' bombs burst about him. Once a Ger man shell tore off the wheel of the automobile in which he was riding. At another time a, chauffeur who had i been promised S200,OOO to deliver the i King to the enemy, was shot dead as he endeavored to drive the royal car into the German lines. Hardly a day 1 passed that he was not in jeopardy of his life and futile efforts were made by his ministers to induce him not to 1 expose himself.
 My skin is of no more value than your,' he told his heartsick soldiers on their retreat from Antwerp. My i place is on the firing 1ine!''
 | Although his mother was a Hohen- i zolIern princess and his wife a Ba- i varian princess, and although in his ! youth he had been educated in Ger | many, he maintained an independence i of character that irritated the former i Emperor of Germany. The latter, among other honors before the war, 1 conferred upon Albert L, the title of 1 honorary colonel of the MeckIenburg 1 regiment an act which the Belgian i press construed as an effort of the 1 German ruler to gain an influence i over the young King.
 An indication of A1berts spirit came when Belgium was invaded. In taking command of his troops on Aug 1 6, 1914, he. said: "A neighbor, naughty in it's strength, without the 1 slightest provocation, has torn up a treaty bearing it's signature and has 1 violated the territory of our fathers i because we refused to forfeit our honor. He has attacked us. Seeing it's independence threatened, the na- tion trembled and it's children sprans ! to the frontier, valiant soldiers in z sacred cause. I have confidence ir
 your tenacious courage. I greet you
 in the name of Belgium, a fellow citi- zen who is proud of you"
 One year after Belgium's heroic re- i sistance to the German flood, the peo-
 pie of Paris, in gratitude to and af
 lection for King Albert presented tc
 him a gift sword of Sainte Etienne
 steel, the design of which wa.
 wrought by the sculptor, Fetu. Upor
 the blade, ornamented with panoplies
 of steel upon gold, was a tribute writ.
 ten by Jean Richepin.
 ''No thoroughfare," is the inscrip. tion upon the guard at the foot O.
 the hilt in the form of 8 statuette, ir
 massive gold, representing a youns
 athlete upon the defensive, brandish
 ing a club.
 On Friday, Nov IS, 1918, afte]
 years of bitter privations, King AIber
 returned with his victorious troop
 to his devastated but beloved capita amid the loud acclaim of the people Queen Elizabeth,> who was married
 to King Albert in 1900, as the Duches.
 Elizabeth of Bavaria, was described , at the tune as "a Str1kingly hand
 some woman" The marriage wa.
 quite generally supposed to have bee1 a genuine love match. Three childre1
 have been born to the, the heir ap parent, Prince Leopold, Duke of Bra bant, born Nov 3, 1901; a seont ] son, Prince Charles Theodore, bor1
 in 1908; and a daughter, the Prin
 ess Marie Jose, born in 1906.
 The Queen is highly educated ant . fond of music, literature and art
 Music is said to be a passion witt
 her and she is an accomplished violin
 ist. She also plays the piano ant I mandolin with much ability. It is sait s that she has a marked preference
 for the old repertoire but confesse , to aboninating Wagner. Some year $ ago she developed talent as dra matist and in 1906 wrote Rosa
 mund,'' a play which was produced il Brussels in March of that year ant
 caused a decided stir in the Belgian : capital. She is also a skilled horse = woman.
 I During the war the Queen nurse r | many wounded soldiers. A daughte ! of Duke Charles Theodore of Ba