King Albert I: the mountaineering monarch
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King Albert I: the mountaineering monarch
King Albert I of Belgium was a keen and experienced mountain climber. He scaled many Swiss peaks and even completed a first ascent in 1907. Tragically, despite his mountaineering skills, a climbing accident ended his life.
Swissinfo regularly publishes articles from the Swiss National Museum’s blog External linkdedicated to historical topics. The articles are always written in German and usually also in French and English.
His full name was Albert Léopold Clément Marie Meinrad, Prince of Belgium. But the monarch seems to have faded from memory in Switzerland, whether under that name or as King Albert I.
That is as regrettable as it is unjust, as the Belgian blue blood (1875-1934) had some memorable adventures in Switzerland. When Albert was 26 and had just married Bavarian princess Elisabeth, he attended a lecture by Ernest Solvay, who provided the funding for the Solvay Hut at the Hörnli ridge on the Matterhorn, which ignited the young royal’s passion for mountain climbing. He had also spent summers residing at the family’s Villa Haslihorn in Horw, where he used to marvel at the Swiss mountains on the other side of Lake Lucerne.
From then on, the Belgian noble was hopelessly hooked on the Alps, for mountain sports in the summer and skiing in the winter. As his hikes became increasingly ambitious, the mountain lover became a capable alpinist and climber. He completed many difficult mountain tours in the Bernese, Valais and Graubünden Alps as well as in the Mont Blanc area and in the Dolomites. In Valais, his frequent mountain tours earned him the nickname ‘Albert le montagnard’ (Albert the mountain dweller) or ‘le roi alpin’ (the Alpine king).
In 1907, he even completed a first ascent in the upper Engadin region when he climbed the northeast ridge of Piz Caral. The 3,421-metre high mountain is on the flank of Piz Cambrena in the Bernina range. Albert was accompanied on the ascent by his wife Elisabeth, a relation of German Kaiser Wilhelm II, and mountain guides Martin Schocher from Pontresina and Benedikt Supersaxo from Saas Fee. As Schocher and Supersaxo were known as ‘König der Bernina’ (Bernina king) and ‘le roi de la montagne’ (mountain king) respectively, every one of the four climbers had some sort of claim to royalty. In order to avoid attracting attention, the Belgian king travelled under the pseudonym ‘de Rethy’.
On 1 July 1907, the illustrious team completed the ascent and Albert entered the annals of Swiss mountaineering. The north ridge of Hübschhorn mountain overlooking the Simplon Pass is known as the ‘belgischer Grat’ (Belgian ridge) in memory of its first ascent by Albert, again accompanied by Supersaxo.
A straw bed fit for a king
The Alps was an entirely different world for the king than the Belgian court. “The mountains,” he was quoted as saying “are even more primal than the sea; they have retained their full power; they are harder to conquer than the sea.” Bernese newspaper Oberländer TagblattExternal link speculated: “Those days spent in the great outdoors are really revitalising for him, and he makes the most of them. His elegant, but amiable and profoundly democratic nature has a gift for winning over people’s hearts. That is why he is so popular and held in such high esteem.”
Or, as a farmer from the Bernese Oberland put it: “If he were a local, we would vote him onto the House of Representatives!” More public office was something the monarch did not need: not only was he King of Belgium but he was also commander-in-chief of its armed forces in the First World War. His closeness to the people made him extremely popular.
That side of him also became apparent when travelling to Switzerland. King Albert I of Belgium was to be found in the third-class railway carriage. He brought his motorbike to ride up to the mountaineering spots, a rucksack on his back and a small suitcase on the luggage rack. On these trips, he always made a point of carrying his own rucksack and he shared soup and straw beds with strangers in the mountain huts, partaking of the standard coffee with milk and pieces of bread. He often went unrecognised. A mountaineer once remarked to him how much he resembled the King of Belgium. Albert’s reply: “That’s right, and you wouldn’t believe how embarrassing that is.”
Disaster in Belgium
In the words of famous mountaineer Oswald Oelz, Albert was “definitely one of the most adventurous and successful mountaineers among kings”. However, it all came to a most tragic end. On 17 February 1934, the 58-year-old king left his castle at Laeken near Brussels to climb solo in the 80-metre high Rochers du Vieux Bon Dieu rock towers in Marche-les-Dames near Namur in Belgium. He never returned. A hastily scrambled search party found the king’s lifeless body at two in the morning. He had fallen and died of a serious head wound.
Then the rumours started – it could have been an assassination or suicide; an official report fed the rumour mill by stating that the position of the corpse was atypical for a fall… There was also a blood-covered stone two to three metres from the corpse. Forensic experts revisited the case 70 years later. Using modern analysis methods they concluded that the king had met with an accident. The cliff overhang to which his rope was attached broke off, and Albert fell 18 metres, hitting his head on a stone.
Albert’s son Leopold and his daughter-in-law Astrid were informed of the death while on holiday skiing in Adelboden. The Belgian royal family’s misfortune didn’t end there, as the newly crowned Queen AstridExternal link was killed in a car accident at Küssnacht am Rigi the following year.
Subsequently, Walter Amstutz, former director of the St Moritz tourist board and a climbing partner for the king on more than one occasion, organised a lasting memorial to the royal mountain climber. In 1993, he and some others launched The King Albert I Memorial Foundation. Based in Zurich and dedicated to the memory of King Albert, the foundation’s aim is “to recognise extraordinary services to alpinism”. Every other year, it confers awards so that Albert’s contribution to alpinism is not forgotten.
Michael van Orsouw has a PhD in history and is a performance poet and author. He regularly publishes historical books.
Original article on the Swiss National Museum blogExternal link
Although Switzerland has no royal tradition, royal families have long held a certain fascination for the Swiss. All royal visits, whether by an emperor, empress, king, queen, prince or princess, and for whatever reason, whether politics, business or personal, had one thing in common: they triggered – both then and now – immense excitement and fascination among the Swiss public. The exhibition demonstrates this through many pictures and exclusive possessions of these bluebloods.
13.06.2025 09.11.2025 / Musée national ZurichExternal link
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