300-year-old Illinois National Guard rescued Belgian king

It took a few years, but Adriana Schroeder dug deep and finally came up with the birth date for the Illinois National Guard. It turned out to be nearly a century before Illinois entered the Union.

“Most people raise an eyebrow, because we weren’t even a state until 1818,” said Schroeder, the Illinois National Guard’s first full-time historian.

People have lived in what would become Illinois for thousands of years, but Schroeder was looking for documented evidence of community-based organized defense, the basis for the National Guard even now.

She was tasked by the Illinois National Guard’s adjutant general to discover the birth of the organization in 2011.

“I dropped everything and worked on that,” Schroeder said. “I talked to a lot of other state historians and everyone I could think of.

“I figured out everything there was to figure out, got everyone’s opinion. But the big kicker was a discovery made by a woman named Margaret Kimball Brown in the basement of the Vandalia courthouse. They had a flood and she was going through what to save, what to pitch and whatnot. That’s when the French records from Kaskaskia were found.”

Kaskaskia had been an administrative center, and the earliest records regarding the Illinois territory were in French. That includes a diary of a French officer operating out of Louisiana and charged with organizing defensive measures for a network of fur trapping settlements that stretched up into Canada.

The French erected Fort de Chartres in the early 1720s along the Mississippi River just north of Kaskaskia, where the officer/diarist gathered settlers May 9, 1723, to “put together a company of militia for the purpose of putting them in a position to defend themselves.”

That satisfied Schroeder’s search for the “first militia muster” in what would become Illinois.

French colonizers gave way to British overlords before the Illinois territory eventually became part of America, but the local defense groups endured. With virtually no outside resources to draw upon, the militias filled many roles.

“The captain of the militia served as the justice of the peace, and often was like the local sheriff,” Schroeder said. “They also served as highway road crews,” keeping routes between settlements passible for trade and to hasten response times in case another village needed defensive help.

In that sense, the May 9, 1723, date could be the be the birthday of the state police and even the Illinois Department of Transportation.

“They also built bridges when they had to,” Schroeder said.

In its modern format, the Illinois National Guard’s oldest unit dates back to 1809, when the federal Army’s 130th Infantry unit was based in southern Illinois. But the uniting factor for many of the groups was their scouting prowess, Schroeder said.

“There were ranger units all over the place,” she said.

It’s one reason a celebration of The Illinois National Guard’s 300th birthday earlier this month in Springfield focused on a mission that took place less than a century ago. It also helped that the mission involved a group of Illinoisians rescuing the Belgian king in the waning days of World War II.

Illinois National Guard troops from the Army’s 106th Calvary had been deployed as scouts in Germany after arriving a couple weeks after D-Day in 1944. They had a role in the Battle of the Bulge and were repeatedly praised for their actions preventing Allied supply lines from being disrupted,” Schroeder said.

“Speed and stealth were the main elements to all of their missions,” she said. “Their jobs were extremely dangerous.”

Less than a year later, the war in Europe was winding down, though pockets of German resistance remained worrisome. In western Austria, members of the 106th Calvary were helping out where they could. They learned an area family’s Mercedes had been requisitioned for the use of a high level Nazi official, so they went out and stole it back.

Before returning it to the family, they used it for an important mission. After learning Belgian King Leopold III was detained in a lodge compound nearby, a group of seven Illinois officers armed only with their handguns used the vehicle, still outfitted like a Nazi staff car, for a rescue effort.

“One of the officers, Lt. Bob Moore, said ‘If anyone is thinking of changing their minds, it’s too late,’” Schroeder said.

As they approached the compound, German guards waved them in. Their vehicular disguise had worked, at least from afar. The driver floored the gas pedal as they passed the guards, driving into a stand of shrubbery where they piled out, guns drawn and prepared for a firefight.

“They didn’t know how many Germans were there,” Schroeder said. “All they knew was what they’d heard from the townspeople.”

As they emerged from the bushes, nobody was shooting at them. Instead, they were greeted by King Leopold’s assistant. The king was inside with his wife and three of his children. A group of 17 German officers were also on hand and ready to surrender.

As it turned out, Russian forces were closing in on the area from the east, and the Germans said they’d rather surrender to the Americans. The Illinois contingent didn’t know it then, but they’d crossed a line agreed upon among the Allies and rescued the king from an area soon to be under Russian control.

But first, a celebration was in order. King Leopold, who’d feared he’d be executed by the Nazis and was unsure of Russian motives if he fell under their sway, broke out bottles of top shelf liquor.

“The king said, ‘let’s toast the occasion with some cognac. It’s the Germans’ cognac, so might as well drink it,” Schroeder said. “The party didn’t last long because word got around quickly and the Russian leaders were not happy.”

Germany officially surrendered just days after the rescue, but the Illinois soldiers kept the king and his family guarded for a couple of weeks, before he was taken to Switzerland. A divisive figure among Belgians during the war and afterward for how he handled his country’s defeat by the Nazis, his return to Belgium’s throne was delayed for years, and he eventually abdicated.

Shortly after his rescue, he presented the officers of the 106th Calvary with medals in remembrance of the day “my family and I had the good fortunate to be delivered from the enemy by your unit.”

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“Under all circumstances, you have shown yourselves worthy of the highest military traditions,” he reportedly said. “I cannot doubt that this association will reaffirm the bonds that unite Belgium and the great American nation.”

One day less than 78 years later, those bonds were highlighted as Patrick Van Nevel, honorary consul of the Kingdom of Belgium, was on hand for the Illinois National Guard’s 300th birthday ceremony May 6 in Springfield.

He said there is a lasting appreciation among most Europeans, and Belgians in particular, for the role of Americans in liberating them from Nazi control and helping ensure their postwar security.

“The bond between our nations will continue as we work together,” Van Nevel told the gathering.

King Leopold III’s grandson is now king of Belgium. He’s the latest in a line that began in 1831.

It’s a line that might have been broken if not for the efforts of members of the 106th Calvary, representatives of an Illinois tradition that’s more than a century older than the Belgian monarchy.

Landmarks is a weekly column by Paul Eisenberg exploring the people, places and things that have left an indelible mark on the Southland. He can be reached at peisenberg@tribpub.com.