User:Lemnaminor/Georges Lecointe (explorer)

Georges Lecointe (29 April 1869 - 27 May 1929) was a Belgian naval officer and scientist. He was captain of the Belgica and second-in-command of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition, the first to overwinter in Antarctica. After his return to Belgium he was deeply involved in the foundation of the International Research Council and the International Astronomical Union.

Early life and career
Georges Lecointe was born in Antwerp on 29 April 1869. His father was a well-known mathematics teacher and he proved early on to be a gifted student. He entered the Royal Military Academy in 1886. After being appointed in 1991 as second lieutenant in the First field artillery regiment and spending some time in the cavalry school in Ypres, he passed the officer examination of the École Polytechnique for the French Navy. The Belgian government detached him to the French Navy, where he was ultimately promoted to ship-of-the-line lieutenant in 1897. This detachment was exceptional and happened as a result of an audience with king Leopold II: it was only granted to one other Belgian officer but refused to his friend Emile Danco.

Between 1894 and 1897 he trained on a number of ships in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, Cochinchina and Tonkin. In 1897 he was attached to the Observatory of the Bureau des Longitudes and published a course on navigation and dead reckoning, La navigation astronomique et la navigation estimée, aimed at navy students of the École Polytechnique. In his second book, La création d'une marine nationale Belge (On the Creation of a Belgian National Navy), he pleaded for the re-creation of the Belgian Navy, which had been abolished in 1862. This, however, did not happen until the end of the World War I.

Belgian Antarctic Expedition
Emile Danco, a mutual friend of Lecointe and expedition commander Adrien de Gerlache, proposed him in October 1896 to join the Belgian Antarctic Expedition. De Gerlache hired him in 1897 as captain of the Belgica and second-in-command of the expedition. He was also responsible for the astronomical and hydrographical observations and, after Danco's death in 1898, measurements of the earth's magnetism.

The expedition set sail from Antwerp in August 1897 and started observations in the Antarctic region later that year. On 22 January 1898 sailor Carl Wiencke was washed overboard and drowned, despite a heroic rescue effort by Lecointe. They made their way to the Weddell Sea in early 1898, where the Belgica froze fast in pack ice, forcing them to overwinter. During astronomical observations on the pack ice, Lecointe was taken for a seal and narrowly escaped being shot. Both Lecointe and de Gerlache suffered heavily from scurvy, to the point where the actual command of the expedition had to be taken over by first mate Roald Amundsen and surgeon Frederick Cook. Despite de Gerlache's misgivings, they cajoled the sick expedition members into eating fresh seal and penguin meat, nursing them back to health.

Early in 1899 the crew finally managed to free the Belgica. On reaching South America Lecointe started exploring the Andes while de Gerlache sailed the Belgica back to Belgium. After his return, Lecointe published Au Pays des Manchots (In Penguin Country), chronicling the Belgica expedition.

Return to Belgium
Lecointe was engaged to Charlotte Dumeiz (1873-1940) before the departure of the Belgica. Charlotte Bay was named after her, and they married shortly after his return. The couple had three children: Henri, Charlotte and Louis-Georges. Both sons studied at the Free University of Brussels.

After his return he was promoted to captain-commandant and in 1900 appointed as an officer in the Belgian Legion during the Boxer war. This was a short-lived effort by king Leopold II to participate in the Boxer war, but the expeditionary forces never even left Belgium after the German government refused its services, and it was disbanded after a month.

Royal Observatory and polar research
On 11 October 1900 he was transferred to the army reserves and appointed as scientific director of the Royal Observatory in Uccle. He was responsible for the Belgian participation in the Carte du Ciel and Astrographic Catalogue projects and devoted much time to it.

Together with Henryk Arctowski and Antoni Bolesław Dobrowolski he organized the scientific results of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition, as secretary of the commission charged with the publication of the results. In addition he oversaw a large-scale renovation of the observatory and was made responsible for the Belgian training ships.

World War I and international scientific collaboration
He served voluntarily during the First World War as an artillery major, but spent most of the war interned in the Netherlands. After the war he turned his attention to international cooperation in sciences, and played an important role in the creation of the International Research Council and affiliated scientific unions, in particular the International Astronomical Union. He served as its vice-president from 1909 to 1922, and lead its Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams from 1920 to 1922, while it was temporarily located in Uccle following the First World War. In 1919 he was elected to the executive committee of the International Research Council at its founding congress in Brussels, together with Schuster, Volterra and Hale, with Picard as president.

An illness forced him to resign from the Royal Observatory in 1925 and caused his death in Uccle, on 27 May 1929.

Tributes
Lecointe Island, Mount Lecointe, Lecointe Guyot, Georges Point and the asteroid 3755 Lecointe were named in his honor. The Belgian Navy named two Algerine-class minesweepers after him: the M901 Georges Lecointe (1950-1959, ex HMS Cadmus) and the F901 Georges Lecointe (1959-1969, ex HMCS Wallaceburg).

Selected works

 * La navigation astronomique et la navigation estimée. Paris, Berger-Levrault, 1897
 * La création d'une marine nationale belge. Paris, Berger-Levrault, 1897
 * Au pays des Manchots. Bruxelles, O. Scheppens et Cie, 1904
 * In the series by the Commission de la Belgica, Résultats du Voyage du S.Y. Belgica en 1897-1898-1899 sous le commandement de A. de Gerlache de Gomery: Rapports Scientifiques. Antwerp, Buschmann, 1901-1913, Lecointe published 5 reports:
 * Astronomie: Etude des chronomètres, première partie. Méthodes et conclusions. Antwerp, Buschmann, 1901
 * Astronomie: Etude des chronomètres, deuxième partie. Journaux et calculs. Antwerp, Buschmann, 1901
 * Travaux hydrographiques et instructions nautiques: Cartes. Antwerp, Buschmann, 1903
 * Travaux hydrographiques et instructions nautiques (premier fascicule). Antwerp, Buschmann, 1905
 * Physique du globe: mesures pendulaires. Antwerp, Buschmann, 1907