Watsa is a community in the Haut-Uele Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo , administrative center of the Watsa Territory . It is served by Watsa Airport , a grass airstrip 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) south of the town.
120-706: Watsa was the location of the VI battalion of the Force Publique in the 1940s and 1950s. Between 1998 and 2000, co-circulating Marburg virus and Ravn virus caused 154 cases of Marburg virus disease and 128 deaths among illegal gold miners in Watsa and the nearby Durba Mine . In January and February 2011 the Lords Resistance Army attacked people in the territories of Dungu , Faradje , Niangara and Watsa, causing 33,000 people to be displaced. They were slow to return due to
240-445: A Belgian Army paratroop drop. This violence immediately led to a military intervention into Congo by Belgium in an ostensible effort to secure the safety of its citizens (the earlier Luluabourg intervention had been against orders). The re-entry of these forces was a clear violation of the national sovereignty of the new nation, as it had not requested Belgian assistance. Soon afterwards, after an extraordinary meeting of ministers of
360-583: A Belgian territory until Leopold's death in 1909. Leopold's conquest of the Lado Enclave met with approval from the British government, at least initially, which welcomed any aid in their ongoing war with Mahdist Sudan. But frequent raids outside of Lado territory by Belgian Congolese forces based in Rejaf caused alarm and suspicion among British and French officials wary of Leopold's imperial ambitions. In 1910, following
480-480: A colonel whose headquarters was at Stanleyville , grouped F.P. units in Kivu and Orientale Province (PO). It comprised 3 infantry battalions (each of approximately 800 men), seemingly including 6 Battalions at Watsa (under Lieutenant Colonel Merckx in 1960), 2 battalions of Gendarmerie (each of approximately 860 men), a reconnaissance squadron (jeeps, trucks and armoured M8 Greyhound vehicles – approximately 300 men),
600-544: A colony for himself and inspired by recent reports from central Africa, Leopold began patronizing a number of leading explorers, including Henry Morton Stanley . Leopold established the International African Association , a charitable organization to oversee the exploration and surveying of a territory based around the Congo River , with the stated goal of bringing humanitarian assistance and civilization to
720-497: A cyclist company and a battalion headquarters. Lastly, there was the Compagnie d'Artillerie et de Génie (Artillery and Engineers Company) manning Fort de Shinkakasa at the mouth of the Congo River in Boma . The fort contained eight 160mm guns manned by 200 men, plus an equal-sized auxiliary force, which saw little or no service during the war. In 1914, the Force Publique , including
840-646: A district or the rubber concession, for example. The other zone—almost two-thirds of the Congo—became the Domaine Privé , the exclusive private property of the state. In 1893, Leopold excised the most readily accessible 259,000 km (100,000 sq mi) portion of the Free Trade Zone and declared it to be the Domaine de la Couronne , literally, "fief of the crown". Rubber revenue went directly to Leopold who paid
960-536: A domainal system that privatized extraction rights over rubber for the state in certain private domains, allowing Leopold to grant vast concessions to private companies. In other areas, private companies could continue to trade but were highly restricted and taxed. The domainal system enforced an in-kind tax on the Free State's Congolese subjects. As essential intermediaries, local rulers forced their men, women and children to collect rubber, ivory and foodstuffs. Depending on
1080-609: A large scale offensive on German East Africa. The allied powers , the British Empire and Belgium, launched a coordinated attack on the German colony; by 1916 the Belgian commander of the Force Publique , Lieutenant-General Charles Tombeur , had assembled an army of 15,000 men supported by local bearers and advanced to Kigali . Kigali was taken by 6 May 1916. The German army stationed in Urundi
1200-578: A mixture of Belgian regular soldiers and mercenaries from other countries who were drawn by the prospect of wealth or simply attracted to the adventure of service in Africa. To command his Force Publique , Leopold II was able to rely on a mixture of volunteers (regular officers detached from the Belgian Army), mercenaries and former officers from the armies of other European nations, especially those of Scandinavia, Italy and Switzerland. To these men, service in
1320-548: A new umbrella organization. This organization sought to combine the numerous small territories acquired into one sovereign state and asked for recognition from the European powers. On 22 April 1884, thanks to the successful lobbying of businessman Henry Shelton Sanford at Leopold's request, President Chester A. Arthur of the United States decided that the cessions claimed by Leopold from the local leaders were lawful and recognized
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#17330846070921440-454: A secretary-general ( secrétaire-général ), who was obligated to enact the policies of the sovereign or else resign. Below the secretaries-general were a series of bureaucrats of decreasing rank: directors general ( directeurs généraux ), directors ( directeurs ), chefs de divisions (division chiefs) and chefs de bureaux (bureau chiefs). The departments were headquartered in Brussels . Finance
1560-408: A small aviation element including 2 De Havilland DH.104 Doves . Between 1945 and 1960, Belgium continued to organise the Force Publique as an entity cut off from the people that it policed, with recruits serving in tribally mixed units and no more than a quarter of each company coming from the province in which they served. Tightly disciplined and drilled, the Force Publique impressed visitors to
1680-529: A strip of land on the Free State's eastern border in exchange for the Lado Enclave , which provided access to the navigable Nile and extended the Free State's sphere of influence northward into Sudan . After rubber profits soared in 1895, Leopold ordered the organization of an expedition into the Lado Enclave, which had been overrun by Mahdist rebels since the outbreak of the Mahdist War in 1881. The expedition
1800-541: A transport company, a military police company (approximately 100 men), a heavy mortar platoon, a combat engineer company and a training centre at Lokandu. Vanderstraeten reported the dispositions of the Force Publique in July 1960 as: Total strength of the Force Publique immediately prior to independence was 22,403 Congolese regular soldiers and NCOs, 599 European NCOs, and 444 European officers. The last 15 commanders of
1920-421: A word, and to which they sign a cross in order to have peace and to receive gifts, are really only serious matters for the European powers, in the event of disputes over the territories. They do not concern the black sovereign who signs them for a moment." Leopold began to create a plan to convince other European powers of the legitimacy of his claim to the region, all the while maintaining the guise that his work
2040-443: Is evidence, including photographs, that FP soldiers cut off human hands, either as trophies, or to show that bullets had not been wasted, or (by cutting off the limbs of children) to punish parents viewed as not working hard enough in the rubber plantations. During the Free State period, the Force Publique suffered from institutional problems. During the early years of the force, mutinies of black soldiers occurred several times. By
2160-514: The Belgian Army 's Regiment of Carabiniers ) was sent to the Congo with orders to establish the force. A few months later, on 17 August, he was promoted to "Commandant of the Force Publique". A number of other Belgian officers and non-commissioned officers were also dispatched to the territory as the nucleus of the officer corps. The officers of the Force Publique were entirely European. They comprised
2280-700: The Belgian Congo with its smart appearance, but a culture of separateness, encouraged by its Belgian officers, led to brutal and unrestrained behaviour when the external restraints of colonial administration were lifted in 1960. The infamous chicote was abolished in only 1955. The Belgian Government made no effort to train Congolese commissioned officers until the very end of the Colonial period, and there were only about 20 African officer cadets at military schools in Belgium on
2400-480: The Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference (1889–1890), Leopold issued a new decree mandating that Africans in a large part of the Free State could sell their harvested products (mostly ivory and rubber) only to the state. This law extended an earlier decree declaring that all "unoccupied" land belonged to the state. Any ivory or rubber collected from the state-owned land, the reasoning went, must belong to
2520-476: The Brussels Geographic Conference , inviting famous explorers, philanthropists, and members of geographic societies to stir up interest in a "humanitarian" endeavour for Europeans in central Africa to "improve" and " civilize " the lives of the indigenous peoples. At the conference, Leopold organized the International African Association with the cooperation of European and American explorers and
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#17330846070922640-656: The Congo Free State propaganda war , European and US reformers exposed atrocities in the Congo Free State to the public through the Congo Reform Association , founded by Casement and the journalist, author, and politician E. D. Morel . Also active in exposing the activities of the Congo Free State was the author Arthur Conan Doyle , whose book The Crime of the Congo was widely read in the early 1900s. By 1908, public pressure and diplomatic manoeuvres led to
2760-425: The Domaine Privé . Eventually, the Congo Free State was recognized as a neutral independent sovereignty by various European and North American states. Leopold used the title 'Sovereign of the Congo Free State' as ruler of the Congo Free State. He appointed the heads of the three departments of state: interior, foreign affairs and finances. Each was headed by an administrator-general ( administrateur-général ), later
2880-658: The FP mobile units consisted of 6 battalions of infantry (the V battalion at Stanleyville , the VI battalion at Watsa , the VIII battalion at Luluabourg, the XI battalion at Rumangabo , the XII battalion at Elizabethville , and the XIII battalion at Léopoldville ), 3 reconnaissance units, military police units, a brigade under training at Camp Hardy, still under construction at Thysville , 4 coastal defence guns, and
3000-465: The FP to African soldiers in a mess hall at the main base outside Léopoldville, in which he stated that Independence would not bring any change in their status or role. Lieutenant General Émile Janssens 's intention may only have been to stress the need for continued discipline and obedience to orders, but the impact on the soldiers, unsettled by the demands of maintaining order during Independence celebrations and fearful that they would be excluded from
3120-506: The Force Publique also remained mostly outdated due to the tight budgetary constraints on the colonial administration. Most askaris were armed with single shot 11 mm Albini-Braendlin rifles , though the white cadres and units in Katanga were given better Mauser Model 1889 rifles. Other weapons included Maxim machine guns , smaller numbers of Madsen machine guns , Nordenfelt 4.7 cm and Krupp 7.5 cm cannons. The uniforms of
3240-407: The Force Publique eventually grew to over 600 men each. Their constituent units, known as detachments, were so widely scattered that the force had no real military value. Rather the bulk of these sub-units consisted of small garrisons in fixed locations, with local policing functions. It was intended that each administrative company form a Compagnie Marche of 150 men. Each Marche or field company
3360-491: The Force Publique into two branches. The troupes campées was tasked with guarding the border and protecting the colony from external aggression, while the troupes en service territoriale was responsible for maintaining internal security. Battalions from the latter were assigned to every provincial capital, while companies were stationed at each district headquarters. After Belgium had surrendered to Nazi Germany on 28 May 1940, Governor-General Pierre Ryckmans decided that
3480-466: The Force Publique were: On 5 July 1960, five days after the country gained independence from Belgium, the Force Publique garrison in Léopoldville mutinied against its white officers (who had remained in complete command) and attacked numerous European and Congolese targets. The immediate incident sparking the mutiny was reported to have been a tactless speech made by the Belgian general commanding
3600-593: The International Association of the Congo , he was able to lay claim to most of the Congo Basin . On 29 May 1885, after the closure of the Berlin Conference, the king announced that he planned to name his possessions "the Congo Free State", an appellation which was not yet used at the Berlin Conference and which officially replaced "International Association of the Congo" on 1 August 1885. The Free State
3720-518: The Sudan to Cairo . Between 1942 and 1943, an expeditionary force of 13,000 was sent to Nigeria. Nine thousand of these troops served in Egypt and Palestine . They returned to the Belgian Congo at the end of 1944 without having seen active service. The Force Publique also sent the 10th Belgian Congo Casualty Clearing Station to the battle zone. Between 1941 and 1945, some 350 Congolese and 20 Belgians, under
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3840-483: The US Navy Congo River Expedition of 1885 , which gave a detailed description of travel along the river. Leopold was able to attract scientific and humanitarian backing for the International African Association ( French : Association internationale africaine , or AIA), which he formed during a Brussels Geographic Conference of geographic societies, explorers, and dignitaries he hosted in 1876. At
3960-523: The askaris fielded by other European colonial powers. Many were recruited or conscripted from “warrior tribes” in the Haut-Congo , others were mercenaries drawn from Zanzibar and West Africa ( Nigerian Hausas ). The role required of the Force Publique was that of both defending Free State territory and of internal pacification. In the 1890s, the Force Publique defeated the African and Arab slavers in
4080-411: The association , and replaced it with an appointed cabinet of Belgians who would do his bidding. To the temporary new capital of Boma , he sent a governor-general and a chief of police. The vast Congo Basin was split up into 14 administrative districts , each district into zones, each zone into sectors, and each sector into posts. From the district commissioners down to post level, every appointed head
4200-616: The Association decided to sell. This may also have helped Leopold to gain recognition for his claim by the other major powers, who thus wanted him to succeed instead of selling his claims to France. He also enlisted the aid of the United States, sending President Chester A. Arthur carefully edited copies of the cloth-and-trinket treaties that Stanley (a Welsh-American ) claimed to have negotiated with various local authorities, and proposing that, as an entirely disinterested humanitarian body,
4320-500: The Association would administer the Congo for the good of all, handing over power to the natives as soon as they were ready for that responsibility. Leopold wanted to have the United States support his plans for the Congo in order to gain support from the European nations. He had help from American businessman Henry Shelton Sanford , who had recruited Stanley for Leopold. Henry Sanford swayed President Arthur by inviting him to stay as his guest at Sanford House hotel on Lake Monroe while he
4440-577: The Belgian annexation of the Congo Free State as the Belgian Congo in 1908 and the death of the Belgian King in December 1909, British authorities reclaimed the Lado Enclave as per the Anglo-Congolese treaty signed in 1894, and added the territory to Anglo-Egyptian Sudan . While the war against African powers was ending, the quest for income was increasing, fuelled by the aire policy. By 1890, Leopold
4560-520: The Belgian base at Kamina . On 23 August they were transferred to Elizabethville , and on 26 August officially turned over to the secessionist State of Katanga . Congo Free State The Congo Free State , also known as the Independent State of the Congo ( French : État indépendant du Congo ), was a large state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. It
4680-624: The Congo Basin were awarded with the État Indépendant du Congo (CFS, Congo Free State). By a resolution passed in the Belgian Parliament, Leopold became roi souverain , sovereign king, of the newly formed CFS, over which he enjoyed nearly absolute control. The CFS (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo), a country of over two million square kilometres, became Leopold's personal property,
4800-406: The Congo Free State offered military experience, adventure and—as they saw it—an opportunity to participate in a humanitarian endeavour. From 1885 to 1908 the officer corps consisted of hundreds of Belgians and dozens of Scandinavians, with smaller numbers recruited from other nations. Serving under these European officers was an ethnically-mixed African soldiery, who eventually became comparable to
4920-435: The Congo region). "Belgium does not need a colony. Belgians are not drawn towards overseas enterprises: they prefer to spend their energy and capital in countries which have already been explored or on less risky schemes ... Still, you can assure His Majesty of my whole-hearted sympathy for the generous plan he had conceived, as long as the Congo does not make any international difficulties for us." Determined to look for
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5040-413: The Congo via Lieutenant Cameron 's 1873 expedition from Zanzibar to bring home Livingstone 's body, but was reluctant to take on yet another expensive, unproductive colony. Bismarck of Germany had vast new holdings in southwest Africa , and had no plans for the Congo, but was happy to see rivals Britain and France excluded from the colony. In 1885, Leopold's efforts to establish Belgian influence in
5160-465: The Congolese in their land to native villages and farms, essentially making nearly all of the CFS terres domaniales (state-owned land). Leopold further decreed that merchants should limit their commercial operations in rubber trade with the natives. Additionally, the colonial administration liberated thousands of slaves. Four main problems presented themselves over the next few years. Leopold could not meet
5280-500: The Dark Continent . Failing to enlist British interest in the Congo region, Stanley took up service with Leopold II, who hired him to help gain a foothold in the region and annex the region for himself. From August 1879 to June 1884 Stanley was in the Congo basin, where he built a road from the lower Congo up to Stanley Pool and launched steamers on the upper river. While exploring the Congo for Leopold, Stanley set up treaties with
5400-582: The Force was to enforce the rubber quotas and other forms of forced labour. Armed with modern weapons and the chicote —a bull whip made of hippopotamus hide—soldiers of the FP often took and mistreated hostages. Reports from foreign missionaries and consular officials detail a number of instances where Congolese men and women were flogged or raped by soldiers of the Force Publique, unrestrained by their officers and NCOs . They burned villages they viewed as recalcitrant. There
5520-530: The Free State became one of the greatest international scandals of the early 20th century. The Casement Report of the British Consul Roger Casement led to the arrest and punishment of officials who had been responsible for killings during a rubber-collecting expedition in 1903. The loss of life and atrocities inspired literature such as Joseph Conrad 's novel Heart of Darkness and raised an international outcry. Debate has been ongoing about
5640-581: The Free State for the high costs of exploitation. The same rules applied as in the Domaine Privé . In 1896 global demand for rubber soared. From that year onwards, the Congolese rubber sector started to generate vast sums of money at an immense cost for the local population. Early in Leopold's rule, the second problem—the British South Africa Company's expansion into the southern Congo Basin—was addressed. The distant Yeke Kingdom , in Katanga on
5760-454: The Free State government, which not only paid no taxes but also collected all the potential income. These companies were outraged by the restrictions on free trade, which the Berlin Act had so carefully protected years before. Their protests against the violation of free trade prompted Leopold to take another, less obvious tack to make money. A decree in 1892 divided the terres vacantes into
5880-573: The International Association of the Congo's claim on the region, becoming the first country to do so. In 1884, the US Secretary of State said, "The Government of the United States announces its sympathy with and approval of the humane and benevolent purposes of the International Association of the Congo." In November 1884, Otto von Bismarck convened a 14-nation conference to submit the Congo question to international control and to finalize
6000-485: The International Congo Association, and specified that it should have no connection with Belgium (beyond a personal union ), or any other country, but would be under the personal control of King Leopold. It drew specific boundaries and specified that all nations should have access to do business in the Congo with no tariffs. The slave trade would be suppressed. In 1885, Leopold emerged triumphant. France
6120-613: The Italian troops surrendered to General Auguste-Édouard Gilliaert on 7 July 1941, and included nine generals, among them General Pietro Gazzera and Count Arconovaldo Bonaccorsi , 370 officers, and 2,574 NCOs and 1,533 native soldiers. About 2,000 additional native irregulars were sent home. The Force Publique lost about 500 men during the East Africa Campaign, among them 4 Belgians. The Force Publique then helped to establish an overland route from Lagos through Fort Lamy and
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#17330846070926240-644: The Katanga companies, totalled about 17,000 askaris with 178 white officers and 235 white NCOs. The majority served in small static garrisons called poste with primarily a police role. With the outbreak of the First World War , the Katangese units were organised in battalions (Ie, IIe, and IIIme) for military service in Northern Rhodesia and the eastern frontier districts of the Belgian Congo . The Force Publique
6360-595: The Red Cross to attend their 1877 conference. The International Law Institute was supportive of the project under the belief that it was aimed to abolish the Congo Basin slave trade. Nevertheless, the AIA eventually became a development company controlled by Leopold. After 1879 and the crumbling of the International African Association, Leopold's work was done under the auspices of the "Committee for Studies of
6480-497: The Upper Congo" ( French : Comité d'Études du Haut-Congo ). The committee, supposedly an international commercial, scientific, and humanitarian group, was in fact made of a group of businessmen who had shares in the Congo, with Leopold holding a large block by proxy. The committee itself eventually disintegrated (but Leopold continued to refer to it and use the defunct organization as a smokescreen for his operations in laying claim to
6600-669: The atomic bomb for Hiroshima . The military contribution was also important: the Force Publique grew to 40,000 in the course of the War, formed into three brigades, a river force and support units. It provided detachments to fight Italian forces during the East Africa campaign and serve as garrisons in West Africa and the Middle East. At the end of 1940, the XI Battalion of the Force Publique
6720-433: The battlefield, winning the respect of their British and Portuguese allies, as well as that of their German opponents. From 1916 onwards, the Force Publique grew to reach a strength of three mobile Groupes (brigades), Kivu, Ruzizi, and Tanganyika , comprising a total of 15 battalions, from the static garrison and police force of 1914. However, it did take until late 1915 for the Force Publique to finish preparations for
6840-462: The benefits of the new freedom, was disastrous. The outbreak caused fear amongst the approximately 100,000 Belgian and other European civilians and officials still resident in the Congo and ruined the credibility of the new government as it proved unable to control its own armed forces. For example, the white community in Luluabourg was besieged in improvised fortifications for three days until rescued by
6960-649: The colonial partitioning of the African continent. Most major powers (including Austria-Hungary , Belgium , France , Germany , Portugal , Italy , the United Kingdom , Russia , the Ottoman Empire , and the United States ) attended the Berlin Conference , and drafted an international code governing the way that European countries should behave as they acquired African territory. The conference officially recognized
7080-682: The colony would continue to fight on the side of the Allies. With Belgium occupied, the contribution to the Allied cause by the Free Belgian forces from the Belgian Congo was primarily an economic one providing copper, wolfram, zinc, tin, rubber, cotton and more. Already prior to the war uranium from the Shinkolobwe mine had been shipped to New York; it was later used in the Manhattan Project to produce
7200-419: The command of Medical Colonel Thomas, worked together with the British medical services in Abyssinia, Somaliland , Madagascar and Burma. They especially proved their value serving with the Indian XXXIII Corps on the Upper Chindwin , where they were attached to the 11th (East Africa) Division . During the confusion inherent in jungle fighting, the Belgian medical unit found itself on one occasion in advance of
7320-419: The conference's "Principle of Effective Occupation" . Following the United States' recognition of Leopold's colony, other Western powers deliberated on the news. Portugal flirted with the French at first, but the British offered to support Portugal's claim to the entire Congo in return for a free trade agreement and to spite their French rivals. Britain was uneasy at French expansion and had a technical claim on
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#17330846070927440-399: The conference, Leopold proposed establishing an international benevolent committee for the propagation of civilization among the peoples of central Africa (the Congo region). The AIA was originally conceived as a multi-national, scientific, and humanitarian assembly, and even invited Gustave Moynier as member of the International Law Institute and president of the International Committee of
7560-470: The costs of running the Congo Free State. Desperately, he set in motion a system to maximize revenue. The first change was the introduction of the concept of terres vacantes , "vacant" land, which was any land that did not contain a habitation or a cultivated garden plot. All of this land (i.e., most of the country) was therefore deemed to belong to the state. Servants of the state (namely any men in Leopold's employ) were encouraged to exploit it. Shortly after
7680-405: The cotton market. Sanford also convinced the people in New York that they were going to abolish slavery and aid travellers and scientists in order to have the public's support. After Henry's actions in convincing President Arthur, the United States was the first country to recognize Congo as a legitimate sovereign state. The United States further participated in the process of recognition by sending
7800-428: The course of the Congo Arab war (1892–1894), which resulted in tens of thousands of casualties. As time went on, the Force Publique began to increasingly recruit and to rely on Belgian officers and native Congolese soldiers, so that the white and black foreign mercenaries had been mostly phased out by 1908. Under Leopold II the Force Publique was described as an "exceptionally brutal army". One major purpose of
7920-512: The early 1890s, much of the eastern portion of the Free State was under the control of Arab ivory and slave traders (though the Government was able to re-establish control over the east by the mid-1890s). Organizational problems were also quite prevalent during the Free State era. With many Force Publique detachments being stationed in remote areas of the territory, some officers took to using soldiers under their control to further private economic agendas rather than focusing on military concerns. By
8040-411: The east African slave trade; promote humanitarian policies; guarantee free trade within the colony; impose no import duties for twenty years; and encourage philanthropic and scientific enterprises. Beginning in the mid-1880s, Leopold first decreed that the state asserted rights of proprietorship over all vacant lands throughout the Congo territory. In three successive decrees, Leopold promised the rights of
8160-406: The end of 1891, the force had 60 officers, 60 non-commissioned officers, and 3,500 black soldiers. Friendly tribes and militias were often used to help exert control over the outermost parts of the Free State. By 1900, the Force Publique numbered 19,000 men. Following the takeover of the Free State by the Belgian government in 1908, the new authorities reorganised the Force Publique . This process
8280-446: The end of Leopold II's absolutist rule; the Belgian Parliament annexed the Congo Free State as a colony of Belgium. It became known thereafter as the Belgian Congo . In addition, a number of major Belgian investment companies pushed the Belgian government to take over the Congo and develop the mining sector as it was virtually untapped. Diogo Cão travelled around the mouth of the Congo River in 1482, leading Portugal to claim
8400-404: The entire northern bank of the Congo, and sweetened the deal by proposing that, if his personal wealth proved insufficient to hold the entire Congo, as seemed utterly inevitable, that it should revert to France. On 23 April 1884, the International Association's claim on the southern Congo basin was formally recognized by France on condition that the French got the first option to buy the territory if
8520-553: The eve of Independence. A separate gendarmerie was organised in 1959 drawn from the Territorial Service Troops of the FP . By July 1959, a total of 40 companies and 28 platoons of gendarmerie were either formed or in training. In 1960, the Force Publique comprised 3 groupements (Groups) each of which covered two provinces. The 1st groupement had its headquarters at Elisabethville in Katanga Province, according to Louis-Francois Vanderstraeten. The 2nd groupement covered Léopoldville and Equateur . The 3rd groupement, commanded by
8640-511: The expedition to carry on much farther than the Lado Enclave, hoping indeed to take Fashoda and then Khartoum , Dhanis' column mutinied in February 1897, resulting in the death of several Belgian officers and the loss of his entire force. Nonetheless, Chaltin continued his advance, and on 17 February 1897, his outnumbered forces defeated the rebels in the Battle of Rejaf , securing the Lado Enclave as
8760-410: The feeble response of government security forces. Köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies its climate as tropical monsoon (Am). This Democratic Republic of the Congo location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Force Publique The Force Publique ( French: [fɔʁs pyblik] , "Public Force"; Dutch : Openbare Weermacht )
8880-452: The following unarmed aircraft and helicopters were used by Avimil: At independence on 30 June 1960, Avimil was placed under the control of the new government of the Republic of the Congo , and continued its missions until 20 July 1960. On this date the chief of Belgian forces in the Congo ordered the assembly of non-Congolese personnel and operational aircraft ('des appareils en état de vol') at
9000-497: The force was a de Havilland DH.85 Leopard Moth that entered service on 9 October 1940. For the remainder of the period of Belgium's rule, the Force Publique continued its joint military and police role, split into territorial units, charged with maintaining public order, and mobile units (between the wars known as unites campees ) charged with territorial defence. There was a mutiny by the XIV battalion at Luluabourg in 1944. In 1945,
9120-551: The front line troops. This incident was later used by British officers to motivate the fighting troops to greater efforts ("even a hospital can do better"). At the end of 1940, the FP headquarters, recognising the need for aviation support for the force, began forming the Aviation militaire de la Force Publique equipped with requisitioned civilian machines and based at N'Dolo Airport in Leopoldville. The first machine purchased for
9240-481: The hands of the Governor-General ( Gouverneur général ), but this office was at times more honorary than real. When the governor-general was in Belgium he was represented in the Congo by a vice governor-general ( vice-gouverneur général ), who was nominally equal in rank to a secretary-general but in fact was beneath them in power and influence. A Comité consultatif (consultative committee) made up of civil servants
9360-409: The high death rate in this period. The highest estimates state that the widespread use of forced labour , torture, and murder led to the deaths of 50 per cent of the population in the rubber provinces. The lack of accurate records makes it difficult to quantify the number of deaths caused by the exploitation and the lack of immunity to new diseases introduced by contact with European colonists. During
9480-656: The interior set up a propaganda office, the Bureau central de la presse ("Central Press Bureau"), in Frankfurt under the auspices of the Comité pour la représentation des intérêts coloniaux en Afrique (in German, Komitee zur Wahrung der kolonialen Interessen in Afrika , "Committee for the Representation of Colonial Interests in Africa"). The oversight of all the departments was nominally in
9600-589: The local chiefs and with native leaders. In essence, the documents gave over all rights of their respective pieces of land to Leopold. With Stanley's help, Leopold was able to claim a great area along the Congo River, and military posts were established. Christian de Bonchamps , a French explorer who served Leopold in Katanga , expressed attitudes towards such treaties shared by many Europeans, saying, "The treaties with these little African tyrants, which generally consist of four long pages of which they do not understand
9720-403: The locals . Ostensibly, the Congo Free State aimed to bring civilization to the local people and to develop the region economically. In reality, Leopold II's administration extracted ivory , rubber , and minerals from the upper Congo basin for sale on the world market through a series of international concessionary companies that brought little benefit to the area. Under Leopold's administration,
9840-482: The militia Force Publique or turned them over as prisoners to allied local chiefs, who in turn gave them as laborers for the Belgian conscript workers; when Belgian Congo was established, chattel slavery was legally abolished in 1910, but prisoners were nevertheless conscripted as force laborers for both public and private work projects. In 1894, King Leopold II signed a treaty with the United Kingdom which conceded
9960-437: The natives. In the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, European leaders officially noted Leopold's control over the 2,600,000 km (1,000,000 sq mi) of the notionally independent Congo Free State. To give his African operations a name that could serve for a political entity, Leopold created, between 1879 and 1882, the International Association of the Congo ( French : Association internationale du Congo , or AIC) as
10080-649: The new Congolese Government at Camp Leopold on 8 July, the FP was renamed as the Congolese National Army ( Armée Nationale Congolaise ( ANC )), and its leadership was Africanised. The chain of events this started eventually resulted in Joseph Mobutu ( Mobutu Sésé Seko ), a former Sergeant-Major in the FP who had been promoted to Chief of Staff of the ANC by Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba , gaining power and establishing his dictatorial kleptocracy . His regime
10200-411: The old Free State remained in use among the Force Publique until the First World War : Belgian officers wore white uniforms until late 1914, while the blue uniform (with red trim around the neck and down the front opening), red fez and sash of the askaris was phased out in a series of changes during 1915–1917. Thereafter, officers and askaris wore a variety of khaki uniforms. The Force Publique
10320-521: The power of local rulers, the Free State paid prices below the rising market prices. In October 1892, Leopold granted concessions to a number of companies. Each company was given a large amount of land in the Congo Free State on which to collect rubber and ivory for sale in Europe. These companies were allowed to detain Africans who did not work hard enough, to police their vast areas as they saw fit and to take all
10440-417: The products of the forest for themselves. In return for their concessions, these companies paid an annual dividend to the Free State. At the height of the rubber boom, from 1901 until 1906, these dividends also filled the royal coffers. The Free Trade Zone in the Congo was open to entrepreneurs of any European nation, who were allowed to buy 10- and 15-year monopoly leases on anything of value: ivory from
10560-470: The region. Until the middle of the 19th century, the Congo was at the heart of independent Africa, as European colonialists seldom entered the interior. Along with fierce local resistance, the rainforest , swamps, malaria , sleeping sickness , and other diseases made it a difficult environment for Europeans to settle. Western states were at first reluctant to colonize the area in the absence of obvious economic benefits. In 1876 Leopold II of Belgium hosted
10680-424: The same most favoured nation (MFN) status Portugal had offered them. At the same time, Leopold promised Bismarck he would not give any one nation special status, and that German traders would be as welcome as any other. "I do not want to risk ... losing a fine chance to secure for ourselves a slice of this magnificent African cake." Leopold then offered France the support of the association for French ownership of
10800-442: The state, thus creating a de facto state-controlled monopoly. Therefore, a large share of the local population could sell only to the state, which could set prices and thereby control the income the Congolese could receive for their work. For local elites, however, this system presented new opportunities, as the Free State and concession companies paid them with guns to tax their subjects in kind. Trading companies began to lose out to
10920-452: The support of several European governments, and was himself elected chairman. Leopold used the association to promote plans to seize independent central Africa under this philanthropic guise. Henry Morton Stanley , famous for making contact with British missionary David Livingstone in Africa in 1871, explored the region in 1876–1877, a journey that was described in Stanley's 1878 book Through
11040-427: The territory that it claimed was patchy, with its few officials concentrated in a number of small and widely dispersed "stations" which controlled only small amounts of hinterland. In 1900, there were just 3,000 Europeans in the Congo, of whom only half were Belgian. The colony was perpetually short of administrative staff and officials, who numbered between 700 and 1,500 during the period. Leopold pledged to suppress
11160-413: The upper Lualaba River , had signed no treaties, was known to be rich in copper and thought to have much gold from its slave-trading activities. Its powerful mwami (King), Msiri , had already rejected a treaty brought by Alfred Sharpe on behalf of Cecil Rhodes . In 1891 a Free State expedition extracted a letter from Msiri agreeing to their agents coming to Katanga and later that year Leopold II sent
11280-639: The war their actions were supported by more than 260,000 local bearers. In 1916, Tombeur was made Military Governor of the Belgian Occupied East African Territories. After the Mahenge offensive and the capture of Mahenge in 1917, the Belgian Congolese army controlled roughly one-third of German East Africa. After the First World War , as outlined in the Treaty of Versailles , Germany
11400-566: The well-armed Stairs Expedition , led by the Canadian mercenary William Grant Stairs , to take possession of Katanga one way or another. Msiri tried to play the Free State off against Rhodes and when negotiations bogged down, Stairs flew the Free State flag anyway and gave Msiri an ultimatum. Instead, Msiri decamped to another stockade . Stairs sent a force to capture him but Msiri stood his ground, whereupon Captain Omer Bodson shot Msiri dead and
11520-451: Was European. However, with little financial means the Free State mainly relied on local elites to rule and tax the vast and hard-to-reach Congolese interior. In the Free State, Leopold exercised total personal control without much delegation to subordinates. African chiefs played an important role in the administration by implementing government orders within their communities. Throughout much of its existence, however, Free State presence in
11640-744: Was a loss to Leopold II. This, and Leopold's humanitarian pledges to the Berlin Conference to end slavery, meant war was inevitable. Open warfare broke out in late November 1892. Both sides fought by proxy, arming and leading the populations of the upper Congo forests in conflict. By early 1894 the Zanzibari/Swahili slavers were defeated in the eastern Congo region and the Congo Arab war came to an end. The Belgians freed thousands of men, women and children slaves from Swaihili Arab slave owners and slave traders in Eastern Congo in 1886-1892, enlisted them in
11760-688: Was able to assemble another battalion from smaller units; originally called the IIIe, but changed to the 11e to avoid confusion with the Katanga IIIme battalion. During the First World War (1914–18), an expanded Force Publique served against German colonial forces in Kamerun and German East Africa ( Tanzania , Rwanda , Burundi ), as part of the East African campaign . The Force Publique performed well on
11880-453: Was composed of two columns: the first, under Belgian war hero Baron Dhanis , consisted of a sizeable force, numbering around three-thousand, and was to strike north through the jungle and attack the rebels at their base at Rejaf. The second, a much smaller force of only eight-hundred, was led by Louis-Napoléon Chaltin and took the main road towards Rejaf. Both expeditions set out in December 1896. Although Leopold II had initially planned for
12000-400: Was eventually made responsible to the sovereign alone. There was a supreme court composed of three judges, which heard appeals, and below it a high court of one judge. These sat at Boma. In addition to these, there were district courts and public prosecutors ( procureurs d'état ). Justice, however, was slow and the system ill-suited to a frontier society. Leopold no longer needed the façade of
12120-439: Was facing considerable financial difficulty. District officials' salaries were reduced to a bare minimum, and made up with a commission payment based on the profit that their area returned to Leopold. After widespread criticism, this "primes system" was substituted for the allocation de retraite in which a large part of the payment was granted, at the end of the service, only to those territorial agents and magistrates whose conduct
12240-536: Was fatally wounded in the resulting fight. The expedition cut off Msiri's head and put it on a pole, as he had often done to his enemies. This was to impress upon the locals that Msiri's rule had really ended, after which the successor chief recognized by Stairs signed the treaty. In the short term, the third problem, that of the African and Arab slavers like Zanzibari / Swahili strongman Tippu Tip (actually Ḥamad ibn Muḥammad ibn Jumʿah ibn Rajab ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al Murjabī, but much better known by his nickname)
12360-483: Was for the benefit of the native peoples under the name of a philanthropic "association". The king launched a publicity campaign in Britain to distract critics, drawing attention to Portugal's record of slavery, and offering to drive slave traders from the Congo basin. He also secretly told British merchant houses that if he was given formal control of the Congo for this and other humanitarian purposes, he would then give them
12480-455: Was forced to cede "control" of the Western section of the former German East Africa to Belgium. On 20 October 1924, Ruanda-Urundi (1924–1945), which consisted of modern-day Rwanda and Burundi , became a League of Nations mandate territory under Belgian administration, with Usumbura as its capital. On 10 May 1919, the Belgian colonial administration issued a decree formally reorganising
12600-554: Was forced to retreat by the numerical superiority of the Belgian army, and by 17 June 1916, Ruanda-Urundi was occupied. The Force Publique and the British Lake Force then started a thrust to capture Tabora , an administrative centre of central German East Africa. The army went on to take Tabora on 19 September after heavy fighting. At the time of the Battle of Tabora in September 1916, about 25,000 men were under arms; during
12720-424: Was given 666,000 km (257,000 sq mi) on the north bank (the modern Congo-Brazzaville and Central African Republic ), Portugal 909,000 km (351,000 sq mi) to the south (modern Angola ), and Leopold's personal organization received the balance: 2,344,000 km (905,000 sq mi), with about 30 million people. However, it still remained for these territories to be occupied under
12840-569: Was in Belgium . On 29 November 1883, during his meeting with the President, as Leopold's envoy, he convinced the President that Leopold's agenda was similar to the United States' involvement in Liberia . This satisfied Southern politicians and businessmen, especially Alabama Senator John Tyler Morgan . Morgan saw Congo as the same opportunity to send freedmen to Africa so they could contribute to and build
12960-417: Was in charge of accounting for income and expenditure and tracking the public debt. Besides diplomacy, foreign affairs was in charge of shipping, education, religion and commerce. The department of the interior was responsible for defence, police, public health and public works. It was also charged with overseeing the exploitation of the Congo's natural resources and plantations. In 1904, the secretary-general of
13080-608: Was indefensible at home and abroad. Leopold II was heavily criticized by the European public opinion for his dealings with Tippu Tip. In Belgium, the Belgian Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1888, mainly by Catholic intellectuals led by Count Hippolyte d'Ursel , aimed at abolishing the Arab slave trade. Furthermore, Tippu Tip and Leopold were commercial rivals. Every person that Tippu Tip hunted down and put into chattel slavery and every pound of ivory he exported to Zanzibar
13200-468: Was intended to have four Belgian officers and NCOs plus between 100 and 150 askaris. In principle, companies comprised two or three 50-man platoons. There were supposed to be enough companies to form three Marche battalions. Eight Congolese soldiers were promoted to NCO. The 2,875 men of the Troupes du Katanga constituted a semi-autonomous force of six companies: four de marche and two other infantry, plus
13320-608: Was organised into 21 separate companies (originally numbered but later known only by their names) each between 225 and 950 men strong, along with an artillery and an engineers unit. The entire force numbered over 12,100 men. The companies were as follows: Aruwimi, Bangala, Bas-Congo , Cateracts, Équateur , Ituri , Kasai , Kwango , Lac Léopold II , Lualaba , Lulongo, Makrakas, Makua-Bomokandi, Ponthiérville , Rubi, Ruzizi - Kivu , Stanley Falls , Stanley Pool , Ubangi , and Uele-Bili. There were also six recruit training camps containing over 2,400 men. The separate companies comprising
13440-634: Was placed at the disposal of the British forces in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan . The 3rd Brigade of the Force Publique , together with the XI battalion (5,700 men), took part in the campaign in Abyssinia in Italian East Africa , arriving from the Congo via the Sudan. The troops took Asosa and Gambela with little resistance, and shelled Italian forces at Saïo on 8 June 1941. Their retreat cut off ,
13560-477: Was privately controlled by Leopold from Brussels; he never visited it. The state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908, when the Belgian Parliament reluctantly annexed the state as a colony belonging to Belgium after international pressure. Leopold's reign in the Congo eventually earned infamy on account of the atrocities perpetrated on
13680-495: Was privately owned by King Leopold II , the constitutional monarch of the Kingdom of Belgium . In legal terms, the two separate countries were in a personal union . The Congo Free State was not a part of, nor did it belong to Belgium. Leopold was able to seize the region by convincing other European states at the Berlin Conference on Africa that he was involved in humanitarian and philanthropic work and would not tax trade. Via
13800-402: Was rather slow, however, and was only completed during the First World War . Though the new Belgian administration was "more enlightened" than its predecessor, it still tried to keep the cost of the colonial army low. As result, the proportion of commissioned Belgian officers to askaris (about one to a hundred) was very low by the standards of most colonial armies of this period. The weaponry of
13920-639: Was renamed to the Congolese National Army in July 1960 after Congo gained independence from Belgian colonial rule. The Force Publique was initially conceived in 1885 when Leopold II of Belgium , who established the Congo Free State as his private colony , ordered the Belgian Secretary of the Interior to create a military for the Free State. Soon afterwards, in early 1886, Captain Léon Roger (of
14040-409: Was set up in 1887 to assist the governor-general, but he was not obliged to consult it. The vice governor-general on the ground had a state secretary through whom he communicated with his district officers. The Free State had an independent judiciary headed by a minister of justice at Boma . The minister was equal in rank to the vice governor-general and initially answered to the governor-general, but
14160-517: Was temporarily solved. Initially the authority of the Congo Free State was relatively weak in the eastern regions of the Congo. In early 1887, Henry Morton Stanley had therefore proposed that Tippu Tip be made governor (wali) of the Stanley Falls District . Both Leopold II and Barghash bin Said of Zanzibar agreed and on 24 February 1887, Tippu Tip accepted. In the longer term this alliance
14280-404: Was the military of the Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo from 1885 to 1960. It was established after Belgian Army officers travelled to the Free State to found an armed force in the colony on Leopold II of Belgium 's orders. The Force Publique was heavily involved in atrocities in the Congo Free State , and also saw action in the Congo Arab war , World War I and World War II . It
14400-399: Was to remain in power until May 1997. Prior to independence, the air component of the Force Publique (Avi / or Avimil, Aviation militaire de la Force publique ) was based mainly at the N'Dolo airport, Leopoldville. Avimil's roles included the transportation of passengers, medical supplies and other goods, as well as undertaking connecting flights and recognition duties. Between 1944 and 1960
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