Belgian Congo in World War II

[4] On 10 May 1940 Belgian officials formally requested that the United Kingdom and France declare their respect for the Congo's neutrality and support for its territorial integrity in a future peace settlement.

[8] Despite this assurance, disruption broke out in the city of Stanleyville (now Kisangani in the eastern Congo) among the white population panicking about the future of the colony and the threat of an Italian invasion.

[10] Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot believed that it lacked the resources to continue to fight and thus it would be better to negotiate a peace with Germany instead of going into exile in the United Kingdom.

While the government prepared to negotiate with Germany, representatives of various Belgo-Congolese companies in Bordeaux informed the ministers of rumours that should Belgium surrender, the United Kingdom would seize control of the Congo.

Pierlot suggested that de Vleeschauwer should be granted the new title of Administrator-general of the Congo, allowing him to pursue this cause even if the government later collapsed and his ministerial mandate became void.

[15] The government agreed to the idea, and on 18 June it passed a arrêté-loi, granting de Vleeschauwer the title and conferring on him full legislative and executive power to manage the Congo.

[19] There was also conflict between de Vleeschauwer, who wanted to assure his own authority over the Congo, and Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak who sought to be more conciliatory with regard to Allied influence in the colony.

In October 1940 Leopold III requested permission from Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler to dispatch an emissary to Léopoldville to persuade the colonial administration to assume neutrality, but the trip was never authorised.

Its economic doctrine and practices have been rapidly adapted to the new conditions and, whilst everything is being done to maintain the potentiality of the Congo wealth, there is no hesitation whatsoever when it comes to sacrificing any riches in favor of the war effort."

[13] The two parties came to an arrangement on 21 January 1941, in which all the British demands were accepted, including a 30 percent devaluation of the Congolese franc and the entrance of the Congo into the sterling area.

[24] The Congo's economic output became an even more valuable asset to the Allies after Japan occupied large swathes of South East Asia in 1942, halting those areas' exports of key tropical commodities such as rubber.

[33] Despite the Allied cooperation, many officials of the colonial administration treated American and British diplomats with suspicion, fearing the potential economic rivalry posed by their countries to Belgian enterprises.

When physicist Albert Einstein wrote U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to warn him of the possibility of a German atomic bomb program, he advised him that the Congo was a main source of the mineral.

[39] The U.S. government sent soldiers from the Army Corps of Engineers to Shinkolobwe in 1942 to restore the mine and improve its transport links by renovating the local aerodromes and port facilities.

Believing that a large volume of diamonds were being smuggled out of the colony, American intelligence officials convinced British agents to inspect the security of the mines.

The officer tasked with overseeing the inspection teams concluded that proper security measures were lacking and that Forminière and Société minière du Bécéka personnel fostered a "sinister atmosphere" during the tours.

[34][44] The German government conducted secret negotiations with leaders of Forminière and the Société Générale, and reached deals that allowed them to purchase large quantities of diamonds until 1944.

American and British agents ultimately uncovered a wide smuggling network that brought diamonds out of the Congo and to German-occupied Europe by air and sea.

[45] Like other colonial armies of the time, the Force Publique was racially segregated;[46] it was led by 280 white officers and NCOs, but otherwise comprised indigenous black Africans.

[45] De Vleeschauwer authorised the creation of an air service for the Force Publique, and the Belgian government secured an agreement with South Africa in March 1941 to provide training.

[49] While willing to mobilise the Congo's economic resources for the Allied war effort, the Belgian government in exile was initially much more hesitant to deploy Congolese troops in combat.

[54] In May 1941, around 8,000 men of the Force Publique, under Major-General Auguste-Édouard Gilliaert, successfully cut off the retreat of General Pietro Gazzera's Italians at Saïo, in the Ethiopian Highlands after marching over 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) from their bases in western Congo.

[2] After the Allied victory in Ethiopia, the Force Publique moved to the British colony of Nigeria, which was being used as a staging ground for a planned invasion of Vichy-controlled Dahomey which did not occur,[9] was also garrisoned by 13,000 Congolese troops.

[57] The unit (which had a small body of Force Publique troops for local defense of the station) included 350 black and 20 white personnel, and continued to serve with the British until 1945.

[28] The urbanised Congolese generally experienced more financial gain during the war than their rural counterparts, though several workers who had collected large amounts of rubber earned even more money.

[68] During the war the Belgian government in exile directed propaganda at the Allied states that created a positive image of its colony in an attempt to legitimise its rule.

[69] Wider Allied propaganda also downplayed internal political tensions within the Congo and in its relations with the Belgian government so as to portray the coordination of its war effort in a harmonious fashion.

[32] The occupation of Belgium severed Belgian missionaries from their parent organisations, causing the colonial administration to subsidise their activities to make up for budget deficits.

Whites in the colony were allowed to form trade unions for the first time during the war, and their demands for better pay and working conditions were often emulated by black workers.

[86] Several black members of the Force Publique who were veterans of the war served in prominent roles in the army after Congolese independence, including Louis Bobozo, Eugene Ebeya and Norbert Muké.