Odon Jadot
The lines helped carry copper mined in the Katanga Province to the sea via the ports of Matadi in the Congo, Dilolo in Angola and Beira in Mozambique.
[4] The Comité Spécial du Katanga (CSK), the Congo Free State and the Société Générale de Belgique had founded the BCK on 31 October 1906.
[5] The BCK was to survey, build and operate a railway line from the navigable part of the Lualaba to the southern border of Katanga where it could connect to the Rhodesian network.
[4] He later wrote that he learned from the English how they planned and built railways in Central Africa, and applied these practices with no significant change to build 1,650 kilometres (1,030 mi) of railroad in the Congo.
Jadot carried out initial studies for the line from Elisabethville (Lubumbashi) to the Kambove copper mine in 1911, and in 1912 was involved in the start of construction of this section.
[7] Jadot was mobilized in 1915 and assigned to the troops stationed on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, where he drafted plans for building the port of Albertville.
[11] The companies depended for meat on subcontractors of Italian, Greek, English or Scottish origin, who organized teams of native hunters recruited from Rhodesia and the Lake Bangwelo region.
In each camp, porters were seen arriving every day, announcing themselves with often very beautiful songs, bringing antelopes, zebras or wild pigs, butchered or whole depending on their size.
[6] In 1921 the minister Louis Franck obtained permission from parliament to start work on a one-stop rail / river link running northwest from Bukama to Léopoldville, the project that Odon Jadot had abandoned in 1914.
It had to pass through 200 miles (320 km) of tropical forest, cutting across the Kuba Kingdom, but by the end of 1922 the company and the government had agreed on this route.
[19] To attract workers from employment by Forminière, Jadot offered better wages and living conditions, and built a service road so that fresh food could be supplied by truck.
[16] The Kuba king cooperated, growing surplus maize and manioc to feed the workforce, helping to clear the forest along the route, and providing laborers to build roads, rest houses and auxiliary airfields.
[20] Jadot was appointed administrator of the BCK later in 1928 and at once began construction of a 522 kilometres (324 mi) link to the Benguela railway, built by the British Tanganyika Concessions and extending from Lobito on the Atlantic coast of Angola to Dilolo on the border with Katanga.
Construction began in March 1929 and was completed in two years, opening a third and much more economical link from Katanga to the sea when compared with the BCK and the Beira line.
Jadot suggested that the state should help the indigenous peasantry by providing agricultural implements and seeds, and tried to promote exports of corn from the Lomami-Kasaï region to Belgium.
[11] Jadot started to explore the possibility of linking the BCK to the CFL, which would open a route from Katanga to the Indian Ocean via Lake Tanganyika.
[22] A road was built from Kamina to Kabalo in preparation for building the rail link, but the project was put on hold when World War II (1939–1945) began.
[24] Soon after the invasion of Belgium a meeting was held in the Elisabethville home of Jules Cousin, administrative head of UMHK, where ways of supporting Hitler and Léopold III were discussed.
Odon Jadot was present, as were Jean-Félix de Hemptinne, vicar apostolic of Katanga, and Delannoy, head of the local court of appeals.
[25] Rail traffic doubled, and in 1943–1944 Jadot had the BCK quays, stores and warehouses expanded to meet anticipated post-war demand.
[11] Jadot also pressed for construction of a line from Port-Francqui to Léopoldville, bypassing the Kasai river section, but was unable to gain support for this project.
