Latest / The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History / Belgium's Forgotten Colonial Army: The Force Publique
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the Congo Free State's horrors — the rubber quotas, the severed hands, the forced labor. But there's one institution that made it all possible, and we haven't really focused on it yet: the Force Publique. Luna: The colonial army, right? Lucas: Exactly. The Force Publique was founded in 1885, the same year the Congo Free State was declared. Leopold II needed a military force to enforce his rule, collect rubber, and suppress uprisings. And it was a brutal organization from the start. It was made up of African soldiers — askaris — commanded by Belgian officers, but also by other Europeans, and even some non-commissioned officers from the West Indies. Lucas: The Force Publique wasn't really an army in the traditional sense. It was more of a gendarmerie — a paramilitary police force. Its main job was internal repression. They enforced the rubber quotas, which meant taking women hostage, burning villages, and shooting those who didn't meet their targets. And they were infamous for using the chicotte — a whip made of hippo hide that could tear flesh. Luna: Were these soldiers volunteers or conscripted? Lucas: Mostly conscripted, but not in a straightforward way. The Force Publique recruited from different ethnic groups — deliberately mixing them to reduce the risk of mutiny. Soldiers were often taken as young boys, trained harshly, and given a new identity as soldiers. They were also encouraged to take local wives, which tied them to the army's posts. But desertion was common, and punishment was severe — lashing, imprisonment, even execution. Lucas: The Force Publique also played a key role in the Arab-Swahili wars in the 1890s. Those were conflicts between Leopold's forces and Arab slave traders in the eastern Congo. It was framed as a humanitarian mission — ending the slave trade — but really it was about Leopold wanting to control the ivory and rubber trade. The Force Publique, under commanders like Francis Dhanis, fought brutal campaigns. At the battle of Nyangwe in 1893, they defeated the Swahili leader Sefu bin Hamid. Luna: So even the 'anti-slavery' campaign was colonial expansion by another name. Lucas: Exactly. And the Force Publique was at the heart of it. By the early 20th century, the Force Publique had grown to about 17,000 soldiers. But they were spread thin across a territory the size of Western Europe. So when the rubber terror really got going, they were the ones doing the dirty work. They enforced quotas, collected severed hands as proof of bullets used, and put down rebellions with extreme violence. Lucas: One of the most notorious incidents was the 1895 Batetela rebellion. The Batetela were a group within the Force Publique themselves — soldiers of the Tetela ethnic group. They mutinied because their commander, a Belgian officer, had executed one of their chiefs. The revolt spread across the Kasai region and took years to suppress. It was a rare case of the Force Publique turning against its own masters. Luna: Did the Force Publique change after the Congo became a Belgian colony in 1908? Lucas: Yes, but not dramatically. The rhetoric changed — the Belgian government said they were reforming the system. But the Force Publique remained the backbone of colonial control. Its role shifted slightly: instead of just enforcing rubber quotas, it now oversaw the entire colonial administration's coercive power. It collected taxes, enforced labor on public works, and suppressed any dissent. And it was still largely officered by Belgians, with African soldiers in the ranks. Lucas: The Force Publique also fought in World War I. That's a lesser-known fact. When Germany invaded neutral Belgium in 1914, the Belgian government in exile found itself with a colonial army in Africa. In 1916, a Force Publique expeditionary force of about 15,000 men, under the command of General Charles Tombeur, attacked German East Africa — modern Tanzania. They fought alongside British forces and played a key role in capturing the city of Tabora. Luna: I had no idea Belgium was fighting in East Africa during WWI. Lucas: It's a forgotten front. The campaign was brutal — tropical diseases, difficult terrain. But the Force Publique proved effective. They captured about 100,000 square kilometers of territory. After the war, Belgium was awarded a mandate over Ruanda-Urundi — modern Rwanda and Burundi — partly as a reward for their contribution. So the Force Publique actually expanded Belgium's colonial footprint. Lucas: After WWI, the Force Publique settled into a more routine colonial policing role. But it was still a harsh institution. The 1944 Luluabourg mutiny is a good example. African soldiers in the Luluabourg garrison — in the Kasai region — revolted because of low pay and poor conditions. They killed their Belgian officers and held the town for several days before being suppressed. The mutiny was brutally put down, with many soldiers executed. Luna: So even after decades, the tensions never really went away. Lucas: Right. And those tensions exploded again in 1960, right after Congolese independence. The Force Publique was supposed to become the national army of the new Congo. But the Belgian officers had no intention of serving under African commanders. On July 5, 1960 — just five days after independence — the Force Publique mutinied against its Belgian officers. That mutiny triggered a mass exodus of Belgian civilians and led to the intervention of Belgian paratroopers, which in turn sparked the Congo Crisis. Luna: That mutiny is often seen as the beginning of the Congo Crisis. Lucas: Exactly. Patrice Lumumba, the prime minister, tried to calm things by promoting all African soldiers one rank and dismissing the Belgian commander, General Janssens. But Janssens had famously written 'Before independence = after independence' on a blackboard, signaling that nothing would change. That infuriated the soldiers. The mutiny spread rapidly, and it directly led to the secession of Katanga under Moïse Tshombe, because the Force Publique's units there were still loyal to the Belgians. Lucas: So the Force Publique, initially created to enforce Leopold's rubber terror, ended up triggering the collapse of the post-colonial state. It's a powerful example of how colonial institutions don't just disappear — they leave behind structures of violence that persist long after independence. Luna: It's a sobering legacy. And one that Belgium has never fully reckoned with. Lucas: No, it hasn't. The Force Publique is barely mentioned in Belgian history education. There's no monument to its victims. And yet, for over 70 years, it was the most visible symbol of Belgian colonial power — a standing army of occupation that enforced one of the most brutal systems of exploitation in modern history. Understanding it is key to understanding the Congo's colonial trauma. Luna: Do you think that's changing, with the recent debates about colonial statues and apologies? Lucas: Slowly. There's more scholarship now, and some museums are starting to address it. But the Force Publique remains a blind spot. Most people, even in Belgium, don't know its history. So I think it's worth spending time on — to remember that the rubber quotas and the severed hands didn't happen by magic. They were enforced by a military system that trained thousands of African soldiers to do the bidding of a distant king. Luna: A system that ultimately turned on itself. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the tragic arc. The Force Publique was created to control the Congo, but in doing so, it sowed the seeds of its own destruction — and of the Congo's violent post-independence era. It's a story that deserves to be told.