Belgian Congo during WW2

[DrG]

Belgian Congo was one of the largest and richest colonies of an Allied country in Africa, but I admit I know nearly nothing about it in WW2.
King Leopold III of Belgium and his govern surrendered to the Germans on 27 May 1940, but a Belgian govern, led by H. Pierlot, in exile in London went on with the war. The governor of Congo, Pierre Ryckmans, supported the exiled govern. Congo was of great economic importance for the Allies, thanks to the abundance of minerals (Uranium included). For this reason the exoploitation of local workers increased during the war, causing the strikes of Jadothville and Elisabethville (since 4 Dec. 1941, crushed with violence) and then the general strikes and revolts of Katanga and Kasai of 1944. Moreover the forced labour (corvee) was doubled from 60 days each year to 120.
In 1941 Congolese troops (two battalions), commanded by gen. Gilliaert, took part to the campaign in East Africa and, on 6 July 1941, they accepted the surrender with honours of war of the exausted forces (5,000 Italians and 2,000 Ethiopians) of gen. Pietro Gazzera in the region of Galla e Sidamo (S-W Ethiopia), already attacked by the 23rd Nigerian and 22nd East African brigades and Ethiopian rebels.
Has anybody any additional info, expecially about the involvement of Congolese troops during and after the campaign in Ethiopia and about gen. Gilliaert?

[Klemen L.]

Dear MrG,

Well, you have pretty much said it all what is needed to said about the Belgian Congo in WW2. Maybe I should added just two interesting and probably lesser known facts and namely that on 26 November 1940, the administration of Belgian Congo, with the full approval of the Belgian government-in-exile in London, declared war on Italy. This was purely a political gesture by the Belgians who hoped to reserve with that a seat at the post-war peace conference with Italy. To back the declaration of war, the Belgians send their small military force (also known as Force Publique) under Major-General Gillaert to British East Africa to take part in the attack on Italian East Africa, what later eventually also happened. Meanwhile back in Belgium a group of right-wing parties headed by the Rex Organization proposed to the Germans that they are to be allowed to raise a corps of Belgian aviators and enough Belgian officers to command a regiment of colonial soldiers for the time when the Germans invaded the Belgium Congo. They would naturally be equipped by the Germans and of course under their command, but instead they completely ignored this pre-ambitious plan. In October-November 1940 another interesting event took place in connection with the Belgian Congo. A Belgian businessman and mining executive, Edgar Sengier, then living in the United States, purchased all of the above-ground uranium ore that still remained at the Shinkolobwe uranium mine in the Katanga Province. This particular mine has been closed since May 1940, when its only customer, the United Miniere Company in Brussel, was taken over by the Germans. Therefore some 1,250 tons of ore was shipped across Portuguese Angola to the port of Lobiro and then to the USA where it was stored in a warehouse on State Island, NY. Apparently Mr. Sengier had received a hunch that this particular ore is going to become very valuable in the forthcoming months or years of the war. He was right.

You are completely right about the strike of the native labour. The strike went bad especially in the mining area of the Belgian Congo and the colonial army had to be called to restore order but not before some 70 people were killed. In late 1942 another odd incident took place in the Belgian Congo. At the port of Matadi, a company of black American Army truck drivers was stationed in the community and created a racial backlash from the European (Belgian) white citizenry.

From the military point of view it should be note that the Belgian expeditionary Force first entered western Italian East Africa on 19 March 1941 at the Sudanese border town of Jokau and marched up the Subai River in the direction of the town of Gambela sixty miles distant (1). The only opposition the Belgians and Congolese experienced now in this Sudanese town (occupied by the Italians in June 1940) was from a 400-man Bande unit, which was quickly routed. On 21 March, as the Belgians approached the outskirts of Gambela they ran into a static defence line manned by a couple of Italian officered Bande units. The Congolese were sent to attack but were repulsed, therefore the next day a KAR unit circled around to the north and attacked the Bande defens on their right flank. The Italians and their native auxiliaries were taken completely by suprise and quickly withdrew. Soon afterwards the Congolese moved in again, occupied the town and dug in at in and near Gambela, thus accomplishing their main mission with a minimal loss of 3 Congolese Askari killed and 3 Belgian officers and 15 Congolese Askari wounded. At the end of June the Congolese were back at action. This time General Pietro Gazzera with his force of 300 Italian officers (including nine generals) and 5,000 askari was retreating to Dembidollo, when he was attacked by the Congolese. Pressed by them, the KAR troops closing the gap from the east and SAAF pounding him day and night, he radioed to Adis Abeba on 3th July that he is willing to surrender his force. Arrangements were made and on 6 July, the Belgian Congolese commander, Major-General Gillaert, accepted Gazzera's surrender at Gambela.

(1) Other source claimed that the first contact tok place eight day earlier when a Belgian Congolese battalion with a KAR unit attacked the town of Asosa. The Italians quickly withdrew and retreated south to the town of Ghidami. Apparently the Belgians and Congolese were also active at the Italians stronghold at Saio, where they have by early June 1941 assembled three Congolese infantry battalions, a mortar and engineer company and a couple of 75mm batteries of mountain artillery.On 3 July the Belgians launched their version of blitzkrieg and attacked the "dumplings" in front of Bortai creek. One battalion circled around and threatened the Italian line of retreat, while others two engaged themselves in the dumplings. The Italians soon had it enough and surrendered with a force of total 2,500 Italians and 3,500 askari.

There are several sources (most in French but also English) about the military aspects of the Belgian Campaign in Italian East Africa 1940-1941. The titles are listed below. Most of them are hard to track down and if you by any chance of do that the prices are usually "abnormal", if you know what I mean.

Weller, George Anthony: The Belgian Campaign in Ethiopia: A Trek of 2,500 Miles through Jungle Swamps and Desert Wastes. New York: Belgian Information Center, 1941

Werbrouck, R.: La Campagne des Troupes Coloniales Belges en Abyssinie. Leopoldville, Congo: Courrier d'Afrique.

Bruls, J.: Vers les Hauts Plateaux d'Abyssinie avec les Congolais en Guerre. Louvain: Editions SAM, 1946.

Since I myself am always interested to learn more about the History of Belgian Congo in World War II, maybe some of our American friends on this forum could provide us with a detailed order of battle of American troops in the Belgian Congo and Liberia during World War II. In both cases the majority of the US troops were made up of Afro-Americans under white officers.

Hope this helps,

Yours sincerly,

Klemen

[DrG]

Dear Klemen,
thank you very much for you information.

he radioed to Adis Abeba on 3th July that he is willing to surrender his force.

This is a bit obscure: in fact in July 1941 Addis Abeba was already occupied by the Britons, thus I don't understand why gen. Gazzera had made that communication.

[Klemen L.]

He radioed to the British Headquarters in Adis Abeba that he is willing to surrender his force to them.

[DrG]

He radioed to the British Headquarters in Adis Abeba that he is willing to surrender his force to them.

Thank you for the explaination.

[panzertruppe2001]

Irving wrote in "The Hitlers War" that in 1940 Hitler wanted Belgian Congo in exchange for the ex German colonies (Cameroon, Togo, etc) in a future peace conference with the British.

[varjag]

More on the economic than military side. In 'The Manhattan Project' about the creation of the atomic bomb - it is claimed that Union Miniere of Katanga - one of the then, world premier sources of uranium, had extracted and exported to a freeport in the U.S.A. - but under it's own control - enough yellowcake(?), to enrich and build at least two or three uranium bombs. The book states, perhaps dramatically, that when the Manhattan Project got off the ground and it was realised that they were going to need large quantities of uranium - the problem arose, that this was only available in Belgian Congo....What to do? Upon their first approach to Union Miniere the reply went something like this;'we knew that you'd come and ask for this one day - we don't have to mine it, the requisite supplies you need are already stored at Hoboken...' I do not know how true this line is - but it seems that the Belgians controlling Union Minere, perhaps surprising, had a very clear idea of possible uses of uranium.

[phylo_roadking]

Coming WAY late to this.... of course they had an idea - for the Belgians on the first day of the invasion of Belgium had evacuated their huge stock of uranium from Brussels to Paris to avoid it falling into German hands....where unfortunately the Germans caught up with it! After all, most European countires had physics research going on at notable universities; the Belgian uranium was turned over the the French government, as the Juliot-Curies in Paris were engaged in very preliminary atomic bomb research....as Rutherford was in England, Heisenberg in Germany etc.

[Jon G.]

The #1 strategic material from Belgian Congo wasn't Uranium. There were Uranium deposits in Axis controlled Europe although they were not large, but then the possible future uses of Uranium weren't very well known at the time.

On the other hand, Axis Europe had no natural sources of industrial diamonds. Belgian Congo had plenty of those.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=119231

[Lornito Uriarte Mahinay Jr.]

This time General Pietro Gazzera with his force of 300 Italian officers (including nine generals) and 5,000 askari was retreating to Dembidollo, when he was attacked by the Congolese.

Can you identify these Generals?

[phylo_roadking]

Actually, the role of uranium as part of an atomic weapon was WELL known - just not what weapon, or what form/role the uranium would take! But ALL nations with physicists were scrambling to corner resources.

[Jon G.]

If the Axis had had anything on the scale of the Manhattan Project going, they might have been interested in Congo's uranium as well, though there were alternative sources for that, unlike the diamonds I wrote about above. In the absense of mineral-rich overseas territories, the Axis could, conceivably, instead have mined uranium from f.e. Czechoslovakia or Ukraine.

From an Axis point of view, the most urgently needed items which Congo could have provided were industrial diamonds.

[phylo_roadking]

There is, as in so many things, uranium and uranium. There are something like eleven different minerals that can be mined and processed to refine uranium from them, the European sources were notably expensive to extract in sufficient quantity. Hence the Belgian stockpile being regarded by the British as a strategic resource to be withdrawn to Paris. It represented something like fifteen years' worth of European production.

[Jon G.]

How many years of European consumption did the Belgian uranium stockpile represent? It's only with hindsight you can assign critically important value to it.

As a parallel example, economic concerns didn't bother the German synthfuel industry - synthetic fuel is much more expensive to produce than natural oil, yet the Germans still made the synthfuel because they needed it. It's fair to assume that they would have mined native European uranium sources vigoroursly if they had needed it, expenses be damned.

[daveh]

for those interested
Weller, George Anthony: The Belgian Campaign in Ethiopia: A Trek of 2,500 Miles through Jungle Swamps and Desert Wastes. New York: Belgian Information Center, 1941
can be downloaded from
http://www.archive.org/details/TheBelgi ... gnEthiopia