Force Publique
military unit
The Force Publique (French: [fɔʁs pyblik]; Dutch: Openbare Weermacht, lit. 'Public Force') 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 was renamed to the Congolese National Army in July 1960 after Congo gained independence from Belgian colonial rule.
Establishment
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 Roget (of 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 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.
Under the Congo Free State
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.
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This entry incorporates text from “Force Publique” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.