Though the dynamics of the Congo Crisis have received, and continue to
receive, a good deal of literary and scholarly attention, missing from
the canon of work on military forces in the Congo is a study of the
Force Publique, a paramilitary police force established by King Léopold
II to secure the Congo Free State and to protect a vast geographical
swath of Central Africa that had become his own personal possession
following the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. In many ways, the absence
of any study on the origins of the Force Publique to its dissolution in
1960 means that our knowledge surrounding the history of the Belgian
Congo and the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo is incomplete.
Indeed, it is possible to trace the origins of rebellion in the Congo
Crisis (1960-1967) back to the Batetela Rebellions that took place in
the Congo Free State in the 1890s and early 1900s, and to link them with
a succession of anti-Belgian popular uprisings that took place in the
Congo up to the time of the Congo's independence. Moreover, a revolt by
NCOs of the Force Publique was one of the sparks that plunged the Congo
into crisis in early July 1960.
It would be wrong to say, nonetheless, that the geographical extent of
this volume - the first of two on Belgian military forces in the Congo -
is limited within the boundaries of the Congo Free State and the Belgian
Congo: through descriptions of military encounters in Africa in the late
1890s and First and Second World Wars, the history of the Force Publique
is extended into a study of war in the Sudan, East Africa, and in
Ethiopia.
For aviation enthusiasts, this volume is significant in that its
objective is to provide a history of the development of air travel to
and from the Belgian Congo in addition to examining the evolution of
military air forces in the colony. Again, we can link the Force
Publique's air branch to the Congo Crisis as a number of its pilots and
aircraft served to form the basis of the Katangan Air Force and the
Congolese Air Force; two forces that were highly influential in deciding
the future of the Congo after its independence.
The first volume of Belgian Military Forces in the Congo is
illustrated throughout with photographs and includes specially
commissioned color artworks of the weapons, soldiers and aircraft of the
Force Publique.
