The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-30
BEL [CIAN OFFICERS LEAD BLACK { SOLDIERS IN CONQUEST OF LAST
 GERMAN COLONY IN THE WORLD

the mission of civilization that she had assumed in far-off Africa, and she | invited the powers to neutra1ize all tfe colonies of the be1ligerent states in- cluded in the conventional Basin of the Congo, that is to say-not includ- ing Belgian Congo which has, since its origin, been under the regime of permanent neutrality-F'rench. Equa- l torial Africa, British East Africa. Uganda. German Kamerun and Ger man East Africa
 Tn vieH of the mission of civiliza- ton comnbn to the colonizing na- tions,' wrote the Minister of Foreign Affairs on August 2, 1914, the Belgian government desires, through feelings of humanity. not to extend the field of hostilities to4Central Africa It will therefore take no initiative in inf1icting such a blot on the civilization of that region, and the military forces that it possesses there will not enter into &C., tion except they be forced to repulse a direct attack against its African possessions
 This proposition, better than any other symptom, shows with: what ser- entity our little country accepted the supreme sacrifice imposed by the law of honor and regard for the right. The sacrifice was of greater merit because, at the moment that this attitude was adopted, the Belgian government was we'll aware that in Africa it disposed of military forces that permitted it to chastise there the aggressor of Belgium and take revenge for the re- verse that was bound to overwhelm, at the beginning of the European campaign, the Belgian army numer- ically much inferior to the German army.
 "But the Act of Berlin, like the trea- ty of naturalization of 1899. only con- stituted to the eyes of Germany a scrap of paper; while the Belgian troops in Congo abstained from all acts of hostility, the Germans prepar- ed for war and,. on August 22, 1914. they strongly attaced without previous summons, the Belgian port of Lukuga, on the Lake Tanganika-
 Tt was thus that, by deliberate act of the Germans and in violation of the reserve that we were observing, the h hestilities between Germany and Bell gium extended to Africa.
 ''War being forced upon it, the Bel gian government could no longer he's itate in doing it's duty.
 "On hearing the news of the brutal aggression against Lukuga, the Bel gian government sent the following instructions to the authorities of the Congo:
 "Tn view of the direct attacks by the Germans against the Colony of the Belgian Congo and particularly against the port of Lukuga, the government commands you to take all military measures for the defence of the Bel gian territory.
 Consequently you can authopiae the entrance of the English troops in Belgian territory, accept the offer of passage for the Belgian troops in Rhodesia, undertake, in cooperation with the British troops or by means only of Belgian troops, all offensive action that the defence of the integrity of our colonial territory demands
 Belgian Congo has common from tiers with two German colonies: Ger man East Africa, which it touches for distance of eight degrees, and Ka- merun that, since 1912, has projected to the Belgian frontier two 'antennae taken from the French Congo, at the juncture of the Ubangi and the Lo- baye and at the juncture of the Sanga and the river Congo.
 Tt was necessarily in these regions, where the two States were in contact, that the military events took place.
 'In the first phase of the war, the Belgian colonial troops participated in