page_title: Belgian Congo
section_title: First World War
hierarchical_section_title: Belgian Congo / Economic policy / First World War
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Force Publique trekt Tabora binnen
context_page_description: The Belgian Congo was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960. The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in 1964.
  Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. King Leopold II of Belgium attempted to persuade the Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexploited Congo Basin. Their ambivalence resulted in Leopold's establishing a colony himself. With support from a number of Western countries, Leopold achieved international recognition for a personal colony, the Congo Free State, in 1885. By the turn of the century, the violence used by Free State officials against indigenous Congolese and a ruthless system of economic exploitation led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgium to take official control of the country, which it did by creating the Belgian Congo in 1908.
  Belgian rule in the Congo was based on the "colonial trinity" of state, missionary and private-company interests. The privileging of Belgian commercial interests meant that large amounts of capital flowed into the Congo and that individual regions became specialised.
context_section_description: Rubber had long been the main export of the Belgian Congo, but its importance fell from 77% of exports (by value) to only 15% as British colonies in Southeast Asia began to farm rubber. New resources were exploited, especially copper mining in Katanga province. The Belgian-owned Union minière du Haut-Katanga, which would come to dominate copper mining, used a direct rail line to the sea at Beira.  World War I increased demand for copper, and production soared from 997 tons in 1911 to 27,462 tons in 1917, then fell off to 19,000 tons in 1920. Smelters operated at Lubumbashi. Before the war the copper was sold to Germany; but the British purchased all the wartime output, with the revenues going to the Belgian government in exile. Diamond- and gold-mining also expanded during the war.  The British firm of Lever Bros. greatly expanded the palm oil business during the war, and output of cocoa, rice and cotton increased. New rail and steamship lines opened to handle the expanded export traffic. During the First World War (1914–1918), the system of "mandatory cultivation" (cultures obligatoires) was introduced, forcing Congolese peasants to grow certain cash crops (cotton, coffee, groundnuts) destined as commodities for export. Territorial administrators and state agronomists had the task of supervising and, if necessary, sanctioning those peasants who evaded the hated mandatory cultivation.
caption: Belgo-Congolese troops of the Force Publique after the Battle of Tabora, 19 September 1916
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