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Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. King Leopold II of Belgium attempted to persuade the government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely uncharted Congo Basin. The Belgian government's ambivalence resulted in Leopold's creating a colony on his own account.
The Belgian Congo was directly involved in the two world wars. During World War I, an initial stand-off between the Force Publique and the German colonial army in German East Africa (Tanganyika) turned into open warfare with a joint Anglo-Belgian invasion of German colonial territory in 1916 and 1917 during the East African campaign.
Belgian rule in the Congo was based on the "colonial trinity" (trinité coloniale) of state, missionary and private company interests. During the 1940s and 1950s, the Congo experienced extensive urbanization and the administration aimed to make it into a "model colony".
The independence of the British, French and Dutch colonies in Asia shortly after 1945 had little immediate effect in the Congo, but in the United Nations pressure on Belgium (as on other colonial powers) increased. Belgium had ratified article 73 of the United Nations Charter, which advocated self-determination, and both superpowers put ...
E. D. Morel was one of the key British activists for a Congo free from Belgian rule. Once the US became aware of the occurrences in the Congo, Morel began the Congo Reform Association. One of the methods Morel used to make the world more aware of the atrocities in the Congo during Leopold's rule was through the press.
Colonial officials, including the Governor-General, Pierre Ryckmans, in Léopoldville in 1938. Following World War I, Belgium possessed two colonies in Africa: the Belgian Congo, which it had controlled since its annexation of the Congo Free State in 1908, and Ruanda-Urundi, which was formerly the Northwestern portion of German East Africa that had been taken over by Belgium in 1916 and was ...
From 1908 until 1960, the Belgian Congo was a Belgian colony in Central Africa. In the first 23 years of Belgium’s ruling from 1885 to 1960, it is estimated that up 10 million Congolese died ...
The Belgian Congo, today the Democratic Republic of the Congo, highlighted on a map of Africa. Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. King Leopold II of Belgium, frustrated by Belgium's lack of international power and prestige, attempted to persuade the Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unvisited Congo Basin.