Walter Ford - Belgian Africa’s Total War

The Belgian Congo, showing chief resources. Inset: Belgium on the same scale.

WALTER FORD with a Foreword by

THE RT. HON. THE VISCOUNT CRANBORNE

Lord Privy Seal, lately Secretary of State for the Colonies

PUBLISHED FOR

THE BELGIAN INFORMATION OFFICE

25, Eaton Place, London, S.W.i BY

EVANS BROTHERS LIMITED, LONDON

PAGE

The story of the contribution of the peoples of the Colonial Empire of Belgium in the time of her most grievous adversity is not only a refutation of those who, in ignorance of the facts, or even in spite of them, assert that there is something inferior about colonial status. It is an inspiration to those nations who, like ourselves, should be more properly described as blessed with the privilege of colonial responsibilities.

Nothing has been more remarkable in the present World War than the unbroken record of fidelity of the various colonies of the Allied Nations to their mother-countries. It must, indeed, have been a sad disappointment to the dictators to find that the further their plans of aggression appeared to be proceeding on the road of success, the more resolute did the colonies of the free nations of Europe now temporarily under their heel become in the support of their oppressed mother-countries.

The Colonial Empires of the 20th century are as far in advance of those of the 19th as were those of the 19th in front of the Colonial Empires of the 18th and earlier centuries. Rule by conquest for exploitation has long since ceased to be traceable in 20th century colonial enterprise. To-day the freedom loving peoples of the colonies of the free and Allied Nations are fighting Hitler and Hitlerism because they know that their own liberties depend upon the survival of the liberties of their mother-countries. They are our partners in a struggle for freedom of which the colonial link is a guarantee and an assurance, and their unswerving loyalty is the proof that they are fully conscious of this essential fact.

Our Belgian friends and allies have something to tell the world in which they may well feel a legitimate pride.

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Belgian Africa has not been called upon to endure, and we hope it will never be called upon to endure the miseries of foreign occupation. But it is making, as this most interesting and valuable book shows, a vital contribution to the final victory. It has become one of the storehouses and arsenals of democracy. From the copper, tin and many other raw materials of the Congo, are being forged the weapons for the liberation of the Mother Country and all other oppressed peoples; her foodstuffs are helping to sustain the United Nations in their hour of trial; they will pour out in a great mass to feed Europe when Europe is free again. The armed forces of the Congo stand shoulder to shoulder with their allies. Long live Belgium and the Belgian Congo!

Cranborne.

Wealth of the Congo controlled from London

Though the whole of Belgium is at present in the hands of the enemy, the Belgian Government in London still commands all the wealth of a region eighty times more extensive than the mother-country, comprising a twelfth of the African continent.

The Belgian Congo, rich in mines, forests, plantations, and animal life, exported goods to the value of 2,487 million francs (17 million) in 1937, 1,897 million (13 million) in 1938, and 1,732 million (again 13 million at the higher rate of exchange then ruling) in 1939.

The vast resources of this area have been placed unreservedly at the disposal of the Allied war effort. Everything is being done to raise the output of strategic materials, and with great success, as will bc described in detail later. In particular the production of tin, cotton, and industrial diamonds rises continually.

Unique Difficulties Surmounted

The ingenuity expended and the immense difficulties overcome to achieve this are not easily realised.

The old familiar problems that confronted European and American countries under the impact of war struck at the Congo too, but there they came in a fantastically enhanced form, luxuriating as it were in that tropic zone like the English rabbit nuisance suddenly became a vast menace under the Australian sun.

England had to reduce imports of luxuries and non-essentials gradually, in order to save shipping space and foreign currency; but about half of the Congo's imports were cut off at one stroke in the overwhelming days of the 10th to

28th May, 1940. Exporters in England had to adjust themselves to the loss of valuable markets in Germany at first, and then successively in one country and another ; but with the fall of Belgium, three-quarters of the Congos markets were suddenly gone. In those eighteen days, many a great Congo enterprise lost in fact the whole of its markets, directorate, reserves, and much more. Companies were, so to speak, decapitated, for in some cases the Brussels office of a great colonial company would settle general policy, arrange purchases of plant, machinery, equipment and supplies, finance them, and be entirely responsible for finding customers. The management in the Congo would simply produce as efficiently as possible up to capacity, or to a limit dictated by market fluctuations or marketing agreements, and ship the product to the parent company in Belgium, who did the rest.

The recovery from such handicaps has been truly remarkable.

Whole-hearted Co-operation in Allied War Effort

The whole-hearted and ungrudging spirit in which the full resources of the Congo have been harnessed to the Allied war machine was made plain in a speech by the Governor-General, Monsieur Ryckmans, at the opening of the Government Council on 4th February, 1941, in which he admitted that certain private interests had been disappointed in the Anglo-Belgian Finance and Purchase Agreements of that year. Some were even frankly asking, he said, whether the Belgian negotiators concerned were less able than others, or whether Great Britain were not generously disposed towards Belgium.

I want to make this quite clear, said Monsieur Ryckmans. Great Britain refused us nothing, either in the economic or the financial field. If we gained no greater

benefit, it was because we asked none. If we asked none, it was because we were not there to sell out at the top price like mercenaries, but to pool all our resources like good Allies.

Great Britain, the Governor-General went on, had thrown all her wealth into the struggle, and was offering up the blood of her sons, not only in self-defence, but also to liberate smaller nations. What the Belgian colonies could give would be given without haggling, and nothing would be asked in returnnothing, that is, but victory and freedom!