Britain and France guarantee the integrity of Belgium's colonies

On 19 September 1914 the governments of Britain and France guaranteed Belgium the integrity of its colonies. This concerned above all the Belgian Congo, a vast possession in Central Africa. The British minister delivered a note on the matter to the Belgian government, which, with most of the country under German occupation, was then in Antwerp.

In August Belgium had tried to keep Central Africa out of the war. Its proposal to neutralise the region failed, although in the end Germany accepted it too. When the fighting reached the Congo’s borderlands, Brussels decided that the colony had to defend itself and cooperate with the Allies. The Belgians feared, however, that at the peace table their fate would depend on the will of the great powers. The Allied guarantee was meant to dispel these fears: whatever the course of the war in Europe, Belgium would not lose its African possessions.

The commitment was renewed in 1916, when the Entente powers, in the Declaration of Sainte-Adresse, promised to restore Belgium’s independence and compensate it for its losses, and soon extended this promise to the Congo. The Belgian colonial troops, the Force Publique, fought in Kamerun and German East Africa. After the war Belgium kept the Congo and received a mandate over the former German territories of Ruanda and Urundi.