FORwARD – Force Publique: Analyzing the Remains and Dynamics of Military Culture between Colony and Metropole (ca. 1878-1994)

Today, militarism and armed violence remain part of everyday life for many people in (eastern) Congo and the Great Lakes region. The structures and institutions that sustain these deadly dynamics did not emerge in a postcolonial vacuum. By taking the Force Publique as its central research focus, this project helps to understand contemporary warfare in Belgium’s former colonies within a broader historical framework.
While the Force Publique is well known for its brutal role in the Red Rubber atrocities, its longer social and cultural history has rarely been examined as part of a wider ‘Belgian’ military culture. Traditionally, this racialized colonial force has been portrayed either as a simple replica of the Belgian Army or as an idiosyncratic curiosity in the tropics. This project aims to move beyond these simplistic, binary interpretations by asking a straightforward but often overlooked question: did the Belgian Army and the Force Publique influence one another—and if so, in what ways?
To answer this, the research follows the movements of soldiers, ideas, and military practices between Belgium, Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. By tracing these circulations in personnel files, military journals and court cases and by examining the custodial history of the army’s archival remnants, the project critically assesses the Force Publique’s self-representation as a ‘Belgian’ army. It focusses on how colonial realities, local conditions, African collectivities and individual soldiers shaped the “national” meaning of this military institution far beyond the reach of the metropole