soldiers training in Wales, 1942 In 1936,
Belgium had declared its neutrality in the event of war in Europe. Nevertheless, in May 1940, Germany launched a surprise attack during its wider
blitzkrieg against France. Belgian forces resisted the invasion in the
Battle of Belgium for 18 days, but the Belgian army and its commander,
King Leopold III, surrendered on 28 May 1940. A few Belgian soldiers
escaped via Dunkirk, but the King and most of the army were made prisoners of war. Many remained imprisoned until the end of World War II.
Germany occupied Belgium and installed a military government. The occupiers imposed harsh taxes and strict rationing. Hundreds of thousands of Belgians laboured in Germany during the war, most as part of
Germany's forced labour programme. Around 25,000 Jews and Romani were deported during
the Holocaust in Belgium, most passing through the
Mechelen transit camp. Nearly all lost their lives in the Nazi death camps. A number of
Nazi collaborationist groups operated in
Flanders and
Wallonia; other Belgians collaborated through the national administration and the
Flemish and
Walloon Legions of the
Waffen-SS. In opposition, the
Belgian Resistance comprised numerous groups that fought against the occupation in various ways.
Groupe G ran a successful campaign of sabotage against railroads, while other groups worked to protect Jewish people from deportation or help downed Allied airmen escape from the country. Belgium's elected government fled the occupation, relocating to France and then London, where it established the
Belgian government in exile under
Hubert Pierlot and the
Free Belgian Forces under
Victor van Strydonck de Burkel. Belgian forces participated in the
D-Day campaign, the
Italian campaign, the
landings on Walcheren Island, and the
Battle of the Atlantic. Britain and the United States targeted occupied Belgium with
strategic bombing, which caused many civilian casualties. The
Liberation of Belgium began in September 1944 when Allied forces, including Free Belgians, entered the country. German troops counterattacked in December with the
Ardennes Offensive; the failure of that offensive forced all German troops out of Belgium by February 1945. German
V-bomb attacks continued until the end of the war. Post-war Belgium joined
NATO and the
Benelux customs union, while accusations of collaboration by King Leopold sparked the political crisis called the
Royal Question.
Belgian Congo '' soldiers leaving the Congo for the
East African campaign The
Belgian Colonial Empire stayed loyal to the Allies: after Belgium's surrender, both the
Belgian Congo and
Ruanda-Urundi remained under the authority of the
Belgian government in exile and the
Free Belgian Forces. The Congo played an important role as an economic asset, producing large amounts of raw materials for the Allies, notably gold and uranium. The nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were made with uranium from Congolese mines. Congolese troops also fought as the
Force Publique, which saw combat against Italian forces in the
East African campaign. Medical troops were also brought on the east-Asian front. The colonial government's demands on the Congolese population provoked strikes, riots and other forms of resistance. These were repressed, often violently, by the colonial authorities. The Congo's comparative prosperity during the conflict led to a wave of post-war immigration from Belgium, bringing the white population to 100,000 by 1950, as well as a period of industrialisation and urbanisation that continued throughout the 1950s.
Ruanda-Urundi Belgium's
mandate of
Ruanda-Urundi consisted of the modern nations of
Rwanda and
Burundi. There, the war years were marked by the
Ruzagayura famine. Though initially caused by a drought, the famine's effects were made worse by the Belgian war effort as authorities tried to send agricultural produce to the Congo to support the Allies. The famine killed between a fifth and a third of the colony's population and displaced many thousands more. == Bhutan ==