Georges Moulaert

Moulaert left for the Congo in January 1902 as a lieutenant of the Force Publique.[2] That year he was promoted to captain of the Force Publique.[1] He was assigned to the Fort de Shinkakasa, designed to protect the lower Congo, and completed the work on this structure. During leave in 1905 he drew up plans for additional works related to the fort.[2] During this first tour of duty he also experimented with wireless telegraphy and in 1903 took part in the mission to delimit the border between the Congo Free State and the French Congo in the Manianga (Bas Congo) region.[1]

Workers at the Port of Léopoldville c. 1905

In 1905 Moulaert became a colonial civil servant with the rank of interim district commissioner 1st class.[1] He was promoted to district commissioner 1st class in 1908.[2] He became commissioner general in 1910. He was in charge of the Stanley Pool / Moyen Congo District (Léopoldville). He reorganized the urban supply system of Léopoldville and laid the foundations for its subsequent urban development. He developed a new vision for the city layout, organized the "indigenous" quarter and designed the port.[1] In 1911 he requested that the port of Léopoldville, which was too close to the rapids, be moved upstream to the plain of Kinshasa. This was done twenty years later.[2] Moulaert criticized the Catholic Church's fermes-chapelles (farm chapels), mistreatment of the Congolese, seizure of land and failure to pay taxes. His reports were used by socialists in Belgium in their campaign against the Catholic Church in the Congo.[1]

In addition to his civil service duties, from 1907 to 1915 Moulaert was in charge of the Upper Congo navy.[2] He met Prince Albert in 1909, when the prince was making a long tour of what had just become the Belgian Congo. From 1911 the king's special fund financed several of Moulaert's projects for river traffic, and in later years Moulaert directly requested the king's support.[1] He created what grew into the beacon service and the hydrographic services. He built up the fleet, equipped the shipyard in Léopoldville and organized the lumber stations. He advocated coordination between different types of transport. This led to the establishment of Sociéte Nationale des Transports Fluviaux au Congo (Sonatra), Union Nationale des Transports Fluviaux (Unatra) and then Office des Transports Coloniaux (OTRACO) in 1935. He was promoted to Commandement du Génie (Commander, Engineers) in 1909.[2]

In 1913 Moulaert married Louise Beckers (born 1883), daughter of an engineer. They had three children.[1]

Baron Dhanis on Lake Tanganyika, 19 January 1916

In May 1914 Moulaert requested a second ten-year term in the colony, which was granted on 1 August 1914, a few days before the start of World War I (1914-1918). As commander of the Upper Congo Navy he organized and directed, from Léopoldville, the Belgian military expedition with the steamer Luxembourg which joined with the French in the Sangha operations in the Kamerun campaign against the Germans. In December 1914 he asked to be reinstated in the Belgian army so he could fight in Europe, petitioning the king directly, but was refused. In Léopoldville he argued about river and port infrastructure policy with his superior, the acting governor general Eugène Henry, and earned a reprimand.[1]

To the east of the colony the Belgians and British were fighting the Germans in German East Africa. In January 1916 Moulaert was given command of a unit on Lake Tanganyika. In April 1916 he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel of the Force publique.[1] He created a slipway and small port near the mouth of the Lukuga River. This was the haven for the small flotilla that won the Battle for Lake Tanganyika, and was the nucleus of the future city of Albertville.[2] Moulaert again became involved in controversy when he fell out with Geoffrey Spicer-Simson, commander of the British forces on the lake, and with his own seniors. Henry even asked the Minister Jules Renkin to dismiss Moulaert, who again asked to serve on the Belgian Front. He left Africa for Europe in March 1917 and took command of the 1st Battalion of the 5th Engineer Regiment of the 5th Army Division.[1] His battalion helped prepare the Houthulst Forest attack in the action of 22 October 1917.[2]

On 20 August 1917, while he was serving on the Yser front Moulaert was appointed deputy governor general of the province of Équateur. The governor general and the minister of the colonies had refused to appoint him to head Congo-Kasaï, where he had served in the past.[1] He embarked for the Congo in November 1917. On arrival in Coquilhatville Moulaert visited all the centers of the province and tried to address problems related to administrative organization, development of urban centers and exploitation of natural resources. However, he was frustrated by the central bureaucracy. In 1919 he left the Congo before a meeting of the Government Council, since he did not think provincial governors could achieve anything there.[2] Moulaert was succeeded as deputy governor general by Alphonse Engels (1880–1962).[3]