Charles Tombeur
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Baron Charles Tombeur de Tabora |
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|---|---|
Portrait photograph of Tombeur
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| Born |
4 May 1867 Liège, Belgium |
| Died | 2 December 1947 (aged 80) Brussels, Belgium |
| Allegiance |
 Belgium
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| Years of service | 1887–1920 |
| Rank | Lieutenant-general |
| Commands held | Force Publique |
| Battles/wars | |
| Awards | Baron (1926) |
Lieutenant General Charles Tombeur (1867–1947) was a Belgian military officer and colonial civil servant. As well as holding several major administrative positions in the Belgian Congo, he is particularly know for his role as commander of the Belgian colonial military, the Force Publique, during the first years of World War I. His military career culminated in the capture of Tabora in German East Africa in September 1916.
Tombeur was born in Liège, Belgium in 1867 and enlisted in the Belgian Army at the age of 16. He was later admitted to the Belgian Royal Military Academy in Brussels, graduating in 1898. In 1902, he enlisted for service in the Congo Free State, a quasi-independent state controlled by Belgium's monarch Leopold II, as a junior officer in the Force Publique. He remained in position through the Belgian annexation of the Free State as the Belgian Congo until 1909. Returning to Belgium, he served briefly as aide-de-camp to King Albert I from 1909 to 1912. In 1912, Tombeur returned to the Congo as an civilian inspector general (inspecteur d'état) where he became the senior administrator for Katanga Province and presided over the first years of the city of Élisabethville (modern-day Lubumbashi).
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