Between 1945 and 1960, Belgium continued to organise the "Force Publique" as an entity cut off from the people that it policed, with recruits serving in tribally mixed units and no more than a quarter of each company coming from the province in which they served. Tightly disciplined and drilled, the "Force Publique" impressed visitors to the Belgian Congo with its smart appearance, but a culture of separateness, encouraged by its Belgian officers, led to brutal and unrestrained behaviour when the external restraints of colonial administration were lifted in 1960. The infamous "chicote" was only abolished in 1955. The Belgian Government made no effort to train Congolese commissioned officers until the very end of the Colonial period, and there were only about 20 African officer cadets at military schools in Belgium on the eve of Independence. A separate gendarmerie was organised in 1959 drawn from the Territorial Service Troops of the "FP". By July 1959, a total of 40 companies and 28 platoons of gendarmerie were either formed or in training.