In 1908 the Belgian state took over from Leopold II responsibility for the former Congo Independent State. This huge territory encompassed great ecological contrasts: savanna and woodland in the north and south, equatorial rainforest in the centre, and high mountains and plateaux in the east and south-east. In Belgian Africa the legislative and executive powers were not responsible to the society they governed: this was as true of Belgian settlers as of Africans. The First World War profoundly altered the relationship between Belgium and the Belgian Congo. Belgium herself was almost entirely occupied by Germany throughout the war; her colony took on a vital strategic role. Belgian capital took advantage of the transfer at par of a weak currency into an expanding economy, and realised profits in a strong currency. It was African farmers who suffered most from the depression. By 1935 prices paid to cash-crop producers were about half what they had been in 1929.