Belgian Army

“ Germany does not want an enemy in Belgium. It is only by the force of events that she has been forced, by reason of the military measures of France, to take the grave determination of entering Belgium and occupying Liége as a base for her further military operations. Now that the Belgian army has, in a heroic resistance against a great superiority, maintained the honour of its arms in the most brilliant fashion, the German Government prays his Majesty the King and the Belgian Government to avert from Belgium the further horrors of war. ”

“ For the Belgian soldiers no longer sang, or made merry in the evening. A young Brussels corporal in our party suddenly broke into sobbing when he heard the chorus of "Tipperary" float over the channel from a transport of untried British lads. The Belgians are a race of children whose feelings have been hurt. The pathos of the Belgian army is like the pathos of an orphan-asylum: it is unconscious.
They are very lonely, the loneliest men I have known. Back of the fighting Frenchman, you sense the gardens and fields of France, the strong, victorious national will. ”

“ If it be told how the new Belgian army, reorganised and re-equipped after the terrible ordeal on the Yser, is at the present moment much stronger than at the beginning of the war, how it has been able lately to extend its front in Flanders, and how some of its units have rendered valuable help to the cause of the Allies in East Africa and even in Galicia, the story sounds like a fairy tale. There is, in the history of this unequal struggle, the true ring of legendary heroism ”

“ KING ALBERT AT THE HEAD OF THE HEROIC SOLDIERS OF BELGIUM
It is universally agreed that the Belgian monarch was no figurehead general but a real leader of his troops. These were the men who, facing annihilation, astonished the world by opposing the German military machine successfully enough to allow France to get her armies into shape and prevent the immediate taking of Paris that was planned by Germany.
The heroic defense of the Belgian army at Liége against the Army of the Meuse delayed the operation of Germany’s plans and in all probability saved Paris. ”

“ When all is said, it must be acknowledged that the standard of training and war efficiency was higher in our troops than in the Belgian. This applied particularly to the leaders and the Staff; and, in spite of the drastic experiences of the Belgian Army during August and September, our own higher ranks certainly possessed a wider and more extensive experience in the field.
It can indeed hardly be doubted that a Division composed of two British infantry brigades and one Belgian would probably have done more, either in attack or defence, than such a unit composed entirely of Belgian troops. ”

“ Over and over, as I saw the Belgian Army, I was impressed with its cheerfulness under unparalleled conditions.
Most of them have been fighting since Liege. Of a hundred and fifty thousand men only fifty thousand remain. Their ration is meagre compared with the English and the French, their clothing worn and ragged. They are holding the inundated district between Nieuport and Dixmude, a region of constant struggle for water-soaked trenches, where outposts at the time I was there were being fought for through lakes of icy water filled with barbed wire, where their wounded fall and drown. ”

“ The first division of the Belgian army, which had been the last to leave Antwerp, and had been engaged170 in rendering the place useless to the besiegers, retreated fighting with the Germans north of the Scheldt a succession of rearguard actions.
In the face of impossible odds, the 1st British Naval Brigade, now without the support of their heavy guns, were forced, fighting tenaciously, across the Dutch frontier at Huist. A division of the Belgian army were also compelled to cross the boundary into Holland. ”

“ The Belgian army peace footing is 3,542 officers and 44,061 men, with a war strength estimated at from 300,000 to 350,000. The infantry is armed with the Mauser rifle, the artillery with a shielded Krupp quick-fire piece of 7.5-centimeter caliber.
In 1913 the Netherlands had in its standing army 1,543 officers and 21,412 men and 152 guns. On a war footing it could probably be raised to 270,000 men. The small arm is the Mannlicher rifle and carbine, the field gun is the same as that of Belgium. ”

“ Simultaneously with the tremendous effort which resulted in its glorious resurrection, the Belgian Army has done wonders along this front under peculiarly trying conditions, by dint of hard work and stoical endurance. Amid mud and water its soldiers have raised fortifications which are models of strength and ingenuity. So that the Belgian front, despite the unparalleled difficulties to be overcome, is admittedly among those whose defences have been constructed in the most solid possible manner. It is, in fact, a vast fortress, extending over many square kilometres. ”

“ It was addressed to successful ambuscades; to fighting in open order; to rapid changes of position akin to guerilla tactics; to the defence of trenches, canals, and bridges. The Belgian soldier was asked to be resourceful and alert. If on manœuvres the army made none of the imposing show associated with mimic warfare in Germany, for the purposes it was designed to serve it was excellent. There could be no comparison, perhaps, between the parade smartness of a German and a Belgian regiment of infantry, but in essentials and for fighting on his own ground the Belgian was an easy first. ”

“ That is the ever-present thought of an army of boys whose parents are living in doomed houses back of German trenches. It is louder than the near guns, the noise of the guns to come that will tear at Bruges and level the Tower of St. Nicholas. That is what the future holds for the Belgian. He is only at the beginning of his loss. The victory of his cause is the death of his people. ”

“ The rapidity of their progress is evidenced by the fact that when I passed round west of Brussels to-day, advance cavalry patrols were already reported in the neighbourhood of Oudenarde (about 35 miles west of Brussels, towards Lille) .
It will be seen that, on paper at least, the Belgian army is in no pleasant position. If the Germans continue to press northward on their left flank, the Belgians will constantly have to be wheeling to their own left front, to face them on the east. They will be forced to retreat until they rest upon Malines and Antwerp. ”

“ The result is a small but complete and highly efficient organism. The Belgian army consists to-day of six infantry and two cavalry divisions—a total of about 120,000 men—with perhaps another 80,000 being drilled in the various training camps at the rear. It has, of course, no great reserves to fall back upon, for the greater part of the nation is imprisoned, but the King and his generals, by unremitting energy, have produced a force which is as well disciplined and as completely equipped as can [256] be found anywhere on the front. ”

“ The German armies entered Belgium, and soon the roar of the guns was heard almost from one end of the little nation to the other. King Albert at once put on his uniform and took to the field with the Belgian army. The Germans laid siege to the Belgian fortress of Liège, expecting to overpower it easily. They advanced against it in mass formation, only to be met with such a hail of machine gun fire that they numbered their dead by thousands. The little Kingdom of Belgium had thrust a stick between the cogs of the great German war machine, and by doing so saved the world from a German victory. ”

“ If the organization of the national defense of Belgium had been completed, the Belgian army would have been probably of a strength of over 600,000 men, well trained, instead of the poorly trained army of about 160,000 combatants equipped only for parade, and the story of that part of the Great War would have been another.
The German cavalry entered Belgium and pushed on ahead, and a few stray shots were fired, but the first Belgian town of Limburg, on the road to Liege, was occupied without attack. ”

“ The Belgian Army could, and later did, fall back to the north on Louvain, Brussels, and Antwerp, and so be directly on the German flank and in a position to strike at the line of communications. It was therefore necessary to subjugate all of Belgium either by destroying the Belgian Army or driving it before them in their advance.
Thus, the German advance was not only doomed to delay, but at least 100,000 troops were needed to garrison a hostile country and to protect the life lines running to the rear. ”

“ At the order of General Joffre, our troops and the English troops have taken up their position on the covering line, which they would not have quitted had not the splendid courage of the Belgian army permitted us to enter Belgium. The covering line is intact. Our cavalry has not suffered. Our artillery has proved its superiority. Our officers and our soldiers are in splendid physical and moral condition.
As a result of the orders given, the struggle will change its aspect for several days. The French army will for a time remain on the defensive. ”

“ Belgian staff officers with their high-crowned, gilt-braided caps went flying by in their cars. There always seemed a great many Belgian staff officers back of the Belgian army in the restaurants and cafés. Habit is strong, even in war. They did not often miss their déjeuners. On the Dixmude line all that remained of the active Belgian Army was in a death struggle in the rain and mud. ”

“ It wishes thus to honour the courageous defenders of the place and the whole Belgian army, with which since this morning the French army has been shedding its blood on the battlefield.
In the view of a very high military authority, [Pg 58] the severe check inflicted by the Belgian garrison of Liège on the German VII. Army Corps was of cardinal importance. The German General Staff made no secret of the fact that they looked forward to an easy task in marching through Belgium. An officer in the German War Office recently stated that they counted on the benevolent neutrality of Belgium at worst ”

“ Louvain and other towns in Belgium had been sacked by the Germans, pillaged with fire and sword, until hardly one stone was left upon another. And now the fighting was again in Belgium, that little buffer state which, ever since she became a nation, has always been the battleground of European wars.
The Belgian army, in spite of the terrible havoc wrought upon it by the heavy German guns, was still fighting desperately and had no mind to withdraw from the conflict. Possibly Belgium had more at stake than any other country in the war. ”

“ It may be said that, generally speaking, they offered, on “the interior front,” as good a resistance as the soldiers on the Yser front.
Their cities were occupied by German garrisons; their houses sometimes filled with German officers or requisitioned in order to serve as a German Casino or Soldatenheim. Every month, at the local Kommandantur, the young men of age to bear arms, the former civic guards, etc., must present themselves. A very severe control was established in order to prevent the young men from escaping to Holland and rejoining the Belgian army. ”

“ Success was missed by the Allies because it had been a more urgent task to break the German offensive on the Marne than to save the remnants of Belgian soil and assist the detached Belgian Army; and the whole of our available force had been sent to the vital spot. Isolation is always dubious strategy, but there were sound as well as natural motives behind the decision which led the Belgian Army after the German occupation of Brussels on 20 August to fall back north-westwards on Antwerp instead of southwards to join the Allies at Mons and Charleroi. ”

“ The Duc de Broglie, in the meanwhile, had [Pg 139] instructed La Tour-Maubourg, the French minister at Brussels, to negotiate a convention for the entry of a French army into Belgium. The French government had always insisted that the operations, for the reduction of the citadel of Antwerp, must be carried out exclusively by its own troops. The Belgian army was to be entirely separated from them, and was to do no more than hold itself in readiness to repel an invasion, should the Dutch make an incursion across their frontiers. ”

“ To give a better idea of the work imposed on the Belgian Army it will be convenient to summarise what, in the present war, is implied by organising the defences of a sector. The power of modern artillery and explosives, which are able to destroy the most massive fortifications, renders it impossible to rest content with a single position, however strong it may be. Hence the absolute necessity for extending the state of defence to a deep zone and for creating [Pg 13] several successive positions. ”

“ I had seen their first army wiped out; there came a time when I no longer met the faces I had learned to know at Termonde and Antwerp and Alost. A new army of boys has dug itself in at the Yser, and the same wastage by gun-fire and disease is at work on them. One wonders with the Belgians if the price they pay for honor is not too high. There is a sadness in the eyes of Belgian boy soldiers that is not easy to face. Are we quite worthy of their sacrifice? ”

“ The Belgian force actually under arms consists of only about 40,000 soldiers, but it can be raised to 200,000, if there is a danger of war, by calling out the "reserves," or men who have been trained, but are no longer with their regiments. In order to keep up this force of 40,000 it is necessary to find about 13,000 new men each year. But the Belgians do not like to be soldiers, and it is very difficult to persuade them to join the army. ”