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1918 American poster used to encourage the purchase of War Bonds. The history of Belgium in World War I traces Belgium's role between the German invasion in 1914, through the continued military resistance and occupation of the territory by German forces to the armistice in 1918, as well as the role it played in the international war effort ...
The Belgian government ordered a general mobilisation on 31 July 1914. [ 9 ] During the early stages of the 1914 campaign, the military had a strength of nearly 220,000 men: 120,500 regular soldiers. [ 6 ] 65,000 reservists assigned to fortress units [ 6 ] 46,000 militia of the Garde Civique [ 6 ] 18,000 new volunteers.
Belgium’s war aims were a direct consequence of the way in which the country was created. The treaties finalized in 1839 left Belgium with part of Luxembourg and Limburg, and also left the Scheldt access to Antwerp under Dutch control. During World War I, Belgian leaders decided to demand changes to these borders and also to obtain substantial reparations for four years of brutal occupation ...
Oct 11, 2024 · The Treaty of Versailles (1919), ending World War I, abolished Belgium’s obligatory neutrality and returned the cantons of Eupen and Malmédy to its territory. In 1920 a treaty of military assistance was signed with France. In 1921 an economic union was concluded with Luxembourg that tied the currencies of Belgium and Luxembourg together.
- Introduction
- Belgium on The Eve of The War
- Invasion
- 1915-1916: Settling Into A War Routine
- German Designs on Belgium, 1914-1918
- 1917-1918: War-Weariness and Renewed Resolve
- Aftermath
- Brief Conclusion
During the war, the importance of “Belgium” as an issue inspired heated discussions. In a 1928 monograph, the historian Henri Pirenne (1862-1935) presented the restoration of Belgium as the vindication of the liberal idea. Though no such synthesis was attempted in the next three-quarter century, the 1950s through the 1980s saw groundbreaking monogr...
In 1914, Belgium was the most densely populated state in the world, with as many inhabitants as Canada (7.6 million) on a small landmass.1 Condensed and complex, it attracted considerable attention: the German historian Karl Lamprecht (1856-1915) called it a “microcosm of Europe”; the French sociologist Henri Charriaut (1873) called it a compressed...
As early as 26 July, German Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke (1848-1916) drafted an ultimatum to the Belgian government, demanding the right of passage for German troops en route to France. On 2 August, the German envoy in Brussels delivered the ultimatum; the Belgians had twenty-four hours to respond. In a nocturnal meeting, the government and Al...
A Segmented Society-at-war
Because of invasion, occupation, and mass flight, Belgium-at-war was a constellation of dispersed constituencies, strapped for cash, out of their depth, and in only intermittent touch with each other, which led to misunderstandings. The army, the occupied civilians, the refugees, the government, and the king experienced the war in different worlds. The army held the Yser front in the northwestern corner of Belgium, where the king, its de facto commander, also resided. The cabinet and its thre...
The Situation in November 1914
In late November 1914, Belgium, as a belligerent, was in bad shape. On the Yser, the 52,000 men of the field army (down from 117,500) were lacking in all resources and desperate at the lack of news from their loved ones. The nearness of the intensely popular royal couple – Elisabeth of Bavaria, Queen of the Belgians (1876-1965) adopted a persona as nurse – provided some consolation. Meanwhile, the Belgian government (now a government “of national unity” with the addition of one Socialist and...
Front
Through 1915-1916, the Belgian army regrouped.13 It dug in – or, rather, in this waterlogged terrain, it used sand-bags to buttress its front, which extended to thirty-two kilometres from June 1916. In August 1915, the troops received new khaki uniforms; later on, Adrian helmets. The hinterland was built up with a portable light-railway system, telephone lines, barracks, and other amenities; medical and other services improved markedly. All of this was largely on credit from the Entente (as w...
Meanwhile, German plans for Belgium took further shape. Imperial Germany had not gone to war to capture Belgium, but it became a war aim once stalemate set in. Even so, designs on Belgium fluctuated with the military situation, and no consensus existed among imperial decision-makers. Yet two conditions remained in force until the last moment. First...
For all that occupied civilians largely rejected activism, the consolations of patriotism were wearing thin. In 1916, Brussels celebrated the forbidden national holiday of 21 July; no such effort was made a year later. In occupied Belgium as elsewhere, 1917 marked a crisis of war legitimacy. The failed allied offensive on the Somme, the fall of Buc...
The end of the war meant the reuniting of the different segments of Belgium-at-war; the return of the Belgian state; and the return – or reconquest – of legitimacy through a renegotiated social contract. Starting before the Armistice, King Albert entered a succession of just-liberated Belgian cities, from Ostend – where the royal couple made an imp...
Belgium’s war experience, and the lessons that could be drawn from it, went, as it were, underground. Yet, as a segmented society-at-war, the particularities of this war experience shed a specific light on the war’s dynamics of cultural and social mobilization. Those particularities are also instructive with regard to the security conundrums of sma...
Sep 15, 2019 · Moreover, the Belgian army of the end of 1914 was barely holding on. There were only 52,000 of the original field army of 117,500, with a deficit of 2,000 officers, a severe lack of ammunition, exhausted artillery, and tired men in ragged uniforms. The Belgians and Germans were separated by the water, with some additional flooding in March 1918.
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Between August 1914 and November 1918 the Belgian army took part in the First World War against the German aggressor. This article describes the way the Belgian army fought this war that began disastrously for Belgium, with 95 percent of the territory being occupied within three months. Despite a strong and widespread collective will to liberate the country, the military strategy remained on ...
