Het dagelijkse leven van de Belgische soldaat aan de IJzer [Living at the front 14/18. • Poison gas The Flemish battle on the Yser River], Koksijde 2000. • Destruction of Kalisz is licensed under: CC by-NC-ND 3.0 Germany - Attribution, Non-commercial, No Derivative Works. The Grand Strategy was based on Belgium’s neutrality. Published in May 1915, the Report provided elaborate details and first-hand accounts, including excerpts from diaries and letters found on captured German soldiers. This is where most of the brutal fighting in WW1 took place. 104-127; Tasnier, M./Van Overstraeten, Raoul: La Belgique et la Guerre. [27] Despite these efforts, some 5,000 dissatisfied Flemish soldiers joined the clandestine Frontbeweging, a group claiming more rights for the Flemish-speaking population, which complicated matters because French was the official language of the military administration, command and control and training. Haag, Henri: Le comte Charles de Broqueville, Ministre d’Etat, et les luttes pour le pouvoir (1910-1940), volume 1, Brussels 1990, pp. Austria, in turn, appealed to Germany. • Battle of Asiago • Egyptian Revolution (1919) Remember that WW1 was not just fought in Europe. While farmers and coal miners kept up their routines, many larger businesses largely shut down, as did the universities. [20], The prewar Catholic ministry remained in office with Charles de Broqueville continuing as prime minister and also taking on the war portfolio. During the conflict 328,000 soldiers served in the Belgian army. The King even accepted the creation of the “Army Group Flanders”, composed of the Belgian army (170,000 men) alongside British and French divisions. • Lithuanian Wars of Independence (1918–1920) • Cryptography The article begins with an examination of the situation in 1914 before discussing the Grand and Military Strategy of 1914-1918. The declaration it makes is rather incredible: It is to my very great regret that the German troops find themselves compelled to cross the Belgian frontier. Recent research that systematically studied German Army sources has demonstrated that they in fact encountered no irregular forces in Belgium during the first two and a half months of the invasion. • Easter Rising (1916) Another solution was the use of captured German weaponry.[21]. The army had barely survived the Battle of the Yser in October 1914. 1909-1934 [Albert I. The suffering of Flanders is still remembered by Flemish organizations during the yearly Yser pilgrimage and "Wake of the Yser" in Diksmuide at the monument of The Yser tower. [42] They were successful: between 28 September and 11 November 1918 the “Army Group Flanders” advanced some sixty kilometers despite fierce German resistance. • • Vietnam When Britain entered World War I, it was primarily in reaction to Germany invading Belgium. As a result, the Belgian army had no choice but to maintain a defensive military strategy for four years. The Belgian government mobilised its armed forces on 31 July and a state of heightened alert (Kriegsgefahr) was proclaimed in Germany. 185-186. It also relied on France and Great Britain for weapon deliveries, but the Belgian army was not a priority to these countries. To avoid a rift, the King did make some concessions to the French and British. The CRB became a veritable independent republic of relief, with its own flag, navy, factories, mills, and railroads. Great Britain became reluctant to support the CRB, preferring instead to emphasize Germany's obligation to supply the relief; Winston Churchill led a military faction that considered the Belgian relief effort "a positive military disaster." The Minerva armoured car were used for reconnaissance, long distance messaging and carrying out raids and small scale engagements. Belgium was given much less than it wanted, with a total payment of three billion German gold marks (about $500 million);[citation needed] the money did not stimulate the lethargic Belgian economy of the 1920s. • • India From top to bottom there was a firm belief that the Belgians had unleashed illegal saboteurs (called "Francs-tireurs") and that civilians had tortured and maltreated German soldiers. Les opérations de l’Armée belge , in: BBSM (April 1932), pp. Searching for a forgotten battle], Soesterberg 2009; Défense de la position fortifiée de Namur 1914, Brussels 1930. In WW1 the Belgium forts of Liege and Namur lasted a combined two weeks, effectively costing the Germans between 3 and 5 days. Therefore the King refused to consider himself and his army an ally to the French and British (he preferred to use the term “Guarantors”), although this was de facto what was happening on the battlefield where Belgian, British and French soldiers fought side by side against the Central Powers. De hel van het IJzerfront [The ‘Trench of the Death’. • • Southern Rhodesia The government was broadened to include all parties, as politics were suspended for the duration; of course, no elections were possible. [6][7] In the spring of 1915, German authorities started construction on the Wire of Death, a lethal electric fence along the Belgian-Dutch border which would claim the lives of between 2,000 to 3,000 Belgian refugees trying to escape the occupied country. The government was based in the French city of Le Havre, but communications with the people behind German lines were difficult and roundabout. Les opérations de l’Armée belge, in: BBSM (April 1929), pp. His family followed his example as well, serving to the best of their ability wherever they could. The key player in determining the Grand Strategy was Albert I, King of the Belgians (1875-1934). World War I was fought between two major alliances of countries: the Allied Powers and the Central Powers. • Revolutions and interventions in Hungary (1918–1920) The Yser region was laid waste. This contribution aims to explain how the Belgian army transformed into a more effective army by 1918. Deguise, Victor: La Défense de la Position fortifiée d’Anvers en 1914 (20 août-10 octobre), Brussels 1921. • French-Armenian They were in neither war because in both wars the Germans had plans in place to neutralize those forts quick and decisively. • Russian Revolution (1917), • Ukrainian Civil War (1917–1921) The Germans could only be stopped after three months in a far corner of Belgium. The first line of trenches was stuffed with infantrymen, a strategy that reflected the linear tactical thinking that was dominant in 1914. Mark Connelly, "The Ypres League and the Commemoration of the Ypres Salient, 1914–1940,", Equipment of the Republic of Singapore Air Force, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2014, Articles incorporating text from Wikipedia, File:11 juli 1917- flamingantische soldaten vieren de Vlaamse feestdag.jpg, "German Request for Free Passage through Belgium, and the Belgian Response, 2–3 August 1914", http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/belgium_germanrequest.htm, http://histclo.com/essay/war/ww1/cou/w1c-bel.html, http://www.bunkergordel.be/14.023%20De%20Dodendraad.htm, http://books.google.com/books?id=Navs5TkI9oAC&pg=PA74, http://books.google.com/books?id=Navs5TkI9oAC&pg=PA77, http://books.google.com/books?id=7OdliAbNlr4C&pg=PA39, http://books.google.com/books?id=TogXVHTlxG4C&pg=PA1056, http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/Russia/Russia_00.htm, full text online in Dutch (use CHROME browser for automatic translation to English), http://books.google.com/books?id=sMwPYN_6aZAC&pg=PA32, http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=271021113600404. • Battle of Jutland Instead research has gone into the official German records and have confirmed that the Germans committed large-scale deliberate atrocities in Belgium. Debaeke, Siegfried: Het drama van de Dodengang. • Armistice of Mudros [8] This political antisemitism seeped into the military hierarchy during the last two years of the war. • Women's roles De Vos: De Eerste Wereldoorlog [First World War] 2007, pp. • Monastir Offensive, • First Battle of Gaza • Estonian War of Independence (1918–1920) Viscount Julien Davignon continued as foreign minister until 1917, when de Broqueville gave up the war ministry and took over foreign affairs. Les opérations de l’Armée belge, in: BBSM (September 1931), pp. 28 september 1918 [From the Yser to Brussels. • Greater Poland Uprising (1918–1919) Les opérations de l’Armée belge, in: BBSM (October 1928), p. 289-304. The Belgian army of 1918 did not resemble that of 1914. Some 20,000 others were taken as prisoners of war[10]. • • Newfoundland • Battles of the Isonzo 202-203; Velaers, Albert I 2009, pp. Germany had invaded Belgium, forcing them to flee. The dual significance of the battle was that the Germans were unable to complete their occupation of the entire country, and the Yser area remained unoccupied, providing a propaganda coup to the Belgian forces on the Western Front for the duration of the war. • Battle of Megiddo 278. As already discussed above, the primary concern of the Belgian High Command was to turn the scattered units back into one army and to preserve the last piece of unoccupied Belgium. • Horse use However this neutrality was armed (Belgium was allowed to have an army) and it was guaranteed by the Great Powers of 1839: Great Britain, France, Russia, Austria and Prussia. Belgium also received a small slice of territory in the south of the country (known as Eupen-Malmedy) from Germany, which remains part of the country to this day. Flanders Poppies recalled in the wreaths of the Royal British Legion's Remembrance Day commemoration. Jacoby: Les spécialistes dans la guerre: Les grenadiers, in: BBSM (June 1922), pp. Britain could have lived with a German victory in the first world war, and should have stayed out of the conflict in 1914, according to the historian Niall … After the Battle of the Marne (6-9 September 1914), the Germans concentrated their troops on Antwerp. • St.-Jean-de-Maurienne [43] In total, 40,000 out of 328,000 did not survive the war: 26,000 died of their war injuries, while some 14,000 others died of diseases. 213-234. Historians researching German Army records have discovered 101 "major" incidents—where ten or more civilians were killed—with a total of 4,421 executed. ): Encyclopédie de la Grande Guerre 1914-1918, Paris 2004, pp. To solve this problem, the Belgian government created a war industry in Great Britain and France. "Leaving the War: Popular Violence and Judicial Repression of 'Unpatriotic' Behaviour in Belgium (1918–1921),". [A final conclusion for the 80%-myth? 49. • Third Anglo-Afghan War (1919) De Vos, De Eerste Wereldoorlog [First World War]2007, p. 25. He strongly advised against a harsh, punitive treaty against Germany that would eventually provoke German revenge. The reason for this Belgian failure was quite evident: the Belgian army was not ready for war. The Belgian military campaign of 1914 nearly turned into a disaster. Albert named his former teacher at the Belgian War College, Gerard Mathieu Leman, as the overall commander of the forces surrounding Liege. The German army executed between 5,500 and 6,500[11] French and Belgian civilians between August and November 1914, usually in near-random large-scale shootings of civilians ordered by junior German officers. This prompted a renewed Flemish movement in the years following the war. The soldiers’ low pay did not compensate for the material deprivations that they experienced: cold, wetness, hunger, thirst, diseases, etc. 337-370. 473-490; (January 1930), pp. Though it was unlikely that Britain could have remained neutral if France was attacked, it entered the fray that next day when German troops invaded Belgium activating the 1839 Treaty of … Another way to give the French and British a hand was by expanding the Belgian front line to free French or British troops who could then take part in their own offensives. [30] Congolese forces, under Belgian officers, fought German colonial forces in the Cameroons and seized control of the western third of German East Africa. The exodus had started in August and the refugees continued to arrive almost daily for months, landing at … The army had 102 machine guns and no heavy artillery. The Belgian army under the command of King Albert I (1909 - 1934) was too small a match for the Germans, it nevertheless could managed to halt the enemy at the river Yser. Benvindo, Bruno: Des hommes en guerre. 21. World War I, international conflict that in 1914–18 embroiled most of the nations of Europe along with Russia, the U.S., the Middle East, and other regions. The Germans did, however, come to quickly understood how the inundations were organized and in turn used them to their defensive advantage.[32]. • Hungarian–Romanian War (1918–1919) Les soldats belges entre ténacité et désillusion, 1914-1918, Brussels 2005. He had four strategic goals: 1) to restore and expand the Belgian economy, using cash reparations from Germany; 2) to assure Belgium's security by the creation of a new buffer state on the left bank of the Rhine; 3) to revise the obsolete treaty of 1839; and 4) to promote a 'rapprochement' between Belgium and the Grand duchy of Luxembourg. From the King’s point of view, Belgium was at war with Germany and Austria-Hungary, but Belgium had to remain “neutral” in the war between Germany on the one hand and France and Great Britain on the other hand. • Portugal A collection of photos of Belgian soldiers fighting German forces during the German invasion of Belgium in 1914. [33] Also, the idea that a good morale was the best guarantee for success in combat was still omnipresent. He could not have selected a better man for the defense of Belgium. • Railways Lambrecht, Robert: Patrouilleurs aan het IJzerfront. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2014-10-08. Schepens, Luc: Koning Albert, Charles de Broqueville en de Vlaamse beweging tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog [King Albert, Charles de Broqueville and the Flemish Question during the First World War], Tielt 1982, pp. The transformation was stimulated by both the Germans and “Guarantors” whose ideas were copied by the Belgians, usually with some delay. • • Greco-Turkish War (1919–1923) [1] The courageous fighting in Liège gave Belgium the nicknames “Poor” and “Brave Little Belgium”. In October 1918, Hitler was partially blinded in a mustard gas attack near Ypres in Belgium. 775-776. [17] Despite the enormous pressure and even hostile campaigns in foreign newspapers, the King did not give in. • Belgium Weemaes, Marcel: Van de IJzer tot Brussel. • Montenegro Home > Why did Britain go to war? Trenches were built up from the ground with sandbags, since the level of groundwater was extremely high. • Latvian War of Independence (1918–1920) It was this action that technically caused the British to enter the war, as they were still bound by the 1839 agreement to protect Belgium in the event of war. Strategy; Tactics; Belgium; Trench warfare; Casualties, Belgian makeshift grave in a shell hole, November 1914, Refitting the Army. The war was fought on a number of fronts. King Albert I stayed in the Yser as commander of the military to lead the army while Charles de Broqueville's government withdrew to Le Havre in France. • Treaty of Trianon, Belgian Congo and the East Africa Campaign, Pierre Purseigle, "'A Wave on to Our Shores': The Exile and Resettlement of Refugees from the Western Front, 1914–1918,", Trevor Wilson, "Lord Bryce's Investigation into Alleged German Atrocities in Belgium, 1914–1915,". [13], The British were quick to tell the world about German atrocities. Between 1915 and 1918 the army had an average strength of 137,000. Veteran of Boer War, WW1 and WW2 was wounded 9 times, and bit off his own fingers when a doctor wouldn’t amputate them ... Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart was born in Belgium in 1880 to an Irish mother and a Belgian aristocratic father ... then destroyed by the Germans in later fighting… They were hardly opposed by the Belgian army although two fortified cities lying in the path of the German main effort, Namur and especially Liège, tried in vain to halt the German advance. [5], Many civilians fled the war zones to safer parts of Belgium. He therefore decided that the Belgian army would apply a defensive military strategy and would only take part in large-scale offensive operations on two conditions. This was refused by King Albert and Germany declared war on both Belgium and France on August 3. In 1914, they were barely organized and poorly equipped. Daily life of Belgian soldiers on the Yser River], Tielt 1987. World War I (often abbreviated as World War I or WW1 ), also known as World War I or the Great War, is a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Finally, it is worth noticing that Belgium never turned to the “mechanical solution” for its shortage in manpower: the Belgian army never possessed tanks during the First World War. • • Canada British Trenches Western Front Although soldiers on average spent only one day out of three in the trenches their daily lives were hard. In all, about 210,000 Irishmen served in the British forces during World War One. The article finishes with some considerations over the number of casualties. • Battle of Baku Belgium's ports were close to the British coast and German control of Belgium would have been seen as a serious threat to Britain. • Strategic bombing Secondly, the operations had to serve Belgian war aims. The Germans sent in managers to operate factories that were underperforming. Les opérations de l’Armée belge, in: BBSM (April 1929), p. 287. Defensive Thinking and Acting (1915-1916), Defensive Acting and Offensive Thinking. 230 and pp. [37], • French Empire (2005). [34] Another stubborn pre-1914 way of thinking that continued to have an influence was the belief in centralized command. Particular to the Belgian case was the army’s defensive military strategy, the role of the King, the shortcomings in personnel, equipment, weaponry and munitions, and the fact that the army was cut off from the largest part of Belgian territory. • Battle of Tannenberg [31], King Albert I went to the Paris Peace Conference in April 1919, where he met with the Big Four and the other leaders of France, Italy, Britain and the United States. Earlier, on 24 July, the Belgian government had announced that if war came it would uphold its historic neutrality. [2], To this day, the Belgian army is remembered for their stubborn resistance during the early days of the war, with the army – around a tenth the size of the German army – holding up the German offensive for nearly a month, giving the French and British forces time to prepare for the Marne counteroffensive later in the year. Centre de documentation historique des Forces armées (Belgium): De Vos, Luc / Simoens, Tom / Warnier, Dave et al. On the one hand, this transformation was restrained by several economic and political factors. The second half of 1917 brought a change in trench warfare on the Belgian side. • Anglo Egyptian Darfur Expedition (1916) King Albert and his soldiers], Antwerp 2005, pp. Simoens, Tom: Het gezag onder vuur [Authority under attack], Bruges 2011. Haag, Le comte Charles de Broqueville 1990, p. 423; Les opérations de l’Armée belge, in: Bulletin Belge des Sciences Militaires (BBSM)(May 1929), pp. Les opérations de l’Armée belge, in: BBSM (October 1928), pp. Five continents in Flanders], Tielt 2008, pp. Spencer C. Tucker and Priscilla Mary Roberts, eds. • Franco-Syrian War (1920) DOI: 10.15463/ie1418.10272. The above image is an extract from a proclamation by the German General Otto von Emmich, distributed widely in Belgium in the autumn of 1914 as the German army crossed the tiny nation’s borders and began its slow march south. [27] During the war a few young men volunteered to serve, so by 1918 the total force had returned to 170,000. [29] Other factors that contributed to these difficult circumstances was the fact that the military leadership changed throughout the war, compounded by the fact that the soldiers were living closely together with their superiors.[30]. Germany struck first by declaring war on Russia and its ally, France. Between November 1914 and the summer of 1918 the Belgian frontline was expanded from eleven to thirty-eight kilometers. [31] After the battle, the Belgian High Command decided to maintain these inundations, and no German commander would consider a decisive attack through these areas; the crossing of the flat and flooded terrain would cause heavy casualties and the organization of the lines of communication through these flooded areas would be a nightmare. 52. [28] Moreover Flemish soldiers were overrepresented in the army, in particular in the infantry. De Vos, Luc and Keymeulen, Hans: Een definitieve afrekening met de 80%-mythe? 239. With no response given late on 4 August 1914, Britain declared war with Germany and officially entered the war on the side of the Allies. [25][26], Much of the small army was captured early on as the frontier forts surrendered. The article then turns its focus to the tactical level of tre… • United States The refitting and reorganization of the Belgian army was not impeded by German hostile activities. It even comes close to the percentage of French and German military casualities, which were 16.8 and 15.4 percent, respectively[45]. Like the army itself, the health services were completely transformed during the war. Many refugees from all over the country went to the Netherlands (which was neutral) and about 300,000 to France. For one, the fact that 95 percent of the territory was occupied and also the strained relationship Belgium had with France and Great Britain made things difficult. Finally, we should note that the Belgian Parliament did not play any significant role during the war since most members of Parliament stayed in occupied Belgium or fled abroad and Parliament therefore did not gather during the war. • China 58-60. • Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) This contribution aims to explain how the Belgian army transformed into a more effective army by 1918. It had completely transformed both on the outside (equipment, uniform, weaponry), as well as on the inside (organization, tactics, cooperation between arms). Poppies became a symbol of human life lost in war. 42-43. After Britain shipped 41,000 copies to the US, the Germans responded with their own report on atrocities against German soldiers by Belgian civilians. With their own Report on atrocities against German soldiers ideas were copied by the Independence Treaty that prescribed neutrality. 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