Belgium in WWI (1914-1918)

Germany crossed the Belgian border in August 1914, hoping to surprise the French with an enormous northern flank, capture Paris, and quickly re-amass their forces for an assault on Russia. This violation of Belgium’s strict national neutrality, unbroken since 1831, set the kingdom of Belgium into a de facto state of war with Germany. At the time, Belgium fielded an 180,000-man army, woefully inadequate to defend its border fortifications. To further complicate matters, the ruling Belgian military command believed in organizing an offensive strike based from the central region of the country. In league with this reasoning they removed much of their machine gun and artillery emplacements against the wishes of Belgian King Albert I (1875-1934) who took command to late to reorient the military in August of 1914.¹ His forces were pushed back to Antwerp, Flanders in October, and finally to Ypres in December. By then the Belgian forces number 32,000 men in the northernmost regions of the country. Allied supplies were shipped in to keep what little was left of unoccupied Belgium fed and the army equipped with modern uniforms. ²

In occupied Belgium civilians suffered greatly from the initial German invasion. The 38 divisions of over 750,000 German troops were only stopped by a miraculous reorganization of British and French troops. Even after the near total occupation of Belgium the remaining civilians strongly resisted German occupation. In retaliation German forces shelled villages and murdered resisters and hostages, feeding into growing Allied propaganda.³ Over a million Belgians fled and became refugees in Flanders, England and France. The occupied Belgian populace relied completely on international aid and the civilian death rate doubled. Future American President Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) initially headed the Commission for the Relief of Belgium and gained considerable notoriety for his work.⁴ To deal with massive strikes German authorities also implemented a forced labor program in October of 1916, but the presence of international journalists and international charity organizations forced the program’s end in February of 1917. All of these realities furthered the resolve of the Belgian populace abroad and citizens of concerned allied nations to defeat the German regime.⁵

King Albert enforced universal conscription among the exiles and territorial population and maintained a 170,000-man force well through the end of the war. He accomplished this considerable feet by denying all outside command and alliances. This allowed Albert to keep Belgian forces out of costly allied offensives, launched by the French and British, and allowed Belgian commander to determine their own military maneuvers. Small Belgian detachments did serve in other national armies, on the Eastern Front and in Africa. All told some 267,000 men served in the Belgian Army and Air Service, 54,000 were wounded, and 14,000 were killed.⁶ It was at this cost that Albert returned to Brussels on November 22, 1918 and Belgium was officially liberated.⁷