The Belgian Army 1914-1918
The Belgian Army 1914-1918
Armies of the First World War
During the first month of World War I, the Belgian field army was the third largest of the four field armies then fighting on the Western Front, mustering twice as many infantry battalions and twice as many field artillery battalions as the four infantry divisions of the original contingent of British Expeditionary Force. It was not long, however, before the steady reinforcement of British forces in France and Flanders deprived the Belgians of this honor.
By the middle of 1915, the Belgian army had not merely become the smallest army then serving on the Western Front, but was less than a third as large as the second smallest army, that of the British Empire. At the same time, the great loss of territory that took place during the first ten weeks of the war gave the Belgian field army a very different task from that of its German, French and British counterparts. Where Germany, France and Great Britain wished to win a war, Belgium sought to survive as a sovereign state. To this end, the chief duty of the Belgian field was not to win victories on the battlefield. Rather, its definitive task was to preserve itself, to husband its strength so that, whoever they might be, the victorious powers would find it easier to restore the Kingdom of Belgium than to eliminate it.
Notwithstanding this existential difference, no study of the armies of the Western Front would be complete without some discussion of the transformation that took place in the Belgian field army during the first year of the war. Such a discussion is made even more necessary by the degree to which the structure of Belgian formations, as well as the manner in which Belgian formations were mobilised, departed from widely accepted norms.
Belgium entered the twentieth century with a very old-fashioned army. At a time when most of the armies of Europe had adopted some version of the Prussian system of broad-based conscription, the Belgian Army was still recruited in the manner of the early nineteenth century. Each year, the men who had become liable for military service drew lots. Those who drew ‘good numbers’ went home. Those who drew ‘bad numbers’ had to choose between joining the army for a period of several years and hiring a substitute.[1] In 1908, the option of hiring a substitute was eliminated, terms of service were reduced and the annual quota of recruits was increased. Thus, while a man who drew a ‘good number’ was still exempt from service, there were far fewer ‘good numbers’ to be found. In 1913, this system of ‘personal service’ (service personel) was replaced with a scheme called ‘general service’ (service généralisé). Starting with that year, all Belgian men who were judged fit to serve would be incorporated into the army for a period of several months.
To accommodate the great increase in the number of recruits mustered each year, the Belgian Army changed its structure. Each of the twenty infantry regiments of the peacetime army became the nucleus of a ‘mixed brigade’ (brigade mixte), which, in addition to that regiment, was provided with three field artillery batteries, a machine gun company, and a troop of cavalry. Upon mobilization, each infantry regiment divided itself in the manner of an amoeba, forming two three-battalion regiments. This done, the brigades mixte marched off to war as combined-arms formations that, while larger than the infantry brigades of most other contemporary armies, were smaller than British, French, or German infantry divisions. [2] Similarly, the formations made up of several (three or four) brigades mixtes, which were known as ‘army divisions’ (divisions d’armée), were much larger than most contemporary infantry divisions, but smaller than proper army corps.[3]
In the course of the eighteen months that passed between the introduction of general service and the start of World War I, the creation of new units had progressed more rapidly than the training of recruits. There were thus far more places in the ranks of the fully mobilized Belgian Army than soldiers to fill them. The 1ère Régiment de Chasseurs à Pied, for example, had an authorized war establishment that was well in excess of 3,000 men. However, once it had given birth to its ‘daughter’ regiment it could muster no more than 2,300 men.[4] Once active operations began, and units began to lose men, the strength of many Belgian infantry regiments began to drop precipitously. This, in turn, led to the practice known as ‘fusion’ (fusion), the re-absorption of the ‘daughter’ regiment into the ‘mother’ organization. During late summer and early autumn of 1914, all but one of the twenty new infantry regiments formed upon mobilization had been disbanded in this way.[5] The fate of the Belgian field artillery was similar to that of the infantry. Upon mobilization, the Belgian Army possessed a grand total of 480 fully operational 75mm field guns. By 18 October 1914, the number of such weapons serving with Belgian forces in the field had been reduced to 292.[6]
Despite its great losses, the Belgian Army remained faithful to its unique approach to the design of combined arms formations. In the autumn of 1914, it rationalized the structure of the forces that had survived the first three months of the war. At the heart of this new organization was a smaller version of the original division d’armée, with three brigades mixtes, a divisional artillery regiment, a divisional cavalry regiment, a divisional engineer battalion, and the usual services. In one of the divisions d’armée, the brigades mixtes consisted of two infantry regiments and three field batteries. In the five other divisions d’armée, the brigades mixtes had been converted into ‘mixed regiments’ (régiments mixtes), each of which consisted of a single infantry regiment and two field batteries.
In December 1916, the situation of the Belgian field army, both in terms of trained soldiers and equipment, had improved to a point where it was able to give the five ‘reduced’ divisions d’armée the same sort of establishment as the one division d’armée that had managed to retain its original structure. The single infantry regiments of the régiments mixtes were, as before, provided with a double ration of personnel and split into two full-strength regiments. This done, the régiments mixtes reclaimed the title of brigades mixtes.
The revival of the brigade mixte lasted for a little more than a year. At the start of 1918, the Belgian Army adopted a more conventional structure, recasting its eighteen brigades mixtes into twelve conventional infantry divisions. (Like most of the infantry divisions then serving on the Western Front, these new formations were of the triangular variety, with an infantry component that consisted of three standard infantry regiments. These new divisions, in turn, were paired off to form formations that, while retaining the old name of divisions d’armée had become, in fact, small army corps.[7]
The abandonment of unique organizational structure of Belgian formations seems to have been motivated by two considerations. The first was the experience of trench warfare. In the course of 1917, the Belgian field army had undertaken a number of ‘attacks with limited objectives’ – offensive operations of modest scope that were aimed at helping Belgian formations prepare for the return of mobile warfare. These attacks demonstrated the inherently unwieldiness of a system based on brigades mixtes and divisions d’armée. (As combined arms formations, the brigades mixtes had proved too small and the divisions d’armée had proved too large.) In the autumn of 1917, the French government approached its Belgian counterpart, asking that the Belgian field army be restructured in a way that would facilitate inter-allied co-operation in the offensives planned for 1918.
[1] For details, see Great Britain, War Office, Handbook of the Belgian Army, (London: HMSO, 1906), pages 1-3.
[2] Anonymous, ‘L’Armée Belge au Début de 1914’, Revue Militaire des Armées Étrangères, May 1914, pages 563 and 574.
[3] In addition to their component brigades, each division d’armée was provided with four additional squadrons of cavalry, nine additional batteries of field artillery, and two companies of engineers. ‘L’Armée Belge au Début de 1914’, pages 562-67 and 573-77.
[4] Henri Bernard, L’An 14 et la Campagne des Illusions, (Brussels: La Renaissance du Livre, 1984), page 55.
[5] Luc A. Lecleir, L’Infanterie, Filiations et Traditions, (Brussels: Service de l’Historique, 1973), pages 77-83.
[6] Émile J. Galet, King Albert in the Great War, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), page 272.
[7] Lecleir, L’Infanterie, Filiations et Traditions, pages 80-82.