Saving the Belgian Army — To the Yser!

Belgian Soldiers Defending Antwerp

By David Craig

Often overlooked in any history of the First World War are the events in Belgium between the declaration of war and the stabilization of the Western Front in late October 1914. The Belgian Army was regarded as an irrelevance by German planners. It was their intent to destroy Belgian fortifications that threatened German movement toward France, brushing aside the tiny and poorly trained Belgian Army while dealing with the remainder of Belgium at a later date. The tiny Belgian Army was composed of two parts: the garrison troops, who manned the fortresses on which defense largely relied, and the ground-maneuver troops, who manned entrenched positions between the forts and provided mobile operations.

German plans for dealing with Belgium proceeded as planned. At Liège, the town was taken on 6 August, and the major fortresses, which covered the Meuse crossing, were shelled with newly arrived and specially designed long-range Krupp 420mm siege howitzers on the 12th, the final fort surrendering at 8:30 a.m. on the 16th. On the 19th, the Germans attacked the Namur fortress, again with Krupp 420mm howitzers. By the evening of the 23rd, five of the nine forts at Namur were in ruins. At midnight the survivors of the Belgian garrison made their escape. Any major Belgian threat to the German advance into France was no more.

The Belgian Army retreated into the "National Redoubt" of Antwerp, where it was vainly hoped that the huge double ring of forts would enable a successful defense. The weakness of fortress defenses when attacked by German "super heavy" artillery was added to by the Belgian Army's clearing of the field of fire between the forts, an action which only improved the German ability to spot for their guns, which outranged those of the defense.

On 29 September the Germans attacked the outer ring of forts. By 6 p.m. the first to fall, Wavre-Sainte-Catherine, was so badly damaged it was abandoned. The British Official History remarks that “The German shooting was extraordinarily accurate and was, to all intents, range practice, without hindrance from the Belgians, whose guns were outranged. Practically all hits were on vital parts of the forts.” On the same day Belgian Army headquarters began planning the abandonment of Antwerp and a move to Ostend.

The relief of Antwerp became a major concern. French Supreme Commander Joffre, hard-pressed on all fronts, could promise only a Territorial division and a marine brigade from Le Havre as a French contribution, to arrive around 10 October. The British, at the instigation of Lord Kitchener, undertook to send their 7th Division and 3rd Cavalry Division, both then in England.

National Redoubt Antwerp & the Withdrawal West

Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, and ever a man of action, did have men immediately available, a brigade of Royal Marine Light Infantry under Navy command. Hastily thrown together, this force arrived at Dunkirk on 19/20 August. It had been augmented by Royal Navy aircraft and armored cars. By 30 September this force was patrolling the area between Dunkirk and Cassel. On 3 October, Churchill himself travelled to Antwerp and offered British help to the Belgian government. On the same day, four battalions of the Royal Marine Brigade set off for Antwerp, arriving by train at 6 a.m. on 4 October.

On the night of 7/8 October the British 7th Division and 3rd Cavalry Division landed at Zeebrugge and concentrated at Bruges, with orders to cooperate with French forces in Belgium and support the Belgian Army defending Antwerp. However, on the 6th, the Belgian Field Army had already crossed the Scheldt River to facilitate a withdrawal, and the situation in Antwerp itself had continued to deteriorate. The only good news was that the long-delayed French aid, in the form of a brigade of French Marines, had left Paris on the way to Belgium.

On the morning of 8 October the decision was made to evacuate Antwerp in the face of increasing German pressure. The withdrawal was made in some confusion over the next 48 hours, with the majority of the Royal Marine brigade withdrawn. The British force, which meanwhile had landed at Zeebrugge, was placed under the command of Sir John French of the BEF, moved from Ghent toward Ypres. The remains of the Belgian field army, dispirited and in some disorder, joined civilian refugees clogging the roads to the coast or made their way into Holland. After more than two months of continuous action against overwhelming odds, they were exhausted and needed rebuilding, but they still existed.

When the Germans accepted the surrender of Antwerp on the morning of 10 October, they found only the military governor, his staff officer, and a handful of men from the fortresses. The rest had successfully escaped. The Belgian stand at Antwerp, while failing to hold the city, bought the BEF and the French valuable time and employed large numbers of German troops that would otherwise have been available to fight in the crucial battles on the Marne and Aisne rivers.

The Belgian Army Marching to the Yser

Proposals for the Belgian Army were that it should withdraw west of Calais to regroup. Albert saw two great dangers in this. He knew that any attempt to take his army under French command would be resisted by his Dutch-speaking soldiers (who made up most of the lower ranks), and he also saw that if he abandoned Belgian soil he could be usurped as king. It was finally agreed that the Belgian Army would concentrate in the Dixmude-Nieuport-Furnes area, just inside Belgium, with the French marines of Admiral Ronarch on their right in Dixmude. By the 14th of October, the Belgian Army started to prepare positions along the Yser, and It would be this small strip of Belgium which would be defended by Belgian soldiers, commanded by their own king, until the end of the war.