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| King Albert of Belgium Opens the 1920 Olympics |
By Bert Govaerts
On 14 August 1920, King Albert I of Belgium, wearing the uniform of supreme commander of the Belgian Army, opened the VII Olympiad with these words: "In reply to our invitation, athletes from the four corners of the earth have gathered together in Antwerp to celebrate with us the return of peace."
It had been a gamble for the Belgian Olympic Committee and for the city of Antwerp to accept the responsibility of organizing the Games in the difficult years following the Great War. Their actually fully taking place was something of a notable accomplishment in itself. Financially the Games of 1920 turned out to be an unmitigated disaster, but sports historians agree that they were also a landmark in Olympics history.
Antwerp had a long interest in hosting the games. By 1900 the city boasted a number of athletic associations, fencing and tennis clubs, equestrian facilities, etc. Soccer and cycling attracted larger, mainly working-class crowds. Some of the leading men of Antwerp's sporting life assisted at the 1912 Olympiad in Stockholm. They decided that the time had come to put in a bid to organize the 1920 Games. The Olympic city for 1916 had already been chosen. That was to be Berlin.
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| The International Olympic Committee at Their Last Prewar Meeting, Paris, 1914 |
The Belgian bid to organize the 1920 Games was sent to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on 9 August 1913. Three other cities were in the race: Budapest, Amsterdam, and Rome. No decision had been taken by the time hostilities broke out in August 1914. Like many other people at the time, the IOC's patron, Baron de Coubertin, thought the war would soon be over. For a while, he remained convinced that the 1916 Games could be held in Berlin as planned. But when the war dragged on, he accepted there would be no games at all in 1916. The IOC started looking forward to 1920.
German plans for dealing with Belgium, however, 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.
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| Antwerp Occupied |
In the first months of the Great War, "Poor Little Belgium" became the focus of Allied propaganda–and for good reason. Around 5,500 Belgian civilians were killed during the invasion in 1914, often as victims of reprisals, hostage taking, and needless cruelty by German soldiery and officers.
What about the war's impact on Antwerp? Besides being Belgium's commercial capital, the city had always had a military function as well. Three vast circles of forts protected it, and it was within these walls that the tiny Belgian Army was to seek refuge in the face of overwhelming military force, to await aid from friends or allies. However, to save his army, King Albert ordered its evacuation from the Antwerp Zone.
By 10 October the city and entire fortress area of Antwerp were in German hands. The city had suffered from heavy bombardment. Hundreds of houses were destroyed, but the city would most likely have been entirely razed to the ground (as was later to happen to Ypres) had the Belgian Army stayed within the fortified camp and been able to hold the front lines with aid from reinforcements from abroad. The media exposure it had received at the beginning of the war (many foreign reporters had come to the city in the weeks leading up to the siege) was an "asset" in the peaceful race to get the 1920 Games. As a "victim of war," the city was deemed entitled to host the games as soon as the war was over. Of the prewar competitors, Amsterdam was a "neutral" city, as was Rome, capital of then still-neutral Italy, Budapest a "hostile," and so they were all out of the running.
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| Baron Pierre de Coubertin in His Office |
It is true that once the invader has been forced back by the victorious armies, the amount of work to be done will be enormous(...) It may prove impossible to carry out the proposed improvements to the stadium's surroundings, but the ruins awaiting rebuilding will give the country the stamp of glory. Along the route of the marathon race, the graves will be a reminder of the heroes who fell for their country, soldiers who died in combat, or civilians who were executed, and when the winner will enter the stadium it will be as if a hero from ancient times arrives to announce the victory of Legality.
This bit of wartime pathos worked well: days after Armistice Day, Baron de Coubertin let the Belgian government know that he had made up his mind. The 1920 games were to be held in Antwerp, at least, if the Belgians were still prepared to host them in their war-ridden country. Some were but others weren't. It is easy to understand that little was left of the enthusiasm of 1913. Postwar conditions were quite hard in a country that had suffered four long years of occupation and exploitation by the Germans. There was more: during the war a minority group of Flemish nationalists collaborated with the occupiers. This was used as a pretext by the French-speaking elite to suppress the demands of the majority of Dutch-speaking Belgians. In other words: this was no time for the Belgians to play games. The prime minister himself had to call in some favors. The Belgian Olympic Committee "more or less had its arm twisted" by the politicians, and then, eventually, the Belgian bid was reconfirmed, and on 5 April 1919, Antwerp was officially selected as the location for the Games of the VII Olympiad. There were sixteen months left to prepare everything.
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| Ready in Time: Olympic Stadium, Antwerp |
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