Belgian Army order of battle (1914)

A Belgian 75mm Model 1905 Field Gun in 1914

The Belgian government ordered a general mobilisation on 31 July 1914.[9] During the early stages of the 1914 campaign, the military had a strength of nearly 220,000 men:

• 120,500 regular soldiers.[6]
• 65,000 reservists assigned to fortress units[6]
• 46,000 militia of the Garde Civique[6]
• 18,000 new volunteers.[6]

All of the units suffered from lack of equipment, including ammunition. There was a shortage of capable officers, and only 120 machine guns in the whole army.[10][11] The army possessed no field howitzers or heavy artillery.[12] In terms of appearance, the dark-blue uniforms and personal equipment issued to soldiers in 1914 had not changed visibly since 1853.[10] Standards of discipline were frequently lax and Belgian soldiers were often seen as "indisciplined and careless".[10] The army had no coherent doctrine and it had as many as five strategic plans, none of which commanded total support from the High Command.[12]

The Belgian Army was divided into two, with the majority assigned to the Field Army and lower-quality troops to guard the country's three fortified zones.

A 1912 caricature of the "active" Garde Civique on patrol in Ghent by the artist Jules De Bruycker

Besides the regular army, the Belgian government in 1914 could call on a large militia known as the Garde Civique (Burgerwacht in Dutch). Formed soon after the Belgian Revolution in 1830, the Garde was a paramilitary organisation, which was intended to supplement the small professional army as a reserve and also serve as a police force in periods of civil disorder. Because of the requirements for membership, the organisation was dominated by middle-class volunteers.[13]

The Garde was divided into "active" and "non-active" sections. In towns and cities, the local Garde was considered "active" and would incorporate infantry, cavalry, and artillery formations with a wide variety of equipment and different uniforms.[14] By 1913, the "active" Garde numbered some 46,000 members.[14] The "non-active" Garde (described by historians as a "paper formation") was located in smaller settlements and in the countryside where its membership was technically much wider but, like the "active" formations, also dominated by the middle-classes. In 1914, 100,000 men of the "non-active" Garde were mobilised although they frequently lacked regulation uniforms and were poorly equipped.[15]

The Belgian army's first airship, Belgique

Local Garde Civique units fought at the Battle of Liège and many other engagements during the initial German invasion in 1914.[16] During the early stages of the war, as many as 1,000 civilians were volunteering for the force every day.[17] Although numerous, modern historians have argued that "the significance of the Garde Civique should not be exaggerated", highlighting its "marginal" role in the actual fighting.[18] The members of the Garde were often seen by the Germans as francs-tireurs, encouraging them to engage in atrocities against Belgian civilians. The Garde played only a small role in the campaign after 18 August 1914. On 13 October 1914, Albert I ordered the remaining formations to disband and their members incorporated into the regular Belgian army.

In 1913, the Belgian government created the Company of Aviators (Compagnie des Aviateurs), the antecedent of the Belgian Air Force, just two years after the inauguration of the country's first airfield at Brasschaat in 1911.[19] Attached to the fortresses, the Company was equipped with a total of 16 Maurice Farman biplanes.[20] The Belgian army also had had four observation balloons which, like the aircraft, were also attached to the fortresses, and two small airships.[21]

The Field Army (Armée de Campagne) was the largest component of the Belgian Army, which numbered some 117,000 men.[12] King Albert I was in direct command with Lieutenant-General Antonin de Selliers de Moranville as Chief of the General Staff. It was divided into seven army divisions (divisions d'armée):[22]

1^st Div. HQ

1^st, 2^nd Mix. Bdes

3^rd Mixed Bde

4^th Mixed Bde

2^nd Cav. Bde, 3^rd Lancers & 1^st Arty Rgt

2^nd Div. HQ

5^th, 6^th, 7^th Mixed Bdes

4^th Chasseurs à cheval

2^nd Arty Rgt

3^rd Div. HQ

11^th Mixed Bde

12^th & 14^th
Mix Bde

2^nd Lancers & 3^rd Arty Rgt

4^th Div. HQ

10^th & 13^th Mixed Bdes

15^th Mixed Bde

1^st Lancers

4^th Arty Rgt

5^th Div. HQ

17^th Mix Bde

16^th Mix Bde

2^nd Chasseur à cheval

5^th Arty

6^th & Cav. Divs. HQ

8^th, 9^th, 18^th, 19^th & 20^thMixed Bdes

1^st Chasseur à cheval

6^th Arty

1^st Cav Bde

Dislocation of the Belgian Field Army in 1914

Belgian troops in September 1914 during the fighting at Tienen

Each division contained three or four mixed brigades (each with two infantry regiments and one artillery contingent group), one cavalry regiment, and one artillery regiment, as well as various support units.[24] Each infantry regiment contained three battalions, with one regiment in each brigade having a machine-gun company of six guns. An artillery group had three batteries of four guns.[22]

The nominal strength of a division varied from 25,500 to 32,000 all ranks, with a total strength of 18 infantry battalions, a cavalry regiment, 18 machine-guns, and 48 guns.[22] Two divisions (the 2nd and 6th) each had an additional artillery regiment, for a total of sixty guns.[22] The Cavalry Division had two brigades of two regiments each, three horse artillery batteries, and a cyclist battalion, along with support units; it had a total strength of 4,500 all ranks with 12 guns, and was therefore little more than a reinforced brigade.[22]

On 13 October 1914, the Garde Civique was formally disbanded by Albert I and its members officially incorporated into the regular army.[25]

The Fort at Dorpveld, near Antwerp, completed in 1912

The second component of the army were the garrisons deployed to Belgium's three fortified cities. These fortress garrisons numbered approximately 80,000 men.[12] The fortress troops were under local command and the soldiers themselves were generally older and less well-trained than soldiers in the Field Army.

Before the war, the Belgian government invested resources in constructing and reinforcing fortifications around the country. These included the National Redoubt at Antwerp, with further fortified chains around the cities of Namur and Liège. The forts, many designed by Henri-Alexis Brialmont, a noted military architect of the nineteenth century, formed an integral part of the Belgian strategy. Between 1859 and 1870, 13 forts had been built around Antwerp and a further 17 were still unfinished by 1914.[26] 12 were built at Liège and eight at Namur.[4]

• "Belgian Army, 1914" (PDF). Combined Arms Research Library. United States Army Command and General Staff College. 2005. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 March 2016. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
• Edmonds, J. E. (1922). "Appendix 5: Order of battle of the Belgian Army in August 1914". History of the Great War: Military Operations, France and Belgium 1914. London: Macmillan & Co.
• Horne, John; Kramer, Alan (2001). German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300107913.
• Pawly, R; Lierneux, P. (2009). The Belgian Army in World War I (1st ed.). Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-84603-448-0.
• Stevenson, David (2007). "Battlefield or Barrier? Rearmament and Military Planning in Belgium, 1902–1914". The International History Review. 29 (3): 473–507. JSTOR 40110854.