When war broke out on May 10, 1940, the Kingdom of Belgium had the largest army in its history (not counting the units in training and in the Belgian Congo). The armed forces had a grand total of 610.000 men under arms, which amounted to about 8% of the entire population of the country. The army consisted of 22 divisions in all and was made up of.
- 6 Regular Infantry Divisions, numbered 1st to 6th, each with two active and one reserve infantry regiments
6 First Line Reserve Infantry Divisions, numbered 7th to 12th each with one active and two reserve infantry regiments
6 Second Line Reserve Infantry Divisions, numbered 13th to 18th each with three reserve infantry regiments
2 Divisions of Ardennes Rifles, numbered 1st and 2nd each with three Ardennes Rifle regiments
2 Cavalry Divisions, numbered 1st and 2n, each with three cavalry regiments and two bicycle regiments
1 Cavalry Brigade
The army was forced to surrender on May 28 after notifying the Belgian government as well as the French and British allies of its intentions. In 18 days of combat, the Belgian losses were over 12,000 dead and 10,000 wounded. While France placed (and still places) the blame for its own defeat upon Belgium's fall, the German reactions were quite different. Field Marshall Fedor von Bock, commander of Army Group B, wrote in his wardiaries, "The 22 Belgian divisions defended their country with tenacity and courage."
Equipment
The Belgian Army in 1940 found itself using a mixture of local and foreign equipment. One found the German Maxim 08/15 medium rnachinegun and the WWI style light minrrenwerfer serving alongside French Hotchkiss machineguns. Modern items were slowly coming into production, as the new wheeled FRC 76mm mortar was replacing the minnermerfer in the active divisions.
For antitank defense the Belgian Army used a 47mm AT gun built by FRC. The weapons could fire AP and HE, with a maximum range of 3000 meters. The gun was used on both wheeled and self-propelled mounts. The tractor for the towed model was Vickers Carden I_oyd Utility B tractor of 1932. At the start of the war, plans called for it to be replaced with the Ford MarmonHerrington armored truck.
Though the Belgian Army had a Tank Regiment prior to 1934 armed with French FT-17 and FT-18 light tanks, it had been disbanded. A replacement regiment equipped with 100 Renault AMC ACGI vehicles had been planned, but left-wing political pressure prevented the purchase from being carried out before the start of the war. After the Belgian Army mobilized in 1939, 12 such vehicles were purchased.
The remaining AFVs of the Belgian Army were of T-13 and T-I S classes, both of which were officially classified as armored cars. The T-15 was the Vickers Carden Loyd carrier, armed with a 13.2mm Hotchkiss machinegun. The T-13 used the Vickers Mark VI tank as its basis. The Type I had the 47mm AT gun mounted in a rear-firing casmate, while the Type III had a turret mounting the 47mm AT gun and a coaxial 7.65mm Browning FN machinegun.
The Belgian Army 1940
Back to Table of Contents -- Command Post Quarterly # 8
To Command Post Quarterly List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1995 by Greg Novak.
This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com