Monday, July 23, 2012

The Great War in Greyscale - Belgian 'Minerva' Armoured Car


The Belgian army of 1914 was quite ill-prepared for a general European war. Its army was relatively small, indifferently equipped and not well-respected even by its own population. To further compound this general malais the Belgian armed forces had no defined set of war plans to provide a strategic focus in any prospective war. Granted much of this can be explained by the unique political position Belgium held at this time. As being a guaranteed neutral power it had to contend with the possibility that any of its neighbours could be a potential hostile force. (Indeed, some of France's pre-war planning seriously entertained the idea of violating Belgian neutrality in order to deny the Germans that avenue of approach.) So instead of having several plans to meet a variety of contingencies Belgium simply chose to have none.