page_title: Belgian Army order of battle (1914)
section_title: Army
hierarchical_section_title: Belgian Army order of battle (1914) / Strength and equipment / Army
caption_attribution_description: English: The Belgian Army, 1914 A Belgian field gun and crew in position in 1914.
context_page_description: This is the order of battle for the Belgian Army on the outbreak of war in August 1914, at the start of the German invasion of Belgium.
context_section_description: The Belgian government ordered a general mobilisation on 31 July 1914. During the early stages of the 1914 campaign, the military had a strength of nearly 220,000 men:
  120,500 regular soldiers.
  65,000 reservists assigned to fortress units
  46,000 militia of the Garde Civique
  18,000 new volunteers.
  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. The army possessed no field howitzers or heavy artillery. In terms of appearance, the dark-blue uniforms and personal equipment issued to soldiers in 1914 had not changed visibly since 1853. Standards of discipline were frequently lax and Belgian soldiers were often seen as "indisciplined and careless". 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.
  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.
caption: A Belgian 75mm Model 1905 Field Gun in 1914
exif: {"Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Copyright": "Imperial War Museums"}