Belgian Full Dress 1910s

Yes the Belgian Army was a quaint little one in 1914. It had not seen any active service since its creation in 1831, numbered only 33,000 and had teams of dogs to pull its machine guns on two-wheeled trolleys. Because the country's neutrality was supposedly guaranteed by Great Power treaty, nobody took its army very seriously and the Germans expected only token resistance when they crossed Belgian territory to outflank France on the outbreak of World War I.

The 1910 full dress uniforms shown in Sean's picture were not modified extensively for active service four years later. Guides cavalry wore busbies and crimson breeches, line infantry shakos with dark blue coats, carabiniers (rifles) a form of bowler hat with green uniforms and lancers square-topped chapkas. The grenadiers left their bearskins back in barracks but otherwise fought in the blue and red of peacetime. The American journalist Alexander Powell (who was there) describes the "medley of picturesque and brilliant uniforms" which made him feel that he was in "a painting by Meissonier or Detaille". Yet in spite of these disadvantages, tenacious Belgian resistance at Liege and elsewhere disrupted the complex German Schlieffen Plan and contributed to making it a long bitter war. Which just goes to show that one should never underestimate small old-fashioned armies.

Here are a scan that may help somebody, I was going to do a chart but never got around to it.
The ranks changed shortly after the start of the First World War.
Briefly:
Corporals - two diagonal red lace bars on both cuffs,
Sergeants - One or two silver lace chevrons with the single or uppermost having a knot, worn on both cuff.
WO's - One six pointed whit metal or silver embroidered star on the tunic and greatcoat collar, Buttons and badges silver. Side cap had silver tassel and piping.

Company Officers - One or two gilt six pointed stars.
Second Capt. two gilt one silver six pointed stars.
Capt. Commandant three gilt six pointed stars.
Caps had gold tassel and piping in facing colour.

Field Officers had a vertical bar before one to three six pointed gilt stars on the collar, on the greatcoat the bar was replaced by a semi-circle. Caps had gold tassel and piping in facing colour, buttons and badges in gold.

Generals had a gold embroidered foudre with one to three six pointed stars. buttons and badges gold. Cap had crimson band and gold chin cords on the peak, trousers crimson Lampassen
https://2img.net/h/i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc309/wfrad/Belgium1914a.gif

Thanks for this info! I figured I was going to have to wait until Osprey Publishing released their Men at Arms title on the Belgian Army in WWI next month ...

Chris
The page is from a twenty three page booklet printed just before the first world war, I assume since Edward VII died in 1910 it was printed pre 1910 because the back page has ‘London: Harrison & Sons, Printers in Ordinary to His Majesty and to Queen Alexandra, St. Martin’s Lane, W.C.’.
The booklet title is Uniforms and Distinctive Badges and covers French, Belgian and German uniforms and ranks.
I did wonder that it may have being part of a series of pamphlets since Britain, Austria and Russia aren’t included.
No index [doesn't really need one at twenty three pages] author and very basic details of uniforms and badges but quite interesting.
Regards
WF

To try and keep everything together I’ve place these here rather than open a new thread, After trawling through several references including the one below, and getting many contradictions, and been without an English version of the Belgium regulations [or any version for that matters little] I’ve ended up with what’s below.  I stuck with the Recognitions’ books version of the facings, there a few details missing but the basics are there along with a few changes to the 1916 chart.
If you would like the pages from the Recognition book no problem.

Details from the Military and Naval Recognition Book.
Infantry:
Red vermilion collar facing, Arabic metal number on the cap and embroiled number in red on the shoulder straps, blue piping.
Cavalry:
Guides Amaranth collar facing, Arabic metal number with royal crown on the cap and embodied in amaranth on the shoulder straps., green piping.
Lancers, White collar facing, Arabic number in metal on the cap and embroidered on the shoulder straps, Blue piping.
Chasseurs, Yellow facings, Arabic number in metal on the cap and embroidered on the shoulder straps, Blue piping.
Artillery:
Blue-Black collar and facing, Roman number [corps] in metal on the cap and embroidered in red on the shoulder straps, Red piping
Engineers:
Black collar facing, Roman helmet in metal on the cap and on the collar, Red piping.
Army Service Corps:
Blue collar facing, Roman number in metal [corps] on the cap, Blue piping.
Medical Corps:
Doctors/Surgeons: Red amaranth velvet collar facing, caduceus in metal on the cap and on the collar, Blue piping.
Veterinary Surgeons: Blue velvet collar facings, caduceus in metal on the cap and on the collar.
Chemists: Green velvet collar facing, caduceus in metal on the cap and on the collar.
Administrative Corps:
Blue collar facing, two letters S & A interlaced on the collar and on the cap, Roman number [corps] on the shoulder straps, Blue piping.
Gendarmerie:
Still wear the old uniform, blue blouse and trousers or breeches in black cloth, Red collar facing bearing a grenade [officers] and a silver button for troops,  Stiff cap in black cloth with grenade and an escutcheon representing the Belgian colours.

Very good artwork Les.

Did general officers also have shoulder rank insignia or was that just in the immediate post WWII era?

Chris

It’s been quite hard to find definite dates without any regulations but I believe that uniform from the 1930’s both collar and shoulder rank was in use.
Most reference books give more space to collar badges for the ranks below colonel and have limited details about generals.

Generals were divided into three categories:
1, Generals of the Corps [which is the most illustrated variety] wore the thunderbolt on the cap and collar, on the peaked cap it was embroidered onto an amaranth red band with twin vertical gold bars and gold piping, the chinstrap was smooth gold cords of standard officer pattern.
2, Generals of the Services who’s rank badges includes insignia of branch, adding generals stars and double bars on their collar badges.
3, Generals of Engineers and Productions [supplies] who wore the cogwheel superimposed on crossed hammers, and royal blue collar patches with scarlet piping.
While on shoulder the straps rank stars were worn on the shoulder cords was the Royal Cypher.

In 1939 the two general’s ranks of colonel-brigadiers wore colonel’s badges with the addition of a scarlet red band on the cap.
I hope this helps, I sorry that I haven’t come up with any official docs to back it up but I believe it to be correct.
They say every picture tells a story, the one’s I encountered lately are pleading the Fifth Amendment, and I expect if they did speak, it would be to ask for a lawyer.

Regards
WF

Generals were divided into three categories:
1, Generals of the Corps [which is the most illustrated variety] wore the thunderbolt on the cap and collar, on the peaked cap it was embroidered onto an amaranth red band with twin vertical gold bars and gold piping, the chinstrap was smooth gold cords of standard officer pattern.
2, Generals of the Services who’s rank badges includes insignia of branch, adding generals stars and double bars on their collar badges.
3, Generals of Engineers and Productions [supplies] who wore the cogwheel superimposed on crossed hammers, and royal blue collar patches with scarlet piping.
While on shoulder the straps rank stars were worn on the shoulder cords was the Royal Cypher.

Interesting I did not know about the different insignia for generals of different branches until now, thanks Bill. Any idea of why they did that? Were supply generals not "capable" of commanding a combat force for example?

Chris
Maybe with such a small army it worked better to have for example engineers in charge of engineering, leaving command positions to line officers.
Saying that, British General Staff Officers had to have passed through the Staff College and a colonel was promoted to the rank of Major-General, two thirds by selection and one third by seniority, higher ranks by seniority, during WWII Brooke, who kept Churchill in check started off as a gunner.
I can give a list of British Grades and departments from just prior WWI, for example a Brigadier [a local grade] would be Deputy Adjutant General at Head Quarters, while the Deputy Quartermaster General to the Forces would more likely to be a Major General.
Maybe the Belgium system only sent infantry and cavalry officers to Staff College, maintaining separate college's for service officers.
Sorry, I simply don’t know.
Regards
WF

Hi Chris/Wfred. According to John Keegan's "Armies of the World" in 1834 the newly created Belgian Army established the "Ecole Royale Militaire" to train young officers and a separate "Ecole d'Application" to complete the training of those officers destined for the technical arms and for staff employment. He comments that "a notable feature of the Belgian army's system, since very soon after its birth, has been has been the purposeful specialised training of officers for a career in what may be generally described as Military Administration". So you would start as a (say) logistics sous-lieutenant and work your way up to become General in charge of logistics, retaining your cogwheel and hammer insignia all the way. It would certainly make for professional expertise but possibly not much affinity between line officers in combat units and their counterparts in support/technical positions.

Thanks for clearing that one up buistR, haven't much detail on training and the uniform information can be contridictory also.
Take for example the corporal, most illustrations show the traditional angled stripe, so that when the narrow bar is described you look for a reference photograph only to find the narrow dark brown strips hard to notice in B/W images, it blends into the unform on most of the photo's making the subject look like a private. Well to me they do.
Regards
WF

Well I finally got the Men at Arms book on the Belgian Army in WWI and it is possibly the worst book ever published by Osprey. 90% of the book is a combat history, there is less then 2 pages about the uniforms and even then very brief and basic details. Absolutely nothing regarding ranks or rank insignia.

It seems to me that Osprey Publishing has gone downhill quite a bit over the last few years. The last few Men at Arms and Elite titles have been a total waste of money. From now on my shelves will only see Campaign, Fortress, and New Vanguard series titles being added. Maybe the upcoming Raids series will be an improvement ....

I could not agree with you more.
From one of the best providers of information at a relatively cheap price they are now just another 'in it for the money' concern.
They were inspiring but not any more.

I only have a few Osprey books, mainly those illustrated by Chappell and Embleton.
Like you say many of the newer titles seem to be light uniform information, I suppose that copying battle details from a history book is cheaper that paying an artist to do quality illustrations.

Have you also noticed on sites like Amazon the lack of information regarding book content, a nice cover picture followed by an often misleading title saying ‘illustrated’ only to find a few b/w pictures with no real information in the text.

Amazon are not really to blame for this and I can understand keeping costs down by limiting the information available, but a few sellers on sites like Amazon, ebay and others seem to be very economical with the truth.

With modern Osprey titles it seems that it's better to wait until they appear on the shelf before you buy.
Just and opinion.
Regards
WF