The 'Eighteen-Days' Campaign'

236 Chapter 9 Chapter 9 The ‘Eighteen-Days’ Campaign’ The defense policy hammered out between 1932 and 1940 was tested in the crucible of the ‘Battle of Flanders,’ which saw the Germans defeat the armies of five nations. Overall, the Belgian army, notably the new units created during the 1932-1940 period, fought well, although the same problems that preoccu- pied the framers of defense policy, especially the lack of qualified reserve officers and the linguistic issue, would bedevil it and hinder its efforts. The campaign also saw the breach between the king and his government, the ‘royal question’ that would trouble the nation until Leopold’s abdication in 1951. The chapter looks at the events of the campaign, including the increasing problems between the monarch and his government and the fate of the Bel- gian troops that found themselves either in France, Britain, or the resistance. It also addresses the post-mortem conducted by Belgian officers. The Belgian army on May 10, 1940 constituted eighteen infantry divisions (c. 17,000 men each), two Chasseurs ardennais divisions, two cavalry divisions, a heavy artillery division, two fortress artillery divisions, a fortress infantry regiment, and the Unités cyclistes frontières. The total was about 650,000 men, or about 8% of the population. As we have seen, this army was short on tanks and anti-aircraft weapons. Historian Luc De Vos laments the lack of motoriza- tion in the Belgian army although the official history of the Belgian army argues that it was in fact “relatively mobile” with 16.5 cyclist regiments, 6 groups and 12 squadrons of divisional cyclists, 8.5 regiments on motorcycles, and two regiments transported by truck, in addition to the 57 regiments on foot. Of its 1,338 pieces of artillery, very few were motorized outside of the Cavalry Corps and the Chasseurs ardennais. The Belgian air force is generally agreed to have been pathetically weak. It had over 130 combat aircraft of which only 118 were usable. Most were at best obsolescent except for 24 British-made Hawker Hurricanes which would end up being destroyed on the ground in the early hours of the German attack.1 The vast majority of Belgian units fought well but, like their French neigh- bors, the performance of Belgian units could be broken down by year of call- up, with the active units fighting best and the reserve, especially the second-line reserve, units fighting less well. As mentioned above, this was due in part to the lack of qualified Flemish reserve officers. However, especially towards the end 1 De Vos, pp. 28-29; Belgian Military Archives (SGRS-S/A), pp. 87-88. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/9789004269736_011 The ‘eighteen-days’ Campaign’ 237 of the campaign, there were some desertions among Flemish units which had been affected during the period of mobilization by anti-war and Flemish nationalist propaganda. This was actually made worse by the very law that was supposed to have alleviated it. Because some regions more than others were affected by Flemish nationalist propaganda, regional recruitment and deploy- ment resulted in units susceptible to that propaganda being based close to home, that is, close to the founts of the ideology. Demonstrations among Flem- ish units had already taken place in 1939 in the 23th Infantry Regiment and on January 13, 1940 in the 15th Infantry Regiment. On the night of May 9-10, 1940, Staf de Clercq, told seventy-eight of his propagandists to spread in the regiments the instruction not to open fire but to desert while Joris Van Severen urged his followers to act as the Frontists had in World War I.2 Alongside the Belgians was the miniscule approximately 425-strong Luxem- bourg Volunteer Company. Luxembourg hoped to delay an invader by obstruct- ing the routes from the German and French borders. The Luxembourgers, however, were ordered not to defend these obstructions because “the use of arms, like that of explosives, was prohibited in order not to indispose the invader and to avoid reprisals.” Like the Belgians, the Luxembourgers counted on a prompt and efficacious French intervention.3 Also alongside the Belgians were the stronger Dutch armed forces. On May 10, 1940, they counted about 280,000 men grouped into four army corps, each of two divisions, plus two Hussar regiments, a regiment of corps artillery including only one brigade of three batteries, the corps train, twenty-four reserve brigades, twenty-four frontier battalions, fourteen regiments of army artillery, and other troops. This force was desperately weak in artillery, both in number of tubes and modernity of guns. It also lacked anti-tank guns and anti- aircraft defense. The soldiers were poorly trained. The Dutch had only 40 tanks and 125 planes, of which only half were modern.4 More significant was the British Expeditionary Force, commanded by Lord Gort, 450,000 well-trained and mostly professional ‘Tommies’ strong, in thir- teen divisions (later joined by two more), completely motorized, with 640 tanks, including heavy Mark II Matilda tanks with 80mm armor, almost imper- vious to German shells, but sadly undergunned. The BF was supported by 456 planes on the continent and another 850 based in the British Isles.5 2 Wanty, p. 174; de Fabribeckers, La Campagne de l’Armee Belge en 1940, 2 ed. (Bruxelles: Rossel, ND), p. 62. 3 Vic Jaeger, Les Insignes de l’Armée Luxembourgeoise et des Luxembourgeois dans les Armées Alliées (NL: Saint Paul, 1995), p. 17; de Fabribeckers, p. 105. 4 Doorman, pp. 17-20; De Vos, pp. 30-31. 5 De Vos, pp. 31..

Load more