Belgium
had been a constitutional monarchy since it gained its independence
from the Netherlands in 1831. As Belgium occupied the only wide open
space between France and Germany,
its neutrality was a vital component of the European balance of power.
The foreign policy of Albert I, who
had ruled the country since 1909, was to maintain a neutral stance
between its two powerful and antagonistic neighbours and did not join
either the Triple Alliance or the Triple
Entente.
In 1914 Belgium had a population of around 7.5 million. A prosperous
trading nation, with major ports at Antwerp and Ostend,
Belgium had good supplies of coal and iron and an efficient railway
system.
Belgium had universal male suffrage but the well-educated and wealthy
were allowed up to three votes each. In 1914 power was held by Baron
de Broqueville and his Catholic Party.
Belgium had a small regular army of 43,000 men with another 115,000
trained reserves. The Belgian Air Force had only one squadron of 12
aircraft.
A
total of 267,000 men served in the Belgian
Army in the First World War, of whom about
54,000 were wounded and 14,000 killed.
The
fascist Rexist Party, led
by Leon Degrelle, was established
in 1930, and expounded policies of Anti-Semitism
and anti-Communism but was rejected by the Belgian electorate.
Under
the supreme command of Leopold III, the
Belgian
Army
fought against the German Army when it
invaded the country on 10th May 1940. However, without tanks, and
very few aniti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, the government was forced
to surrender eighteen days later.
Leopold
III was arrested and interned in Belgium. Later he was moved to
Austria and Germany.
General Alexander
von Falkenhausen became
the military governor. The Rexist Party
supported
the new government and the resistance
was active in Belgium.
Falkenhausen
disapproved of Nazism and made some attempt
to limit the arrest and murder of Jews in
Belgium. It is estimated that two-thirds of the country's 90,000 Jews
survived the occupation. By the time that Belgium was liberated in
1944 Falkenhausen was himself in a German Concentration
Camp.
After
the war Leopold III was accused of collaborating
with Adolf Hitler and a referendum in
Belgium voted against his return to the country.
(1)
William Shirer, CBS Broadcast from Berlin
(11th May, 1940)
It's still difficult to
realize from the atmosphere in the streets of Berlin that the war
has now entered its decisive phase, with Germany's powerful army sweeping
into Belgium and the Netherlands.
I mean, yesterday and today
have been so normal here. People going about their business just as
usual. No excitement in the air. When I came up to the studio just
now, I noticed that repair work on the streets was going on just as
before. Workers were busy on new buildings. No excitement discernible
in them.
The morning papers all
headline the results after the first day of this decisive battle.
These are, in the main, that in Holland the German nut-cracker reached
the Yssel Line, which is the first Dutch line of defense. That further
south, the advancing German troops crossed at several places the River
Maas, just inside the Dutch frontier. That Maastricht was captured,
which means that the Dutch province of Limburg, which juts down between
Belgium and Germany, was completely overrun on the first day, and
that the Germans have now crossed the Albert Canal west
of Maastricht.
I toured along the Albert
Canal last year soon after it was completed, and it forms a fairly
strong defensive line, running as it does across northern Belgium
from Maastricht to Antwerp. The canal, when I saw it, was dotted with
bunkers, and the Belgians thought it would be a hard piece of water
to cross. German correspondents with their army report that the first
two or three of these bunkers at the extreme eastern end of the canal
have been taken, largely, one gathers from their dispatches, by aerial
bombings.
That the Germans are using
air superiority to the full became apparent shortly after yesterday's
operations began. And several German correspondents with the air force
report on the bombings and machine-gunnings which were carried out
yesterday on Dutch, Belgian, and French airbases, and on troops and
communications behind the lines. They report for the most part having
met a lot of anti-aircraft fire, but little opposition from fighters.
German army engineers are
also playing a prominent part in the German drive, as indeed they
did in the Polish and Belgian campaigns. The German correspondents
report that there has been a great deal of blowing up of bridges by
the retreating Dutch and Belgians, but that German engineers are putting
up emergency bridges in great haste. The same German correspondents
also report - and this is interesting - that yesterday enemy airplanes
certainly did not strafe the advancing German troops.
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