2020 · Critical Hit, Inc.
Tiny Belgium was not well prepared for what would come to be known as The Great War.
Adherence to strict neutrality meant an absence of treaties, and the protection (or escalation, as it would turn out) they afforded.
Yet, the tiny nation did not lack for valor!
The Belgian strategy was to concentrate near Brussels and hold off the Germans as long as possible.
This approach proved highly effective and disrupted the German timetable: the capture of Liège was expected to take 2 days; it took 11. Belgian soldiers fought a number of significant delaying actions in 1914 during the initial invasion. At the Battle of Liège, the town's fortifications held off the invaders for over a week, buying valuable time for Allied troops to arrive in the area. Additionally, the German “Race to the Sea” was stopped dead by exhausted Belgian forces at the Battle of the Yser.
Belgians saw action in East Africa. Congolese forces, under Belgian officers, fought German colonial forces in the Cameroons and seized control of the western third of German East Africa, advancing as far as the town at Tabora.
