In this paper Dr Mario Draper will outline some of the unique challenges faced by the Belgian army in keeping its men in the field during the First World War through an exploration of the complicated relationship between discipline and morale. All belligerents approached this fundamental issue in a variety of ways and with mixed results, and Belgium - dealing with the added factors of a politically and linguistically fractured army, fighting a predominantly defensive war whilst the rest of the country was under occupation - was no different. From the one extreme of carrying out executions to the other of sending a football team to tour the UK to raise money for soldiers at the front, the experience of harnessing a sustained and, more importantly, unified motivation to continue the struggle was anything but a simple formula. The destabilising effects of the Flemish movement within the army in early 1918 will also be explored along with its effects on the army's military capabilities as it prepared to engage in the Allied offensives of the last 100 days, which was to symbolically see a unified Belgian force help liberate its own people.
Conference room, Town Hall (2nd floor) , Cloth Hall, Grote Markt 34, 8900 Ieper.
Part of the In Flanders Fields and University of Kent seminar series 2014-15.
More information: Dominiek.dendooven@ieper.be
