Lithograph postcard of the uniforms of the Belgian military including infantry, cavalry, and bicycle corps beneath a portrait of King Albert I.
Reverse:Litho - L. Clement & Cie. Rue Ste Anne 23, Bruxelles
"On the 19th the intensity of the struggle was redoubled along the entire [Belgian] front. The Kaiser had ordered his troops to break through, cost what it might. Three times the German hordes were repulsed. . . .The center of the Belgian army was the object of violent and repeated attacks. It was then that our staff, in order to diminish the pressure on the center, directed the French Marine Fusiliers and a Belgian division to make a sally from Dixmude, delivering a counter-attack on the Beerst-Vladsloo front. On the evening of the 19th we held Vladsloo and the outskirts of Beerst, and were threatening the flank of the enemy army. But it was learned that important German reënforcements were arriving from the direction of Roulers, and we withdrew."
Excerpt from an address by Carton de Wiart, Belgian Minister of Justice, in London, June, 1915. On October 19, 1914, the Germans were trying to break through the Belgian line from Dixmude to the North Sea, on the left of the Allied line. The Belgians expected French reinforcements, but French General Ferdinand Foch underestimated the number of troops assaulting the Belgians, and was marshaling his men in preparation for an offensive on October 22, hoping for support from the weakened Belgian Army. To aid the Belgians, British destroyers and monitors shelled German positions along the coast.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. II, 1914, p. 319, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
1914-10-19, 1914, October, Belgian Army
