Belgium’s Entry into the War: the Political Choice of Belligerency to Defend Neutrality

On 4th August 1914, the Belgian army resisted vigorously to the German invasion, with no possibility of defeating by itself its adversary but the hope to see its guarantors coming to help. This resistance surprised both France and Great Britain, but also Germany. Other scenarios were admittedly possible. This paper intends to examine the Belgian decision to defend at all costs its neutrality. For this decision was not taken on the spot in August 1914, but was the result of a process initiated in 1911.