Excerpt from The World War: A Short Account of the Principal Land Operations on the Belgian, French, Russian, Italian, Greek and Turkish Fronts

Shortly after the outbreak of the World War, eight nations be came involved in its military operations; these were Belgium, France, Great Britain, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro on the one side and Germany and austro-hungary on the other. Operations were at once begun on three fronts: on the west front the greater part of the German Army became engaged with the Belgian, French and British armies; on the east front a small part of the German Army and the greater part of the Austrian Army became engaged with the Russian Army; on the south front, the smaller part of the Austrian Army became engaged with the armies of Serbia and Montenegro.

The Belgian Army was reorganized in 1913 when universal con scription was adopted instead of conscription with substitution. Under the new organization the army was to be made up of 6 divisions, 2 cavalry divisions and 1 cyclist battalion. Each infantry division was made up of three mixed brigades of two regiments of infantry and 3 four-gun batteries. The divisional troops con sisted of 2 field batteries and 4 field howitzer batteries, 1 regiment of cavalry, engineers, etc. The cavalry divisions were made up of 3 two-regiment brigades and 3 four-gun batteries. Half the bat talions of infantry had machine gun sections of two guns. The total strength of the field army was about men and each division about men. In addition to the field army, it was necessary to provide garrisons for the three great fortresses of Liege, Namur, and Antwerp.

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