All these changes meant that in May 1940, in comparison to the small land area of the country, the Belgian Army had a significant fighting force: 100,000 soldiers in peacetime and 650,000 after the mobilization: in all, eighteen infantry divisions, one corps of cavalry with two divisions and a motorized brigade: one artillery brigade and the Ardennes rifle corps formed of two partially motorized divisions and other independent units. All these units made up seven infantry divisions and one corps of cavalry. Each corps had two infantry divisions and a regiment of pioneers, as well as signals and supply. Each regiment of infantry had over 3,000 men equipped with the Mauser M-35 rifle, six anti-tank guns, nine mortars, 108 Browning M-30 light MGs, and 58 Maxim M-08 heavy MGs. The division of artillery had sixteen 155-mm Schneider M-17 field howitzers, eight 105-mm Schneider M-13s and eight 120-mm Cockerill M-32s.

The modernization extended to the immediate armament of the troops. The 105-mm field gun with which the Army had been equipped since before the First World War was replaced by one of 120-mm calibre. The programme of exchange was pushed through between 1924 and 1931 by the Koninklijke Kanonnengieterij. Mass production was authorized in 1932, but the economic crisis intervened to upset this plan. In the course of these changes the various MGs were supplanted. From 1931 a new model, the Browning M-30 was in use with new ammunition. From that year, 6,000 of them were distributed and became operational with the Maxim of the infanry and Hotchkiss of the cavalry. This allowed the phasing out of the obsolescent and not very efficient Colt MG by transferring it to rearward units. These examples illustrate outstandingly well the “law of inertia” which the Belgian Army pursued in its exchange and modernization of units and weapons after the Great War¹.

Modernization did not extend to strategy, however. As in the First World War, it continued to be founded upon a static defence. It is therefore not surprising that the Belgian Army had no radios, nor armoured personnel carriers nor anti-tank weapons worthy of mention.

Both cavalry divisions had sixteen T-15 tanks (actually Vickers-Armstrong Carden Lloyds 1934 models fitted with two Hotchkiss 13.2-mm guns). No.1 Ardennes Division had nine of these tanks. Other units had the T-13, a Belgian copy of the Vickers T-15. Of the model B-1 there were thirty examples; of the B-2, B-20 and B-3 150 examples, all fitted with a turret, 47-mm anti-tank gun and Belgian FN30 7.65-mm MGs. The Belgian Army also had some French technology in the form of twelve Renault ACC1 model 1935 tanks with 47-mm guns and co-axial MGs. These vehicles were grouped into an independent 4 The Silent Attack unit of two large sections.The military vehicle pool also had tracked vehicles for the transport of the 47-mm anti-tank gun SA-FRC model 1931, and personnel carriers Familleheureux GMC model 1938 and Ford/Marmon-Herrington.