Between France and Germany: The formation of Belgian defense policy, 1932--1940

This dissertation relies mainly on primary sources, including Belgian Ministry of National Defense documents long feared lost, many of which were very recently made available to western scholars and were used for the first time by this author, to analyze the factors that shaped Belgian defense policy in the late interwar period. It finds that Belgian defense policy was informed most of all by a desire to keep out of another war. This desire came from the awareness that Belgium would be devastated no matter which side won the new conflict. Most Belgians, and especially the senior Belgian Army officers, saw Germany as the main threat and for most of this period Belgian defense thinking was devoted to defense almost exclusively against the Germans.; Ironically, increasing German rearmament and belligerence led to Belgium's much criticized 1936 decision to distance itself from France because the price the government had to pay to the Socialists and Flemish for their support for Belgium's own rearmament was an "independent" foreign policy. Belgium's goal became the creation of an army strong enough to deter any aggressor from adding it to opposing forces.; Although Belgium had, by May 10, 1940, the date of the German invasion, built a large, strong, generally well-armed, and generally well-regarded army, ultimately, Belgium was not the master of its own fate and suffered the consequences of being on the easiest route between Germany and Paris.; The first chapter of the dissertation is an introduction tracing Belgian history from the first Celtic tribes mentioned by Julius Caesar to 1932. The second chapter examines the "Flemish Question," which affected nearly every facet of government policy in the late inter-war period. The third chapter looks at other aspects of Belgian domestic policy. The fourth chapter studies Belgian foreign policy. The fifth chapter takes a look at interwar Belgian military thinking and the final chapter concentrates on the period between the 1938 Munich Conference and the 1940 invasion.