This large hardcover book with 512 full color pages presents exhaustively portable weapons of the Belgian Army using several hundred period objects.
To write about the history of firearms without mentionng the reputation of the Belgian firearms industry would be ignoring the important place this country lied in the field. The quantity and variety of weapons produced in Belgium and exported during the 19th century was exceptional.
The production tool, but also the know-how and the ingenuity of the gunsmiths were naturally put at the service of the Belgian Army: Modest in numbers, the army disposed in 1914 of a decent individual even if its concept was twenty years old. Well trained, the soldier could exploit to its maximum the long-range precision of his weapon. However, the small number of automatic weapons, recently purchased, would prove a serious handicap when vastly outnumbered by enemy. The battle for the Yser, saving a small portion of the national territory, saw the end of the war of maneuvering.
The war years saw the governement and the rear echelons multiply their efforts and ingenuity to ensure the soldier in the front line was correctly armed. On top of numerous adaptations to existing material, there was a large diversification in the origins of the equipment fielded: Photographs of the Belgian front allows the identification of weapons from France, the United Kingdom, United States as well as Germany and Turkey amongst others, weapons used and built or modified to suit the needs of the army.
With the complexity of the subject, the masses of fresh information and photographs available, a second volume dedicated to the small arms was deemed necessary to complete the overview of the Belgian Army during the Great War.
Far beyond a simple catalog of weapons in the Belgian army, this work therefore also presents the history of the transformation of a small army caught in the torments of the Great War, according to technological progress and time tactics.

Contents:

• Forewords
• Introduction
• The collections
• Long guns
• The hand guns
• Automatic weapons
• Pomegranates
• The trench daggers
• Bayonets
• Sabers and spears
• Munitions
• Trench artillery and accompanying batteries
• The trench shields
• Pistols and flare guns
• Annexe

The French texts are written under the supervision of Pierre Lierneux.

Printed in 2015, this book is NEW and is 10 inches x 11-½ inches ( 26 cm x 29.5 cm )