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This article re-examines the causes of the Connaught Rangers mutiny and argues that institutional failings in the British Army were far more influential in the breakdown of discipline than the oft-supposed politicization of its participants. New and under-used source material demonstrates how the popular myth surrounding the actions of James Daly and his co-conspirators was nothing more than a self-serving exaggeration of events designed to fit an idealized Nationalist narrative of Irish resistance to British rule. More compelling is the argument that demobilization left the regiment with an imbalance in officer–man relations that tipped a combustible situation over the edge.

The period from 1830 to 1839 was one of uncertainty for the nascent Belgian state. Not only did it have to contend with an external foe, in the form of the Dutch Army, but also with the internal threat of the Orangist counterrevolution, which sought to restore King William I to the throne. This chapter’s analysis of the events places the armed forces firmly at the centre of the stabilisation process. It argues that, despite defeat during the Ten Days’ Campaign in 1831, and certain elements of the officer corps dabbling in Orangism, both the Army and the Civic Guard—Belgium’s part-time bourgeois force—remained loyal to the new monarch Leopold I and, in so doing, played a key role in securing the nation.

As the guardians of the Revolution, the Civic Guard—Belgium’s part-time bourgeois force—was supposed to be the central element of the country’s armed forces. Yet, this chapter demonstrates how a combination of apathy and mismanagement led to its decline as a militarily effective force from 1848 onwards. As the closest link between army and society, this bourgeois expression of militarism was so dampened by the time of the 1886 workers’ riots that it was completely overtaken by the Gendarmerie as the State’s bulwark for the maintenance of law and order. Also shown here is how the Liberal–urban composition added to the authorities’ mistrust of the Civic Guard, which was not predisposed to the Catholic Government’s attempts to slow the process of society’s socialisation around the turn of the century.

This chapter explores of the relationship between Belgium’s fortress policy and strategy and offers a window into Belgium’s conflicted relationship with the status of neutrality. Having inherited a landscape dominated by strong points (fortresses), both army and society became embroiled in a lengthy debate about the cost of these structures and the extent to which neutrality should be armed. The content here demonstrates, once more, how party politics and local interests overrode the army and its professional considerations for national defence. Despite the construction of the national redoubt at Antwerp (1859) and fortifications on the Meuse (1887), the army remained hamstrung by the reluctance to introduce universal conscription. As such, the strategy of a central mobilisation and a retreat on Antwerp in the event of invasion remained largely unaltered into the twentieth century despite evolving trends and technology in war.

Barring short periods of intensive action in 1914 and again in 1918, the Belgian Army’s experience during the First World War was largely one of endurance. This chapter ties together several themes that characterised the civil–military debate of the nineteenth century and examines how they played out under the strains of war. It argues that the crisis of the Great War was an anomaly in Belgium’s historical continuum that saw the nation largely come together and overtly establish a sense of nationalism—albeit through separate Walloon and Flemish interpretations. The chapter demonstrates how an evolving understanding of discipline and morale allowed Belgian soldiers to express themselves in their search for revenge against ‘the other’ through the liberation of their country. Clearly, the Flemish Front Movement confirmed that internal friction persisted, but it ought not be overemphasised.

The main issue facing the Belgian Army from its inception in 1830 was its lack of experience. The army had received a helping hand from French and Polish officers during the 1830s and 1840s but required the means to become self-sufficient thereafter. This chapter traces the process of professionalization of the officer corps across the nineteenth century, drawing on statistical data in the process. Through this, it suggests that the officer corps reached its zenith in the mid-nineteenth century before falling afowl to neutrality-induced inexperience, slowing promotion rates, and the country’s social issues. Not being as socially exclusive as other armies, obstacles, such as the language issue, that emerged with vigour during the 1880s, undermined the spirit of the officer corps to the point where it had lost much of its homogeneity, zeal, and effectiveness by 1914.

The battle to introduce universal conscription dominated the civil–military milieu from the 1860s until its introduction in 1913. In the intervening time, the ballot system with faculty for substitution and replacement persisted, bringing with it a host of social issues; among them, class, religion, and language. Both Catholics and Liberals made a political issue out of the army, which, as this chapter contends, prevented it from adequately preparing for war. It also tackles the question of antimilitarism and argues, through analysis of statistical data, that the process of society’s militarisation was only beginning to emerge by the eve of the Great War. This, coupled with the growing tensions surrounding language, suggests that the army, as the ‘school of the nation’, failed in its task as a tool of nation-building during Belgium’s long nineteenth century.