BELGIUM'S NEW ARMY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3031, 19 March 1917, Page 6

BELGIUM'S NEW ARMY

HOW EVERY BRANCH PREPARES FOR FINAL VICTORY. King Albert's army has now been completely re-equipped with very much tlio same outfit as the soldiers of the French army. The Belgians have now established numerous factories, not only on the remnant of Belgian soil that still remains to them, but also in France, where they are now manufacturing themselves much of the clothing and other supplies needed by the army. This also serves the additional purpose of giving employment to thousands of Bolgian refugees who would otherwise be without means of making a livelihood. Another thing that will lessen the hardships of the Belgian army during the coming winter will be their practical immunity from all German infantry attacks owing to the never diminishing efficacy of the Belgian system of inundation defences. On the entire Belgian front the Belgian army is now separated from the Germans by over a mile of water.

The cavalry has now been entirely remounted, and almost without exception on American horses, brought largely in Texas. The artillery branch of the Belgian army has likewise been developed to a point where the Belgian army can perhaps boast of the most formidable artillery strength of any army its size in the world. No small contribution has been made to the Belgian artillery by the Gernmns themselves. When, in the early fighting of 19M, the Belgians, as a lust resource, opened the flood-gates that inundated great portions of their soil (hen occupied by the Germans, the latter wore _ unable in the hasty retreat to take with them their heavy and even much of their lighter field artillery. Since then the perfection of the Belgian inundation defences has made it possible for the Belgian army to let off sufficient of the water to cnablo them to recover the German artillery and use it against its former owners.