At the start of World War I, King Albert of Belgium refused the German army safe passage through Belgium to France, a defiance that was a key moment in the beginning of the war. Albert then took command of the relatively new and untested Belgian Army, and The Agony of Belgium recounts the army's bravery and resilience in the face of the challenges to come. The Agony of Belgium reveals the courageous and noble qualities of King Albert, whether at the Front as an active Commander-in-Chief; with his people during Zeppelin raids and artillery bombardments at Antwerp; declining refuge in France after the retreat from Ostend; or rallying his troops. This unique account of a part of the war often overlooked will be of significant interest to military scholars and historians.

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Excerpt from Belgium's Agony A Few weeks after the outbreak of war the newspapers, in an obscure paragraph, stated that German artillery had bombarded the Flemish village of Saint-Amand, near Antwerp. Nearly simultaneously, but in numerous and prominent columns, they described the wanton and ruthless destruction of the ancient university city of Louvain. Thirdly, on August 24, began the great British retreat from the line Mons-Conde, the retreat to south-westward that experts hold to rank among the finest military achievements of history. And between these three happenings there is a connecting link other than the tremendous struggle of which they form a part, a link to which subsequent events and, most of all, this little book have given a melancholy and tragic interest. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."

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