The Brussels Military Museum
The full name of this museum, translated, is "The Royal Museum of the Army and of Military History."

Belgium is rich in agriculture and industry but it has the misfortune of being located directly astride the most convenient invasion route between Germany and France. Usually, then, when one of them went to war against the other, Belgium fought valiantly to defend her borders and lost.

The Museum is at the end of a park; this is the Arch between the Military Museum at left and an Art Museum on the right that we will visit on our return, soon we hope. We thought we'd spend the morning there and go elsewhere in the afternoon. We ended up having an al fresco lunch on the grass, returning to the outside exhibits and leaving at 3 PM, exhausted but happy.

 

At right is a close-up of the top of the arch.

This is just one room - an amazing collection of military artifacts from the 1600's forward. Only generally organized by era, and sometimes unlabeled, (and that in French) they are housed in glass museum cases, hung on the walls, suspended from the ceiling or just sitting on the floor. It's a scene that overloads the senses.

While we were there one of a group of Belgian school girls asked, in French, "Who was this Napoleon?" My French ran dry after "He was the most important general of the 19th Century and twice Emperor of France." I think they didn't believe me. Regina went on to describe the history more credibly than I could.
Formal vestments of the Order of the Garter, belonging to King Leopold. Yes, men really did dress that way in those days but only on special occasions. Small howitzers like these were used to good tactical advantage in both world wars. Their primary purpose was infantry support but even in WWI they came into use as tank-busters. We're looking here from a balcony, which also has aircraft on display, across main body of the hangar closely packed with vintage aircraft. You can see why we were there all day.
The museum contained many sobering reminders that the effects of war are intentionally fatal. At left Regina is standing next to samples of the projectiles used in cannons during both world wars. At center, the largely-melted 2000-plus hp rotary engine at center was recovered from a Boeing B17-G that was shot down during World War II. All but the pilot survived.
Among the interesting facts we learned was that the "Big Bertha" tank, above right, like the huge 42 cm siege howitzer, was informally nick-named in "honor" of the wife of Gustave Krupp, the famous German arms manufacturer. (Pictures of Frau Krupp were not on display.) This model, which appears to be a copy of a British design, and German WWI tanks in general were next to useless.... they were slow, temperamental and easily bogged down. The small cart in front was not labeled but we believe that it was a sort of a shield on wheels that the Germans would use to penetrate into no-man's land. The British solved that problem by sending home for big game rifles. End of tactic.
A general view of the airplane display area. It includes wood and fabric models from the 'teens and some jets from the late 50's... and everything in between. This one hangar is home to at least 50 aircraft.

This is a Nord 1002 Penguin 2. It was built in France during the German occupation for the Vichy Air Force and patterned after the Messerschmitt 108. The willingness of the Vichy French Army and Air Force to fight beside their German masters is still a subject of some debate.

This is a Britten-Norman Islander. Popular for short commuter flights since the 50's. We flew in one of these planes, hopping between the Orkney Islands on our trip there last year.

A Fokker, similar to one flown by the infamous Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen. (Learn More?) Triple-wing fighters had a significant advantages over biplanes in maneuverability. Contrary to the popular song, the Red Baron was not killed in air combat, but by groundfire, a lucky shot by an Australian machine-gunner..

A Junkers medium transport or passenger plane, which appears to be a copy of the Ford Tri-Motor, or perhaps the Ford model was a copy of the German original. They were generally out of service by the end of WWII but Ron saw one, apparently operational, on the apron at Keflivik, Iceland in 1960. An overview of the park (from a postcard). The Museum is to the left. It was in this setting where we had our lunch break.