Belgian Resistance: Armée secrète”/”Geheim Leger

The Belgian Resistance consisted of many organizations, some local and some national, with competing ideologies and goals.

Due to sharp political divisions, efforts to unify the various organizations under a single command failed and the Belgian Resistance always remained fractured. Though the various organizations were divided politically, they shared many of the same short goals, adopted similar methods, and engaged in many of the same activities.

Lt. Urbain Reniers of the AS-GL (center) co-chaired the Antwerp Coordinating Committee

The “Armée secrète”/”Geheim Leger “(AS/GL, “Secret Army”):

The Armée secrète/Geheim Leger was by far the largest and most capable resistance group in Belgium during the liberation. The AS/GL’s origins date to late 1940 with the formation of the Légion belge and the Armée belge reconstituée. These two organizations, both led by veterans of the 1940 campaign and dedicated to the continuation of the war, merged in 1941 and, after a couple of name changes and significant reorganization, became the AS/GL in early 1944. The AS/GL was a strictly military organization dedicated to preparing for a guerrilla war. True to its name, the AS/GL was to remain largely invisible until ordered into action.

AS/GL Squad posing with a German prisoner

The AS/GL was not politically affiliated and much of its membership had no political agenda other than the overthrow of the occupiers, but it always remained associated with the far right, royalist politics of one of its predecessor Légion belge. Due to its perceived support of the monarchy, a certain mistrust always existed between the Belgian parliament in London and AS/GL. Nonetheless, British military authorities recognized that the AS/GL was the organization most capable of taking military action and chose to support it.