The people of Belgium are today marking their national day, the anniversary of the swearing in of Belgium’s first monarch, King Leopold I, in 1831, when he took his oath of office swearing allegiance to Belgium’s basic law and Belgian laws.
This morning the festivities kicked off with a Te Deum mass in St Michael’s Cathedral in Brussels in the presence of King Filip, Queen Mathilde and various members of the Belgian royal family.
King Filip and Queen Mathilde first posed outside the cathedral for a snap together with their four children!
Belgian prime minister Bart De Wever (Flemish nationalist) mounted the cathedral steps with a sping in his step, buoyed up after concluding a political deal on tax, pension and labour market reforms.
Crown princess Elisabeth presses the flesh ahead of Roman Catholic mass.
Meanwhile the Princess Astrid, King Filip's sister, and her husband Prince Lorenz were in Antwerp for a similar Te Deum.
Ahead of the Te Deum the princess inspected the troops.
The national parade started at 4PM. Later in the evening, at 9PM, there’s a “Belgian Party” concert in the Jubel Park, featuring Belgian artists. As a finale, a laser and drone show in the Jubel Park starts at 10.30PM.
King Filip inspected the troops gathered for the national day parade as he arrived at the Paleizenplein and met with dignitaries in a rainy Brussels where the press (photo below) had convened en masse to report on one of the highlights of the day.
National parade honours women in the armed forces
The Paleizenplein in uptown Brussels is the focus of the national parade. This year the parade highlights the arrival of the first women in the army.
Members of the Belgian armed forces, the police and fire service will parade through the streets of Brussels under the watchful eye of the king and queen.
‘This year is the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and you will notice that in certain vehicles,’ VRT journalist Jens Franssen explains. ‘The parade includes several older vehicles from this era like a Sherman tank that in the Battle of the Bulge was the first to break the Siege of Bastogne.’
A second central theme is the fact that 50 years ago, the first women started working in the armed forces. 'There were 33 of them to start with. They were called the “damars” or “dames de la marine” (ladies of the navy), although women soon also joined the air force and the army.
A fly-past including F-16 fighter-jets painting the black, gold and red of the Belgian flag in the Brussels sky and based at the Kleine Brogel air force base in Limburg thrilled the crowds. The F-16s are being replaced by F-35s that start to arrive next year.
One of the highlights of the parade was a delegation from the US army. The crowds cheered as American servicemen marched through the streets of Brussels as the people of Belgium cast their minds back to the Battle of the Bulge towards the end of the Second World War, when in the woodlands of the Ardennes US forces repelled an assault by German forces eager to retake Antwerp and its port. 80,000 Americans perished in this episode of the conflict.
