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"The average age of a soldier in the Belgian armed forces is 40, one of the highest in the world. For comparison purposes, the United States armed forces had an average age of 28, which is considered one of the lowest in the world."
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Belgian Armed Forces → Belgian Army –
Since 2002, with a Royal Order issued by king Albert the II, Belgium have a single armed force with 4 branches and is called "Belgian Army" -> Armée belge following the Canadian example (Land Force, Naval Force, Air Force, were merged together and now they are "components" or branches within the Armée belge). In order to be clear, the Land Component was previously named "Belgian Land Force" and not "Belgian Army", infact the word "army" may also include other branches of the military such as the air force via means of aviation corps. --Nicola Romani (talk) 18:45, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Split The article Belgian Army should have a hatnote for old usage (ie. the land component). This article should exist for the period prior to 2002, when separate branches existed. "Belgian Army" should be for the organization that was established in 2002. 65.94.45.160 (talk) 04:41, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the move request was: Move. We have consensus that this name is well established in English sources and is less confusing than "Belgian Army". Cúchullaint/c17:09, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Belgian Army → Belgian Armed Forces – The above move request was made in ignorance of the proper English translation for armee = armed forces. Following WP:UE and WP:COMMONNAME, no page for a state's whole armed forces in en:wiki should be at 'X Army' unless it is the actual official title, which is not the case here if we do our translations properly. Additionally, this article is showing up in categories as 'Belgian Army', which means that people are likely to mistakenly click on it and expect to find Belgium's land force. A possible alternative would be 'Military of Belgium' but 'Belgian Armed Forces' appears to be a more accurate translation of the actual official name. Buckshot06(talk)21:27, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Buckshot's reasoning. Jane's also uses the term 'Belgian Armed Forces' as part of Jane's World Armies (the 'army' itself is the 'Belgian Land Component'). Nick-D (talk) 01:00, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Buckshot. The title is otherwise confusing to non-specialist readers. However, the history portion of this article appears to primarily refer to the land forces and should be moved to the land forces article. W. B. Wilson (talk) 08:28, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support Belgian Armed Forces on the assumption that the translation is correct (I only say this because another editor contested it on the Milhist page). NB, I have also struck one of W.B. Wilson's votes and informed him on his talk. Ranger SteveTalk09:38, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If I understand correctly you're saying that Belgian Army is the literal name of the Belgian armed forces, rather than a translation? If that were the case and the Belgians used an English name instead of native Dutch or French, I could probably accept it. But if the official name is in Dutch or French, then we're left making a translation. Ranger SteveTalk10:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, this is no matter of translation, as per the examples above I'm saying that the word "Army" doesn't make any confusion or ambiguity. Nowadays Belgians followed the Canadian example to build a single armed force like the Chinese, merging the 4 previously independents armed forces into the Army now called components. E.g. like during WWI, when there were no independent air forces, but an air service along many world's Armies, and like was done by Canadians with the various name changing of their services in the past years. --Nicola Romani (talk) 11:12, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
But even the examples you posted above contain ambiguity - they refer to land forces as army, or that armee can mean armed forces. This looks like a simple translation issue (albeit, one that could use some more sources in French and Dutch). Ranger SteveTalk13:53, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So are you arguing that People's Liberation Army Navy Air Force is too ambiguous and we shall move the page to Chinese Naval Aviation as per common name? Everyone reading the page could understand the matter of this issue, since 2002 there are no longer independent armed forces merged into the Belgian Army. Is not hard to understand, is the same like in China, Yugoslavia, Switzerland or Canada, look at this [4], and this [5]. --Nicola Romani (talk) 14:56, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No I'm not. You'll notice I don't refer to common name in my previous comment at all. If the official title of the forces in Belgium is indeed Armée belge in French and Belgisch leger in Dutch, then we need to decide what the best translation of armée and leger is, and what was meant by the Belgian military when they adopted this name. Your two references do not provide sufficient evidence to persuade me that it is indisputably 'army'. However, if the Armée belge existed before 2002 (as the land component), and there are good sources to show that all the other arms of service were merged into that one component, that would be a different matter. Is that what happened?
Oppose if the article is moved, it will make examination of the Belgian ARMY (as existed in the 19th/20th century etc.) ineligible on the page. As a native Belgian-French speaker, I don't feel it makes a translation difference. ---Brigade Piron (talk) 16:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Brigade, I'm pretty sure that content would still be appropriate here, so that need not worry you. I can also assure you that the ambiguity of 'army' is cause for legitimate concern. Oreo Priesttalk19:24, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
While I've no particular problem with the proposed shift in respect of the modern unified Belgian Armée, I do share Brigade Piron's concern regarding the Belgian Army, as it existed 1830-2002. A number of editors have made contributions to the history of the Belgian military and this material would look rather odd tucked in under "Land Component". Could a separate article entitled something like "Belgian Army history pre-2002 unification" be created bringing together the information at present spread across several articles? I would be glad to help with the editing required. Buistr (talk) 22:06, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not only could Military History of Belgium be made from the existing content, but I think all the existing content could reasonably fit on one page. Alternatively, any info on the old 'Belgian Army' could reasonably be accommodated on the 'Land Component' page without looking odd at all. If I may grumble a bit, Belgians seem uniquely pedantic about separating things based on legal status rather than anything more concrete. This insistence crops up all the time, from the page on Wallonia (vs Walloon Region), to the historic Catholic University of Leuven to an old fight over whether Brussels should be the City of Brussels or the Brussels-Capital Region. There's more to life than legal status guys! /rant. Also, I in no way want to denigrate your contributions or attitude Brigade, which have been a breath of fresh life into Belgium-related articles. Oreo Priesttalk15:57, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment the objections by Brigade Piron and Buistr seem to misunderstand the point. The proper place for the history of the Belgian Army (=land forces) is linked through the article Belgian Land Component. That is what would normally be referred to by English speakers as the Belgian Army, and it is only because of WP:MILMOS#UNITNAME, mandating the current name of a formation be used, that the article is now at Land Component. Then there should be either a 'History of the Belgian Army' (or, maybe, 'History of the Belgian Land Component') dealing more specifically with the whole history of the army 1830-2012 and onwards (similar to all the other articles in Category:Army history). Of course, the top-level domain article on the Military of Belgium/Belgian Armed Forces should include appropriate summarised information about the army, as it would the air force and navy (whatever names they are under). It is only because of this inappropriate translation of French terms to English, done here, that this structure which applies to the well-documented armies on En:wiki is getting mixed up. Buckshot06(talk)04:45, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
I created the Structure of the Belgian Armed Forces in 1989 article with all the info about the Belgian army, navy and air force in 1989 that I could find. I am sure the info about the army, navy and air force is nearly complete, however there is no info on the Gendarmerie and no info on the nice provincial regiments. Also I might have missed some units. If anyone has information or corrections, please feel free to either add it directly to the article or leave it on my talk page. Thanks, noclador (talk) 17:39, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The History section of the article credits the "Belgian civil security service" as playing a role in preventing the Franco Prussian War of 1870 spilling over into Belgian territory. This is rather puzzling as security services in the modern sense did not exist in 19th century European states. Could the reference be to military intelligence (which was coming into existence in a rudimentary form in some countries)? Or perhaps the Belgian Gendarmerie with its responsibility for providing frontier guards? The source reference given appears to relate to the War Department in Brussels. Can anyone clarify this? Buistr (talk) 10:46, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
