Belgium Put the Kibosh on the Kaiser

"Belgium Put the Kibosh on the Kaiser", written and composed by Alf Ellerton, was a popular British patriotic song of the First World War. It was first recorded on 6 October 1914 by Mark Sheridan. The song refers to the 1914 campaign in Belgium when the small British Expeditionary Force, along with an unexpectedly fierce Belgian defence, managed to delay the much larger German army, slowing them and wrecking the Schlieffen Plan which depended on total victory against the French to the west in a matter of weeks. By attacking Belgium, they had violated that nation's neutrality and brought the British Empire into the war because of a pledge to uphold Belgian independence. The song has the metre of "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!".