Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

A full account of Francis Walter Belt's life can be found in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (adb.anu.edu.au).

An account of his war service can be found below:

Francis Walter Belt had just returned from a big game hunting trip in South Africa when the Second Boer War broke out. Francis Belt, who was in Adelaide enlisted as soon as he could and was allocated to the 2nd (South Australian Mounted Rifles) Contingent as a Trooper. He embarked the transport vessel 'Surrey' at Adelaide on 26 January 1900. The unit arrived at Cape Town and disembarked on 25 February 1900. They participated in the relief of Prieska in March and then later that month they also fought at Karee-Brandfort.

The South Australian Mounted Rifles later participated in the taking of Johannesburg and Pretoria and were present at the battle of Diamond Hill in June 1900. Afterwards they returned to Pretoria in October 1900 and camped outside the city for a month. In November they returned to further service in east and north-east Transvaal until March 1901 when they returned to Cape Town. Here they embarked on 29 March 1901 and reached Sydney on 1 May. From here Trooper Francis Belt proceed overland to Adelaide arriving on 12 May 1901. He was discharged and the 2nd South Australian Mounted Rifles were disbanded on 15th May 1901.

Between the Boer War and World War One Francis Belt largely practised law at his father's firm in Adelaide, but he still remained an avid traveller and game hunter. For the past year and a half before World War One was declared he was travelling the world on a big game hunt and when war broke out Belt was in London.

Being a member of the Royal Naval Reserve, he offered his services on 22 December 1914, and was sent to France and Belgium with a squadron of Naval Armoured Cars. He held the rank of Lieutenant. In 1915 he went with 600 officers and men, 30 armoured cars and 65 transport cars to Russia on 'a secret mission' to help fight with the Russian Army. He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander in July 1915 and took up the post of second in command of the Naval Armoured Car Squadron. Owing to the ice they could not land at Archangel and thus were held up for three months without seeing the sun in the Kola Inlet, in the Arctic Circle. Finally, in May 1916 they were able to get into Archangel and were sent to the Caucasus under the orders of the Grand Duke Nicholas. 

After clearing out the Turks and Kurds from Lake Van, in Armenia, Commander Belt and his party continued into North-west Persia, fighting all the time. They also succeeded in clearing the Turks and Kurds from that area too, however, after a period of time. The roads were very bad, though and operations were most difficult. Then Romania entered the war.

In a lecture given to crowd of Adelaide citizens after the war in May 1919 on his war service Belt recalled the following:

"At first we fought with the Russian Army in the Dobrudia until the enemy turned us out. We spent the winter of 1916-17 in Galatz, on the Danube, fighting against the Bulgarians, Turks, and Germans. When the last big effort of the Russians took place in 1916-17 in Galicia, we led the attack of the armoured cars against the enemy on the Lemberg road.

"Everything went well for about a week. Then the Russians refused to fight, became panic-stricken, and fled back towards the frontier. Our cars for a week or more covered their retreat, which we were able to do owing to the enemy having sent back most of his artillery, thinking that he was going to be overwhelmed. The enemy stopped at the frontier, thinking that the Russian armies would dissolve more quickly if left alone. Their prediction was fulfilled.

"The Russians went to pieces. Our cars were ordered back south of Moscow early in 1918. Lenin and Trotsky, who were then in power, took over the cars and all supplies, and allowed us to leave the country with only our packs and rifles.

"The Russian people were indifferent regarding the war. They were neither friendly nor unfriendly to us. The army to which we were attached had 700,000 men. The only sections of the army that could be trusted at that time were the 'Battalions of Death.' There was great competition for the services of British troops, among whom were a number of Australians, owing to the moral they gave to the army.

"At the beginning of 1918 I returned to England and was then sent to America on a naval mission for six months. While there I met the late Colonel Roosevelt."

During the war Commander Belt also met the Grand Duke Nicholas—a man, he said, who was feared by officers and men. Several Australians were in Commander Belt's party and included Lieutenant Galwey (son of the Governor of South Australia), Lieutenant Lefroy (son of the Premier of Western Australia), and Lieutenant Walford Sholl, of Western Australia.

After the war, Francis Belt returned to Adelaide where he tied up his law firm and moved back to England. He had married Violet Mary Selina Lucas-Shadwellon on 3 July 1915 during the war and they lived happily in England. She had being a nurse during World War One. He would later remarried 1930 and he died in Montreux, Switzerland at the age of 76.

The above account of his war service is based on a newspaper article written in 1919 about a Lecture Francis Belt gave to interested Adelaide citizens. Link in the side-bar.