Military men and their mystery motor

We couldn't tell you what the first use of a 'modern', i.e. combustion-engined, motor-car was for military purposes, but the association between the army and self-propelled motorised transport goes back to Nicolas Cugnot's ground-breaking steam tractor of 1769, which was created for the purpose of pulling artillery for the French Army.

Cugnot's invention can't really be defined as a motor-car, so this interesting picture must be one of the earliest photographs of military men in an automobile. Obviously it was never destined for combat, motorised transport not being developed much for a rôle in the field until armoured cars appeared in the Kaiser War, so we expect this car was simply employed as officers' transport in peacetime.

When the photograph reached us, the car's identity was said to be unknown, but we would say with almost absolute certainty that it's a De Dion Bouton, probably a 1901-1904 model of 6 or 8hp. However, we are conscious of the fact that there were dozens of companies constructing close copies of De Dions all over Europe at this time, so maybe it's not quite what it seems. Who knows?

Assuming it is a De Dion, what's more puzzling is the exact identity of its driver and passengers. It's thought that the photo was taken in Belgium, so that's a useful clue, but we're not experts in the field of early 20th century Belgian army uniforms, so we must ask you to give us a helping hand if you can. Come to think of it, we can't even be sure that they're really soldiers or army officers. What if they're actually policemen? Someone must have an idea...

Words: Zack Stiling; photograph: Daniel Cattelain