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German troops marching through the Belgian capital, Brussels, in 1914. The German occupation of Belgium (French: Occupation allemande, Dutch: Duitse bezetting) of World War I was a military occupation of Belgium by the forces of the German Empire between 1914 and 1918.
The Agony of Belgium The Invasion of Belgium in WWI August–December 1914 (2nd Edition Beaumont Fox, 2015), Summary of book Archived 2018-08-04 at the Wayback Machine; Review of book. Horne, John N. and Alan Kramer. German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial (Yale University Press, 2001), online review; Summary of book. Kossmann, E. H.
The German invasion of Belgium was a military campaign which began on 4 August 1914. On 24 July, the Belgian government had announced that if war came it would uphold its neutrality. The Belgian government mobilised its armed forces on 31 July and a state of heightened alert (Kriegsgefahr) was proclaimed in Germany.
At the outbreak of World War I, the Belgian Army was in the middle of a reorganisation. From Belgium's independence in 1830 until 1909 it had comprised a mixed force of volunteers and conscripts recruited by lot. [1] Historically Belgium had a reputation for neglecting its military, due in large part, to its enforced political neutrality. [2]
For most of its history, what is now Belgium was either a part of a larger territory, such as the Carolingian Empire, or divided into a number of smaller states, prominent among them being the Duchy of Lower Lorraine, the Duchy of Brabant, the County of Flanders, the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the County of Namur, the County of Hainaut and the County of Luxembourg.
Belgium maintained an army of occupation (Armée d'occupation, AO) in the Rhineland from 1918 to 1929. It consisted of 20,000 soldiers in five divisions [33] with its headquarters at Aachen [34] and its troops stationed in Krefeld. [35] They were commanded by Armand Huyghé. Belgium also participated in the Occupation of the Ruhr in 1923.
The Battle of Liège (5–16 August 1914) was the opening engagement of the German invasion of Belgium and the first battle of the First World War.The city of Liège was protected by a ring of modern fortresses, one of several fortified cities to delay an invasion to allow troops from the powers which had guaranteed Belgian neutrality to assist the Belgian Army in the expulsion of the invaders.
The city of Antwerp (military governor general, Victor Deguise) was defended by numerous forts and other defensive positions and was considered to be impregnable.Since the 1880s, Belgian defence planning had been based on holding barrier forts on the Meuse (Maas) at Liège and at the confluence of the Meuse and the Sambre rivers at Namur, to prevent French or German armies from crossing the ...