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Elections in Wartime

In October 2018, the Belgian people will go to the ballot box to elect a new municipal council, as we do every six years. Before the First World War, this was as often as every four years! The mayors and municipal council members elected in 1911, however, kept their posts for almost a decade.Because of the war, the 1915 local elections ...

Marie, Irène and Petite Curie

Marie Skłodowska Curie (1867-1934) was a Polish-French chemist and physicist. One of the most influential female scientist of all time, she and her husband Pierre Curie were pioneers in the field of radioactivity. She was the first woman to be awarded the Nobel prize, in 1903 for physics and in 1911 for chemistry. In 1906, she became the first ...

Tanks at the Front!

The First World War quickly got bogged down in a trench war whose front lines barely moved, and which had all warring parties frantically searching for ways to break the stalemate. Independently of each other, the French and British hit on the same idea: motorised, armoured vehicles armed with machine guns and cannons. Such 'tanks', as the ...

Reading historical newspapers critically

Newspapers are an accessible source for studying different aspects of The First World War. But just as with other historical sources, the information in newspapers has to be critically examined. This is true of both the texts and the photos and illustrations.   The critical examination of sources is known by historians as ...

American help for the Belgians

On the eve of the war, Belgium was dependent for a great part of its food supply on imports. Because of the British maritime blockade, imports came to a standstill. As a result, food supplies quickly became problematic, particularly in the cities. In order to feed the population, a gigantic aid programme was set in motion undertaken by two ...

The electrified frontier: the border fence between Belgium and the...

The border region between occupied Belgium and the neutral Netherlands soon became a smuggling paradise. Traffic in letters, military information and foodstuffs was rife. Young men who wanted to join the Belgian army also crossed the border. From the spring of 1915, the German troops decided to call a halt to this. They constructed a barbed wire ...

Bronzed heroines

Although many spies from The First World War remained anonymous for good, some achieved heroic status. In this way, Edith Cavell was turned into a model of resistance immediately after her execution. This British citizen had been the head of the first Belgian nursing school since 1907. Following the German invasion, she became the central figure ...

Overstepping the mark: the border with the Netherlands

From the beginning of the war, the border with the neutral Netherlands had bustled with activity. Almost immediately after the occupation, the German authorities sealed off the border to the Netherlands with barbed wire. The Germans wanted to prevent Belgian war volunteers from reaching the front via the Netherlands, and at the same time to call a ...

Four years a refugee

The First World War created a gigantic stream of refugees. At least 500,000 Belgian citizens, more than 7% of the Belgian population, spent four long war years abroad.    Driven out by horror stories and the advancing German army, millions of Belgians fled their town or village. Many ultimately reached the borders with The ...

To the Yser: the front stabilises

In August 1914, the Germans advanced in a southerly and westerly direction through Belgium. They soon reached the French-Belgian border, but they were halted at the Marne by French and British troops.    The German military command would subsequently change plans and attempt to break through to Paris by tracing an arc west. The ...

Play during the occupation

Wartime was sometimes a difficult period for children but this did not discourage them from continuing to play. The war had a great appeal and offered them a great deal of inspiration for fantasy play. They marched along with passing troops, sang satirical songs and tore German ordinances from the walls. They collected souvenirs and began a trade ...

A tangle of regulations? – German ordinances in occupied territory

The German occupier ruled in occupied territory by means of countless Verordnungen and Bekanntmachungen. Public life was regulated by thousands of big and small regulations that changed continually. Many of these regulations were felt to be harassment by the population, but from the standpoint of German, military logic they were mostly very ...

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