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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 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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
On 28 June 1914, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated in Sarajevo.
Sarajevo was the capital of the Austrian province of Bosnia. Austria-Hungary was a multi-ethnic state, which was under extreme pressure because of nationalistic tendencies. Part of the Bosnian population supported the neighbouring ...
In Great Britain, the army swallowed up an important part of the male workforce during The First World War. Women often took over their work in the factories, or in the fields, temporarily. However, the efforts of women had little impact on their post-war role. In Belgium, the scope of the employment of women in the war industry, and in the ...
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 ... 
