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Brian GH Ditcham on the Rape of Belgium: the Untold Story of World War I

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Brian GH Ditcham on the Rape of Belgium: the Untold Story of World War I Larry Zuckerman. The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I. New York: New York University Press, 2004. xi + 337 pp. $29.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8147-9704-4. Reviewed by Brian G.H. Ditcham Published on H-War (December, 2004) "Plucky Little Belgium" Revisited contemporary participation of British forces in Within the last decade or so, the historiogra‐ the recent Iraq war has been. As Zuckerman ex‐ phy of World War I has begun to examine the fate plains, however, Belgium was in an anomalous of the substantial populations who found them‐ situation. Obliged by international law to be neu‐ selves under enemy occupation. It has also begun tral, it was unable to make any plans for coordi‐ to re-examine the whole issue of "Hunnish beastli‐ nating its defenses with any of the guaranteeing ness," long dismissed in intellectual circles as a Powers should that neutrality be breached. Fur‐ rather embarrassing bit of wartime propaganda. thermore, Belgian governments had kept defense The recent work of John Horne and Alan Kramer spending low. War planners in Berlin were in‐ has shown that conclusion to be wrong, however. creasingly inclined to view Belgian neutrality-- German forces in France and Belgium did commit and ultimately Belgium itself--as a nuisance, but deeds, during the autumn of 1914, which now one which was unlikely to prove a major hin‐ would be labeled war crimes, and successive post- drance to their plans if they invaded. This was a war German governments (with the effective massive miscalculation. complicity of many in the intellectual and political Zuckerman follows the course of the fghting elites of the Allied powers) systematically lied and in Belgium during August and September 1914 in obscured this fact.[1] Larry Zuckerman's book some detail. He squarely addresses the issue of contributes to both discussions. German atrocities. His conclusions accord with The German invasion of Belgium was crucial those of Horne and Kramer and are thoroughly in the unfolding of World War I. It stifled, at birth, convincing. Trigger-happy German soldiers, who a nascent anti-interventionist mobilization in were inclined to panic at the slightest provocation Britain; without Belgium as an issue, British entry and culturally conditioned to expect the hostile at‐ into the war on the Entente side would have been tention of un-uniformed irregulars (franc tireurs) at least as controversial in British politics as the due to events in France in 1870-71, saw and heard H-Net Reviews such franc tireurs everywhere. They took brutal lessly exploited by the occupiers. Businesses were "vengeance" on civilian populations for the mis‐ forced to work for the German war economy. deeds of an entirely imaginary enemy. Their offi‐ Eventually, that proved not enough and the Ger‐ cers, equally steeped in the same conditioning, mans simply seized equipment and transferred it made no effort to prevent atrocities--indeed they to Germany. On another level, as the occupation went out of their way to justify the deeds to neu‐ wore on, certain German groups began to work tral journalists in terms which also betrayed a toward a fracture in Belgian society to undermine strident anti-Catholicism. The evidence that this its cohesion--most visibly through the so-called was indeed an imaginary foe is overwhelming. "Flamenpolitik" of favoring Flemish interests. In There is a puzzle here. The French franc tireurs of many ways, 1914-18 was a dress rehearsal for 1870-71 were real enough. American journalists, 1940-44. no doubt with their own Civil War bushwhackers As Zuckerman points out, however, the reali‐ in mind, were quite prepared to believe that franc ty of occupation proved hard to express to the tireurs existed in Belgium in 1914. This was as outside world, even by people like the American true of journalists with little love for the Germans relief workers who knew it well. The world's at‐ as for the quite sizeable group of pro-Germans tention focused on cases like that of Nurse Cavell among the U.S. press corps. Why were there or remained fxed on the atrocities of 1914. As the none? This is an issue which merits future study. casualty lists lengthened in Britain, an undertow It is usually accepted that "German atrocities" of resentment towards Belgium for dragging the proved a valuable tool in allied propaganda. Zuck‐ country into the war became perceptible. The Bel‐ erman's carefully documented account of the gians did not help their own case. They failed to lukewarm reception encountered by the Belgian articulate the realities of the occupation in ways delegation which visited the United States in Sep‐ outsiders found compelling. The mass of Belgian tember 1914 and the lengthy reluctance of sub‐ refugees who had fed to France or Britain wore stantial sections of American opinion to engage out their welcome by their reluctance to join the with the reality of German behavior in Belgium Belgian army on the Yser front or otherwise con‐ should perhaps qualify that piece of conventional tribute to the war effort. Belgium remained an As‐ wisdom. American opinion only began to shift af‐ sociated Power, not formally at war with Ger‐ ter American interests were directly affected by many. The Belgian army played little active part in U-boat warfare, for which the fate of the Lusita‐ the fghting. King Albert, lionized by Allied public nia became a symbol. opinion, was deeply distrusted by British and By that time, Belgium had settled down to the French military and political leaders--with some grinding reality of an occupation which endured justice, as Zuckerman makes clear, as he did not for nearly four years--far longer than any of the believe until the autumn of 1918 that the Allies parties could possibly have expected. The occupa‐ would win the war. Before that stage, he had been tion tested to destruction what few constraints in‐ putting out feelers to the Germans for a separate ternational law imposed on an occupying power. peace. Zuckerman could perhaps have made even A heavy-handed German military administration more of the tensions between Albert (every bit as sought to regulate every detail of daily life, much of an authoritarian as his son Leopold III backed up by mass deportations and imprison‐ and every bit as keen to use the opportunity pro‐ ments of those perceived as hostile to German in‐ vided by war to emancipate himself from elected terests or, increasingly, just to provide labor for politicians) and his government during the war, German factories. The Belgian economy was ruth‐ 2 H-Net Reviews which cannot have done Belgium's image any for many of the issues raised then are with us still good. in the debates over the International Tribunal at In the end, when liberation came in 1918, it The Hague--who precisely has jurisdiction in such came in a rather unsatisfying way. German power cases, and how can one try them in a fair and im‐ in Brussels collapsed several days before the frst partial manner? How far it is reasonable to try se‐ Allied troops got there, a result of the domestic nior military commanders and political leaders revolution in Germany. Liberated Belgium was in for the misdeeds of their subordinates or for the a terrible state and expected substantial repara‐ political decision-making processes which tions as well as a more generally defined justice. prompted them to go to war? Zuckerman, while This never happened. Allied leaders, increasingly giving a fair account of the discussions, is ulti‐ weary of what they saw as Belgian importunities, mately somewhat dismissive of what he sees as a ruthlessly sidelined Belgian interests in the Peace half-hearted exercise. For my part, I fnd the Conference. The Versailles Treaty contained the amount of thought and effort put into the war notorious "war guilt" clause, but attempts to put crimes issue remarkably large given the fragile individual Germans on trial for war crimes were and tenuous precedents in this area (ironically allowed to fzzle out with the fasco of the Leipzig the clearest ones were provided by Germany's trials in 1921. Intellectuals began to question own imposed peace with Romania in 1918). How‐ whether the atrocities had ever really happened; ever farcical the Leipzig trials may have been, politicians and businessmen sought to get back to they did, at least, demonstrate clearly the futility business as usual with their German partners. of expecting a nation's courts to judge its own citi‐ zens in something as emotive as a war crimes tri‐ In many ways it is a sorry tale, from which al, imposed upon those courts by a foreign power. few parties, except the long-suffering Belgian peo‐ ple, emerge with much credit. Zuckerman tells it Zuckerman's most contentious assertion is well and convincingly, in a lively and readable perhaps his view that the United States should style. One might quibble over some details. The have reacted to the German deportations in Bel‐ book would have benefited from more of a com‐ gium and entered the war in 1916. In a morally parative dimension. Substantial areas of France, absolutist sense, he may have a point. I feel, how‐ as well as Luxembourg, were also subject to Ger‐ ever, that here he is perhaps guilty of reading the man occupation and it would have been interest‐ moral sensitivities of our own age back to a differ‐ ing to know more about how their experiences ent time. Views on what constituted acceptable or compared. (There is next to nothing on Luxem‐ unacceptable behavior on the part of sovereign bourg, whose fate is one of the forgotten stories of states engaged in the most extreme assertion of World War I.) It should also be noted that the oc‐ that sovereignty (making war on each other) cupied French regions were very shabbily treated were, as he himself has clearly shown, in fux.
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