The Great War in Belgium and the Netherlands

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

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2. When Neutrality Cannot Protect Against Belligerence: The Position of the Low Countries Seen from Beyond Flanders Fields

   • Felicity Rash

   Pages 1-11

3. “A Less-Than-Total Total War”: Neutrality, Invasion, and the Stakes of War, 1914–1918

   • Sophie De Schaepdrijver

   Pages 13-34

4. The Flames of Louvain: Total War and the Destruction of European High Culture in Belgium by German Occupying Forces in August 1914

   • John P. Williams

   Pages 35-47

5. Furies, Spies and Fallen Women: Gender in German Public Discourse About Belgium, 1914–1918

   • Sebastian Bischoff

   Pages 49-64

6. The Cultural Mobilization of Language and Race During the First World War: The Interaction Between Dutch and Belgian Intellectuals in Response to the German Flamenpolitik

   • Tessa Lobbes

   Pages 65-94

7. Which Belgium After the War? German Academics Dealing with the First World War and Its Aftermath

   • Geneviève Warland

   Pages 95-120

8. Belgian Exile Press in Britain

   • Christophe Declercq

   Pages 121-141

9. Trapped in Occupied Brussels: Roberto J. Payró’s War Experience, 1914–1915

   • María Inés Tato

   Pages 143-161

10. A Cambro-Belgian in the Great War: Frank Brangwyn as Artist and Activist

    • Hugh Dunthorne

    Pages 163-178

11. The Low Countries as Enemies, 1918–1920

    • Hubert P. van Tuyll

    Pages 179-197

12. Westfront Nieuwpoort: The (Collected) Memory of the Belgian Front

    • Karen Shelby

    Pages 199-219

13. Back Matter

    Pages 221-226

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This book addresses the many avenues that are still left unexplored when it comes to our understanding of the First World War in the Low Countries. With the ongoing the centenary of the Great War, many events have been organized in the United Kingdom to commemorate its military events, its socio-political consequences, and its cultural legacy. Of these events, very few have paid attention to the fates of Belgium or the Netherlands, even though it was the invasion of Belgium in August 1914 that was the catalyst for Great Britain declaring war. The occupation of Belgium had long-term consequences for its people, but much of the military and social history of the Western Front concentrates on northern France, and the Netherlands is largely forgotten as a nation affected by the First World War. By opening the field beyond the military and beyond the front, this collection explores the interdisciplinary and international nature of the Great War.

• First World War
• Low Countries
• World War One
• Western Front
• Treaty of London

• Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom

  Felicity Rash

• University College London, London, United Kingdom

  Christophe Declercq

Felicity Rash is Professorial Research Fellow in the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film at Queen Mary, University of London, UK.
Christophe Declercq is Senior Lecturer in Translation at the Centre for Translation Studies at University College London, UK, and Lecturer at University Leuven, Belgium.

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