History of Belgium - World War One

World War One

When World War I began, Germany invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg as part of the Schlieffen Plan, trying to take Paris quickly and catch the French off guard by invading through neutral countries. It was this action that technically caused the British to enter the war, as they were still bound by the 1839 agreement to protect Belgium in the event of a war. To this day, the Belgians army is remembered for their stubborn resistance during the early days of the war, with the army - around a tenth the size of the Germany Army - holding up the German offensive for nearly a month, giving the French and British forces time to prepare for the Marne counteroffensive later in the year. The German invaders treated any resistance—such as sabotaging rail lines—as illegal and subversive, and shot the offenders and burned buildings in retaliation.

Flanders saw some of the greatest losses of life of the First World War including the first and second battles of Ypres. Due to the hundreds of thousands of casualties, the poppies that sprang up from the battlefields which were immortalized in the poem In Flanders Fields, have become an symbol of human life lost in war.

The suffering of Flanders is still remembered by Flemish organizations during the yearly Yser pilgrimage and "Wake of the Yser" (the latter associated with Right wing extremists) in Diksmuide at the monument of The Yser tower.