Before the outbreak of World War I higher education in Belgium was run in French, despite the presence of a majority Dutch-speaking population. French had historically been privileged as the language of the government, civil service and the bourgeois across the country. In the late 19th century, however, the emerging Flemish Movement ("Vlaamse Beweging") increasingly challenged the use of French in majority Dutch-speaking Flanders. In the years before the World War I, the movement had achieved "de jure" legal equality for Dutch as an official national language, but the issue was still contentious at the outbreak of war in August 1914. In particular, the language used in higher education was still being highlighted by the Flemish Movement, as French remained the only language of instruction in all Belgian universities. At the outbreak of war, it appeared that Ghent University, located in the Flemish city of Ghent, would be forced by law to begin teaching in Dutch by 1915, but the outbreak of war and German invasion of Belgium stopped any realization of this objective.