page_title: Belgium in World War I
section_title: German occupation 1914–18
hierarchical_section_title: Belgium in World War I / German occupation 1914–18
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Deutsche Briefmarke, Besatzung erster Weltkrieg English: Stamp of Germany, WW1, overprint "Belgien 3 Cent", issue 1916 (Cent and not Centimes), Mi11.
context_page_description: The history of Belgium in World War I traces Belgium's role between the German invasion in 1914, through the continued military resistance and occupation of the territory by German forces to the armistice in 1918, as well as the role it played in the international war effort through its African colony and small force on the Eastern Front.
context_section_description: The Germans governed the occupied areas of Belgium (over 95% of the country) while a small area around Ypres remained under Belgian control. An occupation authority, known as the General Government, was given control over the majority of the territory although the two provinces of East and West Flanders were given separate status as a war zone under the direct control of the German army. Elsewhere martial law prevailed. For the majority of the occupation, the German military governor was Moritz von Bissing (1914–17). Beneath the governor was a network of regional and local German kommandanturen and each locality was under the ultimate control of a German officer.
  Many civilians fled the war zones to safer parts of Belgium. Many refugees from all over the country went to the Netherlands (which was neutral) and about 300,000 to France. Over 200,000 went to Britain, where they resettled in London and found war jobs. The British and French governments set up the War Refugees Committee (WRC) and the Secours National, to provide relief and support; there were an additional 1,500 local WRC committees in Britain. The high visibility of the refugees underscored the role of Belgium in the minds of the French and British. In the spring of 1915, German authorities started construction on the Wire of Death, a lethal electric fence along the Belgian-Dutch border which would claim the lives of between 2,000 and 3,000 Belgian refugees trying to escape the occupied country.
  On the advice of the Belgian government in exile, civil servants remained in their posts for the duration of the conflict, carrying out the day-to-day functions of government. All political activity was suspended and Parliament shut down. While farmers and coal miners kept up their routines, many larger businesses largely shut down, as did the universities. The Germans helped set up the first solely Dutch-speaking university in Ghent. The Germans sent in managers to operate factories that were underperforming. Lack of effort was a form of passive resistance; Kossmann says that for many Belgians the war years were "a long and extremely dull vacation." Belgian workers were conscripted into forced labour projects; by 1918, the Germans had deported 120,000 Belgian workers to Germany.
caption: German stamp, overprinted with Belgien (Belgium) for use in the occupied country
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