On August 4, 1914, the German Army marched into neutral Belgium en route to what was hoped would be Paris and victory. By violating Belgian neutrality, Germany displayed disregard for international treaties and eased the entry of Britain into World War I. Reports emanating from Belgium and northern France during the months of August-September 1914, described German troops as engaged in wholesale murder of civilians with no discernible provocation. Accounts of mass executions, rapes, mutilations, and widespread arson helped mobilize support for the war in France and Britain, while simultaneously damaging the standing of Germany in neutral countries. The German official line during the war--and many years thereafter--contended that German forces encountered vicious franc-tireur (i.e. guerilla) combat, and that Belgian authorities were themselves to blame for encouraging their civilians to engage in "illegal warfare." Echoes of this official line could be found as late as the 1990s in such respected works as Thomas Nipperdey's Deutsche Geschichte and in the 1996 edition of Brockhaus.
In their impressively-researched and sophisticated German Atrocities 1914: A History of Denial, John Horne and Alan Kramer aim to ascertain what exactly happened in Belgium and northern France during the first two months of World War I. They seek to give an authoritative answer as to why 6,500 civilians were killed by the German Army during the invasion, and to analyze the diverse meanings bestowed over the past nine decades on this important chapter of modern history. As the title suggests, this study does not vacillate amid competing claims: it seeks to adjudicate between narratives and accomplishes it with conceptual attentiveness, rarely found in books of such empirical precision.
In their impressively-researched and sophisticated German Atrocities 1914: A History of Denial, John Horne and Alan Kramer aim to ascertain what exactly happened in Belgium and northern France during the first two months of World War I. They seek to give an authoritative answer as to why 6,500 civilians were killed by the German Army during the invasion, and to analyze the diverse meanings bestowed over the past nine decades on this important chapter of modern history. As the title suggests, this study does not vacillate amid competing claims: it seeks to adjudicate between narratives and accomplishes it with conceptual attentiveness, rarely found in books of such empirical precision.
Comment