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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.
The German occupation authorities ruled Belgium under the pre-war Belgian administrative system, overseen by a small group of German officers and officials. [ 59 ] The Germans had used Belgium to invade northern France, which had led to the Franco-British defeats of Charleroi and Mons, followed by a rapid retreat to the Marne, where the German ...
Demonstration against the Treaty in front of the Reichstag building. After the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919, between Germany on the one side and France, Italy, Britain and other minor allied powers on the other, officially ended war between those countries.
Before the war, Belgium was a constitutional monarchy and was noted for being one of the most industrialised countries in the world. [1] On 4 August 1914, the German army invaded Belgium just days after presenting an ultimatum to the Belgian government to allow free passage of German troops across its borders. [2]
Map of territorial changes in Europe after World War I (as of 1923) The Treaty of Versailles resulted in the creation of several thousand miles of new boundaries, with maps playing a central role in the negotiations at Paris. [200] [201] The plebiscites initiated due to the treaty have drawn much comment. Historian Robert Peckham wrote that the ...
Over 40% of the world’s borders today were drawn as a result of British and French imperialism. The British and French drew the modern borders of the Middle East, the borders of Africa, and in Asia after the independence of the British Raj and French Indochina and the borders of Europe after World War I as victors, as a result of the Paris ...
Belgium maintained an army of occupation (Armée d'occupation, AO) in the Rhineland from 1918 to 1929. It consisted of 20,000 soldiers in five divisions [33] with its headquarters at Aachen [34] and its troops stationed in Krefeld. [35] They were commanded by Armand Huyghé. Belgium also participated in the Occupation of the Ruhr in 1923.
The city of Antwerp (military governor general, Victor Deguise) was defended by numerous forts and other defensive positions and was considered to be impregnable.Since the 1880s, Belgian defence planning had been based on holding barrier forts on the Meuse (Maas) at Liège and at the confluence of the Meuse and the Sambre rivers at Namur, to prevent French or German armies from crossing the ...