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During World War I several Flemish soldiers were punished for their active or passive involvement in the Flemish Movement. Ten of these soldiers were sent to a penal military unit in 1918 called the Special Forestry Platoon in Orne, Normandy, France. They were forced to work as woodchoppers in hard living conditions until several months after ...
The German occupying authorities, under Von Bissing and influenced by pre-war Pan-Germanism, viewed the Flemish as an oppressed people and launched a policy to appeal to the demands of the Flemish Movement which had emerged in the late 19th century. These measures were collectively known as the Flamenpolitik ("Flemish Policy").
The German occupying authorities viewed the Flemish as an oppressed people and had taken several Flemish-friendly measures, known as Flamenpolitik. This included introducing Dutch as the language of instruction of all state-supported schools in Flanders in 1918. [108] This prompted a renewed Flemish movement in the years following the war.
Flemish people also emigrated at the end of the fifteenth century, when Flemish traders conducted intensive trade with Spain and Portugal, and from there moved to colonies in America and Africa. [28] The newly discovered Azores were populated by 2,000 Flemish people from 1460 onwards, making these volcanic islands known as the "Flemish Islands".
The massacres were often responses to towns whose populations were accused of fighting as francs-tireurs or guerrillas against the German army. [7] Civilians were summarily executed and several towns deliberately destroyed in a series of punitive actions collectively known as the Rape of Belgium. As many as 6,500 people were killed by the ...
Flamenpolitik (German: "Flemish policy") is a policy practiced by German authorities occupying Belgium during World War I and World War II. The ultimate goals of these policies was the dissolution of Belgium into separate Walloon and Flemish components and Germanisation.
Depiction of the Yser Front by the Belgian artist Georges-Émile Lebacq (1917). The Yser Front (French: Front de l'Yser, Dutch: Front aan de IJzer or IJzerfront), sometimes termed the West Flemish Front in British writing, was a section of the Western Front during World War I held by Belgian troops from October 1914 until 1918.
The Flemish forces were primarily town militia who were well equipped and trained. [1] The militia fought primarily as infantry, were organized by guild , and were equipped with steel helmets , mail haubergeons , [ 1 ] spears , pikes , bows , crossbows and the goedendag , a specifically Flemish weapon made from a thick, five-foot-long (1.5 m ...