Talk:Rape of Belgium/Archive 1

Archive 1

4 authors = modern serious historians community?

Basically, this "renewed" version of the "supposed" "Rape of Belgian population" is based on 4 authors... and one citing the other... well, i smell something wrong here. I do respect those writers but i cannot deny that only 4 authors aren't the expression of modern history point of view. I also think wikipedia is starting to give too much credit to "new writers" and forgetting to compare them with the "oldies" (People should remember that there are mistakes, lies even in Scientific works sometimes). For those who don´t believe me, i invite you people to read the afterword and the "Reply to a Reviewer" offered be Mr. Lipkes at his site:http://www.jefflipkes.com/work1.htm - So this article is pure POV without solid ground (or worse, scientific POV without really proof), needing A LOT of work and, especially, more research - PHW. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.67.158.16 (talk) 04:48, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

You are assuming that the British Bryce commission is to be completely discredited. The Bryce commission was actually quite skeptical of Belgian atrocity claims and therefore at the outset used lawyers trained in taking depositions and cross examining witnesses, they kept witnesses in separate rooms to minimize collusion amongst witnesses, and they review German soldiers diaries and they had forensic analysts look at these German diaries to confirm the identity of the scribe and owner of the diary. This article is not based on 4 authors...it is based on thousands of Belgian civilians, allied soldiers, and German soldiers written and oral statements of what really happened in Belgium in August 1914.76.94.18.217 (talk) 03:07, 30 May 2009 (UTC)edwardlovette76.94.18.217 (talk) 03:07, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Needs work

The sole reference is a dead link and, given the outlandish nature of some of these accusations, we really need to get some better sources here. I've linked to this article from the WWI main article, so hopefully we can get some interest going. Haber 16:04, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Title is not NPOV

I agree that the Germans did some awful things to Belgium, but calling this article the "Rape of Belgium" violates a neutral point of view. Shouldn't it be "German Invasion of Belgium?" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 152.23.48.99 (talk) 18:28, 7 March 2007 (UTC).

The mere term "invasion" does not imply war crimes, as in the mass killings of civilians claimed. The "Rape of Belgium" was a specific term of art describing German killings and other warcrimes directed against Belgian civilians. The perception of these war crimes were a powerful incentive for the entry of Britain and the US into the war, beyond what the mere fact of an invasion would have generated. There are countless references to it in newspapers of the era. To look at one paper for which I have online access, the New York Times alone printed articles with the phrase "rape of Belgium" 24 times during world war 1. Examples are 1)"THE GERMAN "WHITE BOOK" REJECTED.; Futile as an Apology for the Rape of Belgium and Worthless as a Document of Facts -- How the Evidence Was Taken. By A. J. CARNOY. Professor of Philology, Louvain University.A. J. CARNOY. New York Times. New York, N.Y.: Jun 4, 1915. pg. 10, 1 pgs. 2) "REASON UNSTRUNG. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jul 23, 1915. pg. 8, 1 pgs. Says "..the moral horror with which the world regards the rape of Belgium." Germany justified the shooting of women and children in a document. They claimed that resistance to the invasion of a neutral nation by civilians was contrary to international law. 3) "Says German Note Repudiates Liner Pledge; James M. Beck Points Out Amazing Contradiction and Calls Submarine Controversy a Discreditable Chapter in Diplomacy. By James M. Beck, Formerly Assistant Attorney General of the United States and Author of "The Dual Alliance vs. the Triple Entente" and "The Evidence in the Case.". New York TimesNew York, N.Y.: May 28, 1916. pg. SM5, 3 pgs. "The idea that it was of modern origin is largely due to the fact that the horrors of the Thirty Years' War, with its sack of Magdeburg and other atrocities, which are a parallel to the rape of Belgium, caused the great philosopher and jurist, Grotius, to present in his classic treatise this principle of humanity, which in times of war marks the chief line of demarkation between savagery and civilization." 4)"Spirit of the Nobler American Now Awake; Former Critic of the President Says There Are Practically No Dissenters From President Wilson's Clarion Call to Duty."By James M. Beck, Author of "The Evidence in the Case.". New York Times. New York, N.Y.: Feb 11, 1917. pg. SM3, 1 pgs: "the house of Hohenzollern...added the rape of Belgium to that of Silesia.." 5)"WAR OF DEMOCRACY; RECENT BOOKS ON THE WAR." New York Times. New York, N.Y.: Feb 11, 1917. pg. BR1, 2 pgs: "...it was not... the rape of Belgium that precipitated the cataclysm, but the greed and mutual fear and jealousy of two European empires..." 6) 'GOMPERS DENOUNCES MASKED PEACE WORK; Says People's Council Is Engaged in "Nefarious Propaganda of Treachery."' New York Times. New York, N.Y.: Aug 16, 1917. pg. 2, 1 pgs: "Not even at the behest of the so-called People's Council will the organized workers of America prostitute the labor movement to serve the brutal power resonsible for the infamous rape of Belgium..." 7) "THE BLOND BEAST. New York Times. New York, N.Y.: Jun 23, 1918. pg. 52, 1 pgs: "What follows is familiar to everyone who has read of the rape of Belgium and the invasion of northern France. The drunkenness, the shameless looting, the bayoneting of women, children and prisoners, the outrages commited on young girls, the attack on a hospital and murder of the wounded and of the French surgeon who was helping the German doctor with the injured of both nations- these are matters of historical fact, which need no assistance from fiction." 8)"UNCOMPROMISING LOYALTY." New York Times.New York, N.Y.: Jul 25, 1918. pg. 10, 1 pgs:"..such crimes against humanity as the rape of Belgium." For more recent scholarly use of the term see the book "The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover) by Larry Zuckerman, Hardcover: 350 pages Publisher: New York University Press (February 1, 2004) ISBN-10: 0814797040 ISBN-13: 978-0814797044 per Amazon.com. Edison 17:13, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

While I agree on the title, it seems to me some context is missing to what extend war crimes really happened and what the Allies claimed had happened. Additionally a problem is also what might constitute "legal" but morally questionable policing operations. I once read that counterinsurgency methods of the day were very crude back then so the German actions were condemned as inhumane even though in part being the same any other European army would have done when facing insurgents in an occupied territory. I came here from the general WW1 topic and there it summarizes war crimes adding up to maybe 1000-2000 dead Belgian civilians including women and children. While obviously a war crime it is definitely not the sign of a coordinated policy either. More details on that would be helpful, Mangalore 11-29-2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.13.108.47 (talk) 18:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I am currently reading Jeff Lipke's Rehearsals The German Army in Belgium, August 1914. It is a 700 page book and I am on page 400. But from my research, I believe the atrocities did happen. Lipke claims 6000 Belgian civilians were murdered in August alone. The Bryce Commission way back in 1914-1915 confirmed these atrocities by reading diaries removed from German dead, German Pow's, German wounded. They had forensic handwriting experts analyze these diaries. They confirmed that the diaries were written by the soldiers that owned the diaries. It was a practice in the German army to encourage soldiers to keep a diary. This fact is not well known. You can go to archive.org and search under germans, germany, world war, great war, belgium, Bryce commission, atrocities, german empire, german army, etc. You will find many books on this topic. 75.84.227.196 (talk) 08:51, 15 June 2008 (UTC)edward Lovette75.84.227.196 (talk) 08:51, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

German Invasion of Belgium is a better title. We need to keep POV out of the title. We are not the judges of history or of war crimes. This is meant to be a NPOV encyclopedia. Kingturtle (talk) 18:46, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Rape of Belgium is a well established term which refers to both the actual crimes and to the WWI propaganda about the subject. Therefore there is no need to change the title of this article.--Caranorn (talk) 19:33, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree; especially because, as Caranorn notes, it refers to propaganda about the subject. In one comment above the phrasing is small-r -> "the rape of Belgium as well as Silesia". It may be a well-established term in some circles but that still doesn't make it NPOV, and I don't recall, for example, a parallel Rape of Silesia. While certainly more than purely an invasion article, a more NPOV title would be something like German war crimes in Belgium in World War I. "Rape" is a decidedly POV term in ANY context. Unless you'd care to support a title on the Soviet invasion of the Third Reich as "Rape of Germany" (rumours of American war crimes, especially rape, are also common, so that might not be limited to an indictment of Soviet forces). The title indicts, not desscribes; the latter is Wikipedia's job, not the former.Skookum1 (talk) 13:42, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Does the word "rape" mean also the rape of the Belgian neutrality guaranteed by European treaties since 1839? If this meaning does exist, the title is right (and I may understand these English words I didn't know): on 4th August 1914, in front of the Reichstag, the German Chancelor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg recognized the "rape" (the fact Germany was against these treaties) and promised to make up for the injustice to Belgium . I have his declaration in French Nos troupes ont occupé le Luxembourg et ont peut-être pénétré en Belgique. Cela est en contradiction avec le droit des gens (...) L'injustice que nous commettons ainsi, nous la réparerons dès que notre but militaire sera atteint (La patrie belge, 1830-1930, Bruxelles, 1930, p. 186). But there is a source here in English (translated from German) Memoirs Of Prince Von Bulow II The World War And Germany S Collapse (1932) see pp. 195-196 the same content as my citation in French. Or on German WP the Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg 's page : Am 4. August trat er in Erwartung der britischen Kriegserklärung vor den Reichstag, um zu betonen, dass Deutschland den Krieg nicht gewollt und die russischen Militärs den Brand entfacht hätten. Das Unrecht an Belgien müsse das Kaiserreich wieder gut machen. (The Empire must make up for injustice to Belgium). Perhaps there are no good people but you must pay attention to the specificity of the events. I begg your pardon for my bad English, José Fontaine (talk) 19:36, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

"Rape of Belgium" is the term used historically in English to refer to these aspects of the German Occupation of Belgium in WW1. Given this, the title is appropriate. If someone finds the term "Rape of Belgium" in another work and comes to Wikipedia to look it up, they should be able to find it. And the term is historically important enough to merit its own article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.31.206.210 (talk) 15:16, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I entirely agree on Kingturtles statements. "Rape" in this context is a propaganda expression that should not be used. The argument that the term is common and widely used in English language literature is not convincing. It simply shows that the view of many people is still influenced by WWI war propaganda. War crimes should be called such, whenever they are documented but one must be critical when reading contemporary English or French reports because very often these are no real "neutral" sources. --Furfur (talk) 07:42, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Quote: "The term initially had a propaganda use but recent historiography confirms its reality." This does dissent the argument that the article uses the subjective propagandistic term just because its common sence. I tried to alter this sentence, but somebody did undo my changes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.115.96.35 (talk) 11:16, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Firstly the edit was written in faulty English. Secondly, although started as propaganda, the term "Rape of Belgium" has been universally used for the violation of the Belgian neutrality by the Germans in August 1914. It's true that many of the propaganda horror stories were exaggerations and this fact was later used to discredit the claims of German misbehaviour, which was very real. After all the Germans did commit numerous war crimes in August 1914 when they executed hundreds of innocent Belgian civilians in Liège, Andenne, Aarschot, Leuven, and especially in Dinant (674 inhabitants casualties with the youngest executed person being a child of a couple of weeks old!) as "reprisals" for imagined "franc tirreur" activity (either because it was friendly fire or stemmed fro m actions of the regular Belgian army). However modern scholars (for instance Larry Zuckerman in The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War 1) have researched the topic and found that the German occupation during WWI (August 1914-November 1918) was in reality a precursor to the brutal Nazi oppression twenty years later. The Germans during WWI engaged in practices of travel restraints, collective punishment, executions, deportation of slave laborers as well as the harnessing of the Belgian industry to the German advantage and later the wanton destruction of Belgium's induistrial capacity. All things very familiar to scholars of WWII. -- fdewaele, 5 September 2013, 16:34 (CET).

I completly understand the wish for a drastical choice of words in nearly every war crime article. But even if its difficult. You still need to use objective descriptions in a wiki article. The quoted sentence clearly is´nt ment to use any kind of common term. Rape is ment being rape here. To call the rape of belgium as propaganda, but proven reality is a massive exaggeration. If we start accepting such descriptions in wiki artikel this would become an realy ugly contest for similar events. And sry, for the bad english. It´s obvious that its not my first language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.115.68.87 (talk) 15:26, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

"rape" is the usual term--it has of course a sexual meaning regarding sex but it also has a broader meaning = devastation that is used here. Rjensen (talk) 15:58, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

The propaganda was about sex and further samples of abuse. The sentence does claim that the propaganda is reality. If you mean devastation, why don´t u write it. ;) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.115.68.87 (talk) 16:38, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Rape in the context of the "Rape of Belgium" meant violation as in the violation of Belgium's neutrality and integrity. It was thus more than merely a sexual connotation. It's also a historical term so why change it to something else. Wikipedia is an encylcopedia and thus is to be expected to define terms which are of historical notd - fdewaele, 6 September 2013, 9:06 CET.

I don´t want to change the title of the article. So maybe i posted this in the wrong topic. If you carefully read the sentence you have to see that it acutally explains the oposite of what you say: "The term initially had a propaganda use but recent historiography confirms its reality." This sentence does say that "rape" in this context is reality and not just a historic term. But ok, i´ll stop here. If you can´t see what i mean, i obviously can´t change it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.7.191.252 (talk) 10:55, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Same term as said in my history class.

I'm currently in a US History class at IUPUI, and my professor referred to it as the "Rape of Belgium". I think it's more a common known term for the events. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.136.167.61 (talk) 16:23, 5 April 2007 (UTC).

I changed it to what you asked

But now the article needs some revision, i will get to it later if someone else does not do so. --Bladesofhalo 03:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Did work

Hello everyone. I have rewritten this article because it truly smelled of propaganda. Hope you find my work somewhat more balanced.Bas Veenema 14:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

The rape of Belgium was simply war propaganda and the lie was running throw the century supported for the 40's nazi horror. Please again, the nazi regime lasted for 13 years, and Germany is (and was and will be) greater and better than Hitler & friends was 80.34.202.139 16:17, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Next time please read all the provided material and other discussions. Events in Belgium between 1914 and 1918 (mostly 1914) were real, they were also used for propaganda purpouses, but that doesn't make the entire events propaganda. I won't comment on the greater and better bit.--Caranorn 11:26, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Please discuss *BEFORE* attempting to move the article again

This article is about the series of atrocities that the Germans committed in the opening months of WWI. This is well-known under the name "Rape of Belgium". There may be a place within Wikipedia for an article named, "Invasion of Belgium", but it doesn't necessarily have to get started by stealing this article. Please discuss further before disrupting Wikipedia by a move. Haber 15:18, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

It would be best if we started an article named German invasion of Belgium or something related to that and then listing atrocities under it. Thats what I was meaning to do today. --Bladesofhalo 00:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow, you must be really angry?

The article was rewritten by me only because the title was changed and now did not meet the content anymore. The 'Rape of Belgium' by that way is only "known" since the Versailles Treaty and was subsequently used to summon germany for huge payments. Just like "boiling corpses for fat to smear their guns" most of the rape accusations are post-war propaganda. I am not saying the germany did not commit collective punishmenst and violated international laws, but I am saying that these kind of articles about attrocities are written mostly by Belgians and smell of propaganda! The Dutch-Flemsih version on Wikipedia even has the headliner "Arm, klein, dapper België"(Poor, small, brave Belgium). Well, there is historical objectivity for you.Bas Veenema 15:52, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually you seem to be misinformed, the term "Rape of Belgium" is a WWI period term, not post WWI. The propaganda surrounding these events is also from WWI itself and not after WWI. Lastly the actual destructions (Louvain for instance) in Belgium during that war were real and absolutely justified the demands for reparations. Lastly the topic is not just a Belgian one, it was a well known one in Britain and France at least during the war.--Caranorn 15:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I think we might just have a simple misunderstanding of English here. "Rape of Belgium" does not refer to sexual assault. The use of "rape" is a bit archaic, and means "4. an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation: the rape of the countryside."[1] A sexual assault in the early 1900s would more likely be called an "outrage". To this day the atrocities committed by Germany in Belgium are still collectively known as the "Rape of Belgium", even though if a similar thing happened today it would probably be called by some other name, that we'd consider more NPOV. As for the other balance problems, if you disagree with something else please change it. But you can see how a move followed by a complete rewrite might draw a response, can't you? Haber 19:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok.Bas Veenema 21:04, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

There must be a better word out there than rape cause no matter the meaning some people will attribute it to violating a NPOV. --Bladesofhalo 00:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

We can't just rename events because we think the titles are POV or outdated. Encyclopedias don't do that. Haber 13:44, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Well lots of things Wikipedia does are things that encyclopedias "don't do". Perhaps a small addition could be made about the controversial nature of that phrase in some quarters. (FWIW I think the word "rape" should be abandoned altogether I don't know of a better one.)Historian932 (talk) 16:05, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Per a reference I added above under the first topic "Title is not NPOV", actual rape of women and girls was part of the claimed pattern of war crimes. Not that mass reprisal killings of civilians and burning of towns was anything to sneeze at. The title should stay, because it has great usage in books and papers from 1914 to the present (many of them pre-Google unfortunately, but accessible through other library search engines. Edison 17:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure there were books and papers before Google? If this is true then there could be a whole world of information that Wikipedia is missing! Haber 17:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Herzstein

Interesting that Kiebie's piece was deleted. "In his book "Roosevelt & Hitler" Jewish author Robert E. Herzstein considers the Rape of Belgium itself only to be part of war-time propaganda. (p.8) "The Germans could not seem to find a way to counteract powerful British propaganda about the 'Rape of Belgium' and other alleged atrocities." Let's see if it stays this time, or is again censored.

You're misinterpreting the quote. He's not saying that atrocities didn't happen, he's only reporting them as "alleged atrocities". This is a common way many authors attempt to sound neutral. From that quote, we can't know whether he believes in the atrocities or not. He merely asserts a) atrocities were alleged, b) British propaganda used them, c) Germany had no answer. Also, it's bad form to talk about "Jewish author". You might as well refer to other sources as "Christian author" or "Atheist author". Haber 16:03, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

If you read the rest of the book, you will see that he justifies some serious doubts about the whole thing. Not that many awful things had happened to Belgium, the did of course, but he puts them into perspective. Not many people know about the deal between France's general Poincaré and the Belgians to let France pass through (something the Germans did know and wanted to beat the French to it by striking the first blow. Belgium replied in a letter to Germany that it had no such plans... yet we now know that this was only cosmetic because France was mobilizing north bound and not east bound... which would have been the more logical manouvre if they wanted to go to Germany. Only when Germany noted the north-bound move, did they decide to go though Belgium. About me calling the author Jewish... well, if you don't then people who write something positive about Germany always get called Revisionist... or worse !!

Bas Veenema 07:12, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

You say that Poincaré and the Belgians had a free passage agreement. Give some reliable sources ! This is the argument that the Germans always used to excuse their movement. France was NOT mobilised North bound which you can see to the results of the battle of the frontiers. Their main armies where fighting in the Elsace. Please do some more research before writting such things. Before doing further discussion, read the book of Larry Zuckerman "the rape of Belgium". He has done some serious and profound investigations about the matter. H.Trappeniers 21:08, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Trappeniers and I have noticed that on the Wikepedia article titled 'Origins of WW1' there is somewhat of a pro-German bias and a lot of important information is left out. And getting them to edit that article is like pulling teeth. Well, I can understand it somewhat because I used to feel sympathy for the Germans for losing to world wars but after doing further research on the 1914 atrocities in Belgium and on the events leading up to WW1, I lost my sympathy for the Germans.75.84.227.196 (talk) 20:30, 13 August 2008 (UTC)edwardlovette75.84.227.196 (talk) 20:30, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

French

should it really read "...in fear of French guerrilla fighters..."? or was it more likely Belgian snipers? thank you -anon 81.242.82.11 06:57, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Propaganda

There should be a section in this article about English propaganda implying the Germans impaled babies on spiked helmets and nailed kittens to church doors. Kingturtle (talk) 13:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree 100%. The article otherwise seems to implicitly create the impression that *all* stories of German atrocities in Belgium happened, when only *some* of them in fact did so.Historian932 (talk) 16:12, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia should not descend down to the level of cheap Propaganda

I am sorry my dear friends from those "good" Allied countries, it is in vain to believe people were not informed. This article called "Rape of Belgium" has about the same scientific quality as this here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWatrocities3.jpg

I have seen the original documents of all this heinous and sick British War-Propaganda, which have been trying to demonize Germans from the very start, and which was, frankly, based on a wild fantasy rather than on a trace of truth. It is common knowledge that Britain tried to depict a cultural Nation as Monkeys, Monsters, Rapists, blood-thirsty and child-spearing animals. (Funnily enough, the German war propaganda never descenced down to this level of brutal slander and inhuman pictures, but to humurous picturous like Disney-like Cartoons. www.dhm.de).

Frankly, i think this article which aims to slander Germany and lacks any reliable scientific evidence gives Wikipedia a bad reputation. It is quite obvious that this article is intentionally trying to mislead, by asserting the British lies during WW I were true. I

Well, but i am not surprised, we all know the way Allies "write history": German traditions are spearing children on bajonetts and producing shrunken heads, while the so-called "Good" Allies never had any Eisenhower's Death Camps, and Stalin concentration camps, and Ethnic Cleansings like in Silesia and the Sudetenland, and when i tried to post an article about the well-documented Lord-Lytton Genocide, it got deleted. Most Allied crimes and atroticies do not even appear on Wikipedia.

It is because England and the USA are "good" countries, Germany is a "bad" country, and probably that's why the same "good" nations are in Iraq today, and plan to aggress Iran, too.

Well, "Zuckermann" is a typical Jewish name, and what's new about the fact that American biased Zionists not only try to use the Holocaust as a n "extortion racket" (Quote: Jewish Professor Dr. Norman Finkelstein), but apparantly the "Holocaust business" (ibid.) does not satisfy their greed any more, so they seem to need even more slander and viscious claims. Somebody wrote it was "bad form" to call a Jewish Author a Jewish Author. Why? In my view, calling a person "Jewish" is not negative.

As for these heinous propaganda-lies by the British, like e.g. "eating children" etc.: Everybody in Europe knew quite shortly after the War, that the inhuman and mean-minded British War-Propaganda only intended to stir hate against Germany, and was based on a pack of blunt lies (similiar to the Propaganda which Tony Blair used only few years ago to wage another aggressive war in Iraq, in the name of "liberating" people).

By the way, i am of Jewish origine myself, but unlike some dubious "Scientists" like my collegue Zuckermann, i neither resort to mindless slander nor to selling obscene fantasy as "history". I call for speedy deletion of this highly biased and untrue article. PeterBln (talk) 13:04, 27 November 2008

You're entirely correct. Sadly British and American teachings of German 'history' are still filled with anti-German propaganda. This is also evident in polls that show the average Briton to be more antagonistic toward Germans than other nationalities/ethnic groups. 71.126.133.3 (talk) 04:52, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

See some sources for "atrocities" in Belgium

See some pictures of British-American anti-german hate-propaganda:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWinBrit.JPG

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWatrocities3.jpg

http://www.dhm.de/lemo/objekte/pict/pl003967/index.html

http://www.dhm.de/lemo/objekte/pict/88-1892/index.html

So why not adding the British ministry of Defense as a "reliable" source to the Article? After all, i would consider it very important to inform the public that all Germans look like King Kong, are a Rapist's Army (unlike the Allied Red Army) and eat children.--PeterBln (talk) 13:04, 27 November 2008

Peterbln seems to be the one who "descends" here -- to emotional comments of the "We all know" variety. Unless there is chapter and verse, the contribution should have no effect on the article. APW (talk) 11:33, 30 December 2008 (UTC)(UTC)

Definitely not all propaganda

I live in Leuven and most houses here have a sign somewhere on the house that shows when it was built, it nearly always is a date in between 1918-1922, simply because nearly all the houses in the center had been burned down. There was no military reason to burn down Leuven, (including its medieval university library) so this is not all fiction and propaganda. Yes there is propaganda involved but this is based on real war crimes. --Lamadude (talk) 17:15, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Horne and Kramer (in their book Belgian atrocities) agree with that... José Fontaine (talk) 15:35, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Please note that propaganda as a norm does have some facts in it. Which is done to keep people more confused about what is happening. Well, and don't forget that reprisals involving burning of houses are a martial custom even in Europe --196.210.139.30 (talk) 17:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

This title is pejorative, a violation of Neutral Point of View

This needs to be changed. If you want to have the politicized term, apparently still used in the UK, "Rape of Belgium" as a LINK to a neutrally titled page "Invasion of Belgium," that's fine. But the main article should not have a propagandistic and one-sided title such as this. This strikes me as patently obvious. I'm flagging. Carrite (talk) 21:05, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Further: The footnoting of this article is grossly inadequate and the term "war crimes" flung around flippantly. Carrite (talk) 21:10, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Would "Atrocities in Belgium during World War One" be a good compromise?

There seem to be two sides to this debate:

1. Those who say that "invasion" is not a strong enough term, because atrocities far beyond a simple invasion were signficant. 2. Those who say "rape" is not NPOV.

I think that something more specific than "rape" (which normally refers to a sex crime) or "invasion" (which includes morally acceptable actions, such as the landing as Normandy on D-Day) should be used. Decide what message you want to convey with the word rape and then select factual, non-sexual words that actually mean that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.109.172.32 (talk) 04:48, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

How about "German War Crimes in Belgium" (in World War One). A little wordy but more neutral than even atrocities I think (which connote simply killing of large numbers of people, whereas the main impression I got of German misbehavior was regarding destruction of buildings like the library of Leuven.)Historian932 (talk) 16:17, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

You are all confusing two things. The contents of the articles in wikipedia are supposed to follow NPOV and have to be verifiable using credible sources. The titles of the article should use the most commonly used name for the subject. That means that 'Rape of Belgium' which obtains more or less 1'600'000 results in Google will stay. Flamarande (talk) 19:53, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Titles still follow NPOV. Another title may be used only if it affects clarity. German War Crimes in Belgium (First World War) would work just as well as Rape of Belgium AND provide neutrility since Rape of Belgium isn't one of the more well-known historical events. A redirect for Rape of Belgium can be created for anyone who searches for that term.66.41.101.118 (talk) 03:29, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Read the previous discussions in this talk page. "Rape of Belgium" is not a pejoritive term made up by Wikipedia editors., It is a specific term of art used by the British , Americans and their allies during WW1, and by historians since, to describe German war crimes in Belgium during the invasion and occupation. It IS in fact a "well known historic event." See Google Book Search, where "Rape of Belgium" gets 2630 book references, including scholarly books with that as the title [2]. Note that the references commonly capitalize "Rape of Belgium." It is a named event, commonly referred to by historians, and not just a descriptive title. For example "'The Rape of Belgium' became the symbol in the Western democracies, and especially the United States, of German barbarism." from "Encyclopedia of the Age of Imperialism.". Similarly we would not replace The Holocaust with Mistreatment of the Jews by the Germans. Edison (talk) 19:27, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

No, you're correct. To refer to the Holocaust/Final Solution as 'Mistreatment of the Jews by the Nazis' would be misrepresentative of all the ethnic and social groups hurt by the Nazi regime. But this is irrelevent to this discussion. The only connection I see is they both involve Germany. 71.126.133.3 (talk) 04:47, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Holocaust seems to be a new umbrella term from nothing to everything. Unfortunately there is no even playing field concerning debates about it here on wikipedia. So for sure all we have to do is to believe. --196.210.139.30 (talk) 17:53, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

The origin of this expression

I didn't know this expression (Rape of Belgium: from the UK I think but also used for the propaganda of the US Army in 1917 - source Horne & Kramer Belgian atrocities I read only in French). This expression doesn't exist in French, but for instance "les massacres d'août 14" (massacres of august 1914). The title is in a sense "neutral" because it was an historical expression (in English both in UK and US), and also an important event because these massacres were - on a moral plan - a great defeat for Germany, even until the World War II. France and UK managed these events for their propanda and also made a great propaganda in favour of the King Albert I of Belgium because the Belgian army resists really and strongly the German invasion (a King who defend the honour of his country etc.etc.). When the German invasion began on 10 may 1940, millions of civilians run away on the road to the South of France from the Belgium and the North of France. All these people were absolutely afraid by the German soldiers because they were remembering the events of August 1914. It is not impossible that this phenomenon was partly an explanation (partly!) of the French defeat in 1940. Belgian refugees and also of course French Refugees was also a great topic of the Philippe Pétain's first speech before the armistice and the fall of France "Je songe aux malheureux réfugiés" "I think of the unhappy refugees"... José Fontaine (talk) 18:57, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

25pxl

[3]

I think also it is not important only for Belgium but for France etc. And it is also a very interesting historical issue with the great survey of the two Irish Historians Horne and Kramer with their Belgian atrocities which is perhaps the first book of an actual European History because they managed Belgian, French, British and German sources. On the French Wp too, many people were not aware of this important event, a longue durée event (the beginning was the German fear for the franc tireurs - actual franc tireurs during the Franco-German war in 1870 but not actual franc tireurs during the World War I. And even during the World War II, this German fear was also actual in Belgium but with only a massacre in Vinkt (in Flanders)... José Fontaine (talk) 19:27, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Poster Nationality

Unlikely to be a British poster. Liberty Bonds were sold by the US government, Ellsworth Young was an American artist. Dorset100 (talk) 23:21, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

The much-discussed "Kultur" poster is on the cover of this book. Perhaps someone can find a copy for use here. It's probably in the public domain by now. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 04:40, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Holocaust Deniers

If there is one place that should NOT be a springboard for Holocaust denial "debates" it's Wikipedia. That's just what we are getting here from 196.210.139.30 and his buddies (notice no name). If we have to entertain the rantings of these guys in order to maintain a "neutral" point of view than Wikipedia is not the place for me. Andacar 04:43, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Origin of the Word "Rape"

I note that this page is still in a state of dispute. The Rape of Belgium is a term which was widely used in the English-speaking world as soon as the atrocities to Belgium became known (second half of 1914). The public were epecially outraged after the American Embassy in London claimed that the German soldiers weren't merely committed crimes of a sexual nature, but were committing "Jack the Ripper" style mutilations. Any quick search of 1914 newspapers can confirm this. By contrast, the possibility that the facts had been manufactured to sway the American public was already being bandied about by 1917 and survive to this day. There is no getting away from the fact that the German side violated Belgium's Treaty of Neutrality by invading and committing wholesale destruction in some parts of Belgium, together with the theft of coal, linen patterns/machinery, etc. That alone equates to war crimes. But this article is not just about just the invasion of Belgium, it is specifically an explanation of the historical term "The Rape of Belgium" and must be preserved in order to explain this term, no matter which side of the fence one sits. I do believe that it should be (and is) explained in the opening paragraphs that we are not talking about sexual rape, but rather property rape, despite claims of such at the time. However, because the Americans had been attempting to associate sexual connotations to the events, a section on this should be noted in the text. I have found a newspaper article (unfortunately not a major paper) which uses all of the following terms: rapine, rape, mutilation, and lust. http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=AG19141001.2.27.17&srpos=3&e=-------10--1----2Rape+of+Belgium-- All of these terms, which nowadays have a sexual connotation, have in the past been associated with merely property theft and destruction. But the article then specifically mentions the American's claims about perverted crimes. So although words like rape and lust, etc were not the usual terms to describe the sexual violation of women and sodomy, they were, as early as 1914, in occasional use at least, as proved by thousands of newspaper articles such as that one. A more common term of the day for sexual violation of women would be "ravishing". My point is that, is this where the modern use of the word began to gain popularity? Let's not forget the powerful imagery such as the poster of the German soldier dragging away the girl against her will at night in front of a background of fire. Couple that with newspaper reports which used such common and emotive language as the one I have quoted, and it is entirely believable that the general public would begin to equate one with the other. The words; rape, lust and "passions of maddened men" may have gradually come to gain their modern meanings from the events of Belgium. I have not the time nor the qualifications to rewrite the actual Wikipedia page, but I do hope that those that do, don't sanitise history any further by altering what is a significant historical term to only reflect modern meanings. 60.234.229.163 (talk) 22:46, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The title is correct and necessary - and the article is good and important

Maybe one could consider to add to the title - " - A Remarkably Astute British Propaganda Fabrication".

This pernicious label "Rape of Belgium" - committed by Germans - is across the board in English language history books and documentations and even fiction books, movies etc. and very sadly in far too many brains of English speaking people. And therefore people will feel the need to check what there is behind this hideous, but utterly successful British propaganda fabrication.

In essence the "Rape of Belgium" slander is basically Anti-German racist hate talk of the kind that at that time was common in Britain, though it is fair to say generally in Europe and Western countries, on behalf of Africans and Asians.

I as a German of the post-WW2 generation have been exposed to tons of anti-German propaganda in the post-WW2 German media themselves. But even these not at all Kaiser-friendly post-WW2 German media never spread these horror tales of rape and massacre in Belgium and even France at the beginning of or even throughout WW1.

The article dissects very clearly the mix of real facts, i.e. the violation of Belgian neutrality and factual actions of German troops, from wild and malicious, completely wanton and dissolute lies, produced to justify British power politics before the British people and in order to motivate WASPS in America to help them getting out of the mess they had brought their soldiers into, in their frenzied crave to destroy Germany. With British parsons urging for the killing of every German on earth.

The, it has to be said admirably clever, trick was to shift the term from "violation of neutrality" to "rape of a country", from that to "rape of women" - and from that back to "Rape of Belgium".

The article should stay here - and with exactly this title. Harry362 (talk) 13:14, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

FWIW...Henry Miller refers to "the rape of Belgium" in his 1934 classic Tropic of Cancer.```Buster Seven Talk 14:42, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Buster7 is right. It is false to state "basically Anti-German racist hate talk" -- it really happened as many recent scholarly studies has proven. Atrocity denial doesn't pass muster at Wikipedia. Rjensen (talk) 16:30, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

+1 Harry362. I have translated the article for german wp and it is now online - the article is really good and important.--Superikonoskop (talk) 06:09, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Congo Issue

[from Rjensen talk page]

Rape of Belgium article

Hmm, Wikipedia instantly lets you know when edits are reverted. Anyway, I know that the worst atrocities ended with the start of the Belgian Congo, but that isn't relevant? The point being made is that the Western world downplayed the Congo Free State's historical atrocities after the "Rape of Belgium". I suppose I can rephrase "Belgium's own atrocities" as just "the atrocities" but I wouldn't exactly call the previous wording unfair; both states had the same King, the administrators of the Congo Free State were mostly Belgians appointed by the King, much of the production of the Congo went to Belgian ports, etc. I consider this far more relevant than the preexisting "Winder says that Britian did bad things too elsewhere" comment in the article, which is just pointless; the fact that people agreed to "forget" about the problems of the Congo Free State after 1914, regardless of who exactly ran it, is a relevant point to bring up (well, at least according to Hochschild). SnowFire (talk) 02:46, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

the scholarly literature makes pretty clear that the king ran the Congo & sponsored atrocities without the advice of the Belgian government: the gov't refused to have any responsibility for the colony when Leopold set it up--so how is it they get blamed?. the harshness & atrocities were drastically cut back by having Belgium take over the Congo in 1908. The original king tried to set up a foundation to rule HIS Congo after his death, to keep it out of the hands of the Belgium govt. (and also keep it away from his family). Anyway mentions many atrocities around the world and apart from French Africa has done no serious research on any of them. More to the point Hochschild has done little or no research on the topic of this article, and little or none on how the world reacted to 1914. He's not a RS on the Rape of Belgium. Rjensen (talk) 04:35, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, Hochschild is an RS on the Congo Free State, and this claim doesn't require direct expertise about the Rape of Belgium, or how the world reacted to its other facets? All that matters for this claim is how the world changed with specific regard to the Congo Free State as related to the Rape of Belgium, so he's on point.

I haven't read any reason to doubt his claims that interest in the Congo Free State's atrocities greatly dimmed after the initial uproar, and it was not until much later and the end of the Cold War that they came to light again. And tying this "forgetting" as he calls it to World War I & the Rape of Belgium certainly sounds plausible to me as a reason why, so this isn't an extraordinary claim. I mean, I can see arguing that this fact is too minor for the article - August 1914 had an indirect impact on all sorts of things, and WWI itself pushed everything out of the spotlight for the duration - but questioning it at all seems odd. Is there reason to think Hochschild is actually overstating the impact here? SnowFire (talk) 07:34, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

(Also, as a side note that is not overly relevant. There's Belgian atrocities and then there's Belgian atrocities. If someone says "Americans overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy," they are correct in that they mean "American citizens backed by American marines" did it. But the US government was not involved, the President opposed it, etc. So America both did it and didn't do it, depending on what you mean. It's the same here: Belgians largely ran Congo, and part of the Belgian government ran it (the King) but not the rest of the government. I don't think it's unreasonable to still call it "Belgian atrocities" but it is an unclear sentence, and you are of course correct that it does not mean "the government of Belgium" in this case. But I'm fine with tamping down the wording if you'd prefer, so.) SnowFire (talk) 07:41, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

My problem with Hochschild is that he did NOT do any research on how the world looked at Belgium in 1914, and only speculates in a couple sentences. He is MUCH more interested in Roger Casement in that period. As for "Belgian atrocities" that's what the Germans said in 1914, but Hochschild does not link that to Congo. Rjensen (talk) 18:26, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand you're getting at with the atrocities comment, but whatever, I already said I'm fine with rephrasing. As for Hochschild, yes it's a note in passing, yes he's more interested in Casement, but... so? As I already said, it doesn't matter if Hochschild isn't a scholar of "how the world looked at Belgium in 1914." He is a scholar of how the world looked at the Congo Free State, though, and I presume he did research that. So... I'm not seeing the complaint. Even if you think he's wrong or overstating things, the claim is still cited to him, and I don't think a blanket "he's not really a scholar" claim is correct here. SnowFire (talk) 07:26, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The notions that the Belgians deserved the horrible punishments Germany inflicted was a theme of German wartime propaganda. The article is about Belgium not about the Congo, and he does not explore what the world thought about Belgium in 1914. So he's not much help for this article. Rjensen (talk) 07:36, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry to butt in here (especially on someone else's talk page, sorry!) but this is also an area where I have an interest. Rjensen is exactly right. Comparisons to other massacres (just by dint of their having taken place) is not suitable for such an article. "Belgium", or actually many "Belgians" (many more British, Scandanavians and Americans also in the employ of the CFS), was not directly involved in the massacres in the Congo. It would be rather like blaming the Americans for the Herero genocide on the basis of an American having invented and sold the Maxim gun.

By the way (a pet hate of mine), please do not make the mistake of labeling Hochschild a "scholar". He is an excellent writer, but by profession a popular writer and journalist. Note that he's written on a variety of other topics too in just as much detail. His book is interesting and very well written, but it should not be mistaken for high-brow historical research written by those who specialize(d) on the area (Stengers, Emerson etc.) In this case, he obviously given little thought to the aftermath - since it's not within the scope of what he was writing, why should he? Brigade Piron (talk) 09:52, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Disproportion

This article seems to have far too little on the nominal subject and rather too much on "propaganda" and German post-justifications and quibbles over how the actions of the invading German army and their actions were subsequently viewed in wartime publications. Can we please re-proportion the article to focus on what it purports to be -- "The Rape of Belgium". Thank You. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.100.213.3 (talk) 09:26, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

I think the article does a good job on both the actual events and their long-term memory. The memory is history too, and indeed historians in the 21st century spend a great deal of time on how the past is "remembered/reconstructed" by later generations. In this case the memory was VERY political in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1940s that "memory" of false exaggeration played a role when scattered bits of news re the Holocaust started coming out after 1941. Many Americans (& others) said it was a replay of exaggerated or invented falsehoods just like they thought the "rape of Belgium" was grossly exaggerated or invented for propaganda reasons. Rjensen (talk) 09:49, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

"rape was widespread"

Until a source is revealed that shows that a very large percentage of German soldiers committed rape against Belgian civilians, the claim that "rape was widespread" should only be taken as anglo-American propaganda. The title "The Rape of Belgium" should be changed to "German occupation of Belgium" because "The Rape of Belgium" is a propaganda term. The fact that a propaganda term is widely used in the United States and the UK doesn't mean it should be used as a title for a supposedly neutral encyclopedia article.

"but recent historiography confirms its reality"

"The term initially had a propaganda use but recent historiography confirms its reality" The concept of "The Rape of Belgium" has changed since it was introduced due to evidence coming to light that many alleged German "atrocities" in Belgium were either fabrications or extreme exaggerations of true events. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gecko116 (talk • contribs) 09:15, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

well no. The many studies of the last 20 years are based on German records and they provide solid evidence of thousands of atrocities. There is no longer any debate among scholars. Rjensen (talk) 09:19, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Can you give a source that proves that German soldiers bayonetted Belgian infants or chopped off the hands of Belgian children? The claim that "the Rape of Belgium" as it was known and conceived in 1914 has been confirmed by "recent historiography" is ridiculous.

take a look at The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I by Larry Zuckerman (start with ch 2 at Amazon and tell us what episodes you think did not happen according to the reliable sources you are using. Rjensen (talk) 10:13, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

I looked at chapter 2 of "The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I" and so far I found no reference of German soldiers bayonetting Belgian infants or cutting off the hands of Belgian children. You have not provided evidence that German soldiers committed the atrocities I just mentioned. Here is a good source for British Atrocity Propaganda during the First World War http://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/atrocity-propaganda. The website article, written by Jo Fox, a Professor of Modern History at Durham University, states "While the reports tended to adopt an objective tone, salacious stories were extracted from testimonies to form the basis of sensational newspaper articles, exhibitions (such as that by Louis Raemaekers in London in 1915), or popular books. This created a dynamic, transformative and self-reinforcing propaganda environment. William Le Queux detailed the suffering of the ‘honest, pious inhabitants’ of Belgium, at the mercy of ‘one vast gang of Jack-the-Rippers… frothing with military Nietzschism’ and excited by ‘a primitive barbarism’. Although initially a response to the invasion of Belgium in 1914, atrocity stories drew - as Le Queux’s account suggests - on pre-existing anti-German sentiments." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gecko116 (talk • contribs) 10:56, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Actually there is: the youngest victim of the German "reprisals" at Dinant in August 2014, where over 600 people were murdered by Saxon troops, was the only three weeks old Félix Fivet. -- fdewaele

Felix Fivet was executed by the German army, along with hundreds of other Belgian civilians as a reprisal for the alleged guerrilla activities of Belgian civilians in that area, I can't find any reliable source that references German soldiers "bayonetting" or cutting the hands off Belgian children as stated in British and French propaganda in 1914. The term "The Rape of Belgium" as it was initially known in 1914, until the end of the Frist World War in 1918, was a mixture of truth and lies used by the Allied powers as propaganda against Germany, this is why it is inappropriate to claim, as the introduction of this article claims, that "The term initially had a propaganda use but recent historiography confirms its reality". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gecko116 (talk • contribs) 18:48, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

the Wiki article makes no mention of "bayonetting" or cutting the hands off Belgian children. Instead it talks of hundreds of civilians shot and many civilian places burned. That's the reality we're discussing: deliberately killing little babies--does it matter if the German soldier used his rifle's bullet or its bayonet? Rjensen (talk) 09:21, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Title

Should the "The" be in the title? Generally article titles don't seem to have "The" in the title. Blaylockjam10 (talk) 09:41, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite or indefinite article at beginning of name), it's OK if its an "official or commonly used proper name". You wouldn't just see "rape of Belgium" on its own. Brigade Piron (talk) 10:29, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

"Never regained its pre-war status"

Belgium was the 6th largest economy in the world because of Congo. It wouldn't have kept this status even if it wasn't for the war, so that line is rather misleading.

No, it wasn't: a the time (1914) Belgium was one of the most industrialized countries of the world and had been so for years. The Congo had nothing or little to do with it. The industrialization already stemmed from before Belgium acquired the colony. -- fdewaele, 24 August 2014, 21:57 CET.

Yes, fdewaele is certainly right. Belgian investment in the Congo was much less than investment elsewhere and it didn't play a big part in the economy (at least not before the war). Domestic industrialization and investment abroad (in France, Russia, South America...) were where Belgium made its money in the C19. —Brigade Piron (talk) 20:50, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Title of article

This page was originally created at the title "Rape of Belgium". It was moved to "The Rape of Belgium", but I have returned the article to "Rape of Belgium" because Wikipedia policy, as stated at the beginning of WP:THE, is to avoid the initial definite article unless one of two conditions are met.

The first condition is "If a word with a definite article has a different meaning with respect to the same word without the article", with the example "crown means the headgear worn by a monarch or other high dignitaries, while The Crown is a term used to indicate the government authority and the property of that government in a monarchy." Since Belgium is not an individual but a country, both "Rape of Belgium" and "the Rape of Belgium" unambiguously refer to the "German treatment of civilians during the invasion and subsequent occupation of Belgium during World War I", so that condition is not met.

The second condition is "if the definite or indefinite article would be capitalized in running text". Well, that is not the case, either. The historical sources that describe this event do not do so. For example, in Rust: The Longest War by Jonathan Waldman: "[...] and then had it stolen while he was taken prisoner by Germans during the Rape of Belgium" [4]. Or in Women and Ideology of War Recruitment, Propaganda, and the Mobilization of Public Opinion in Britain: 1914 - 1918 by Nicoletta F. Gullace: "The key to the profound popular and international effect of the Rape of Belgium [...]" or "in the move from the text of the Hague Convention to the bodies of innocent women and children, the Rape of Belgium became a physical symbol" [5]. Or in Excluded from the Record: Women, Refugees, and Relief, 1914-1929 by Katherine Storr: "The occupation was consequently described as the rape of Belgium" [6]. Or in German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial by John Horne and Alan Kramer: "Tales of raped women in Belgium and France merged into the rape of Belgium itself and suggested the threat to Britain" [7].

Finally, compare the many other events in the template Template:World War I, of which this article is an entry. We have events like like "Battle of the Frontiers", "Battle of Cer", "Race to the Sea", "Armistice of Mudros", "Destruction of Kalisz", etc., none of which use the definite article at the beginning. Finally, compare to other articles about war crimes: "Massacre of Avranches", "Massacre of Benares", "Massacre of Mérindol", "Massacre of Trujillo", etc.

—Lowellian (reply) 16:02, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Sixth largest economy?

Can we have a source link for this "Before the war Belgium was the sixth largest economy in the world"? I could find a proof, looks it's not true. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aleck$ (talk • contribs) 03:40, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Here's some links:

• Belgium was the first country after the UK to industrialise and did so rapidly. It became the most intensely industrialised country in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Belgium#Industrial_Revolution and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution#Belgium
• They had the largest industrial complex in the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li%C3%A8ge#Economy
• It was a major steel producer in the 19th century https://www.britannica.com/place/Belgium/Economy
• "Belgian industry, dominated by powerful financial groups, began to assume worldwide importance and was active in Asia and Latin America, as well as in Europe. In Africa, King Leopold II acquired the Congo Free State as a personal possession in 1885" https://www.britannica.com/place/Belgium/Independent-Belgium-before-World-War-I
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium_in_the_long_nineteenth_century#Industrialisation
• In GDP per capita, Belgium was 4th in the world in 1900: http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/GDP-per-capita-in-1900
• It had the 8th largest GNP in 1913: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_%28PPP%29
• 13th largest economy by GDP in 1910: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Maddison_statistics_of_the_ten_largest_economies_by_GDP_(PPP)

SandJ-on-WP (talk) 08:29, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, 11-13th -- absolutely, but not 6th. The link from a nationmastder.com says 4th out of 39 countries, the data is very incomplete, even it's GDP per capita. I'd say 6th economy in Europe - easily, but not in the world. Aleck$ (talk) 10:31, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Possibly add a section on how the Rape of Belgium's legacy carried into WWII?

I was wondering if it would be desirable to add a new section on how the Rape of Belgium was portrayed in Entente media sources during WWI affected how people viewed the very real atrocities the Germans and their collaborators were committing in Eastern Europe during WWII. Part of the reason people had trouble believing the mass murder of Jews and the death factories operating in Poland was because such stories sounded familiar to alleged German war atrocities during the initial invasion of Belgium (many of which, as this article notes, turned out to be true). Concchambers (talk) 22:58, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't think people in the allied countries did have trouble accepting the atrocities of the Nazis because knowledge had been coming out since the 1930s of things getting worse and worse. The ones who had trouble accepting it was true were the Germans and, relatively more recently, holocaust deniers. SandJ-on-WP (talk) 23:39, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Reality?

The opening says:

"The Rape of Belgium was the German mistreatment of civilians during the invasion and subsequent occupation of Belgium during World War I. The term initially had a propaganda use but recent historiography confirms its reality."

Now Belgium is a country/nation, not a woman, so the term is used as a metaphor and it is not really possible "in reality" to rape such an entity. I was thinking we could reword it a bit. Perhaps:

"The Rape of Belgium refers to the German mistreatment of civilians during the invasion and subsequent occupation of Belgium during World War I. Although the term originally had a propaganda use, recent historiography has confirmed a significant number of atrocities were committed by the German Army."

What do people think? Leutha (talk) 21:33, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

No change is needed. the suggestion is based on a false assumption. It is NOT true that rape is a metaphor. Webster's 3rd Unabridged Dictionary is a standard source and its complete definition makes this clear: 1 : the act or an instance of robbing or despoiling : violent seizure *the rape of the city by the invading soldiers* *the rape of the region's forests*; 2 : the act of carrying away a person by force *the rape of the Sabine women*; 3 a : illicit sexual intercourse without the consent of the woman and effected by force, duress, intimidation, or deception as to the nature of the act — see STATUTORY RAPE b : sexual aggression other than by a man toward a woman; 4 : an outrageous violation (as of a fundamental principle or institution) *trials that have been criticized as a rape of justice— Hal Foust* *a judicial rape of the Constitution— H.E.Talmadge* Rjensen (talk) 21:49, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

To rape means 'to seize'. The meaning of forced sexual assault (which can be committed on men and women) is just one of the meanings. For example, it is legitimate to talk of the mineral extraction industry raping the planet for its resources. The Rape of Belgium is called that because it is not about sexual assault on women or using it as a metaphor. The Germans stripped the factories of their machinery, took all the mineral resources, transported the men to work as slave labourers in their factories, destroyed the remaining means of production and generally completely trashed the country. They also mistreated the civilian population. It was Belgium as an entire country - its wealth, its means of production, its savings, its people - that was raped. They even claimed its existence suggesting it becomes part of Germany in their peace proposals. The title is correct. SandJ-on-WP (talk) 07:18, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Leutha (talk) 12:22, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

When one paper confirms the other, than people tend to believe it. It's the same with propaganda. Build up bias muddies the waters. 105.4.1.131 (talk) 14:40, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I prefer your proposed phrasing Leutha.—Brigade Piron (talk) 09:59, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Reality redux

The article stated in its former version : The term initially had a propaganda use but recent historiography confirms its reality. One modern author uses it more narrowly to describe a series of German war crimes in the opening months of the war (August–September 1914).

Neither, the sources are quoted (nor do they look particularly impressive) nor is there any evidence of a consensus among historians.

However, I would like the lead as well as the article to expand on the invasion of Belgium being a war crime itself. Belgium has been neutral, and the motive for the invasion was "strategic" - to widen the field of operations (from a Prussian/German point of view) towards France. Of course, this does not allow an invasion. -- Zz (talk) 00:30, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

numerous historians are cited by Hull, Horne-Kramer, & Lipkes. Others can be added such as Larry Zuckerman - 2004; Wieland (1984 in German); The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War ed by H Strachan - 2014; N.F. Gullace - History Compass, 2011; Sophie de Schaepdrijver 1999. I have not seen a single rs in the last decade who rejects the consensus that widespread systematic atrocities were deliberately inflicted. Rjensen (talk) 01:44, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

References