The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I FROM THE PUBLISHER
In August 1914, the German Army invaded neutral Belgium, violating a treaty that the German chancellor dismissed as a "scrap of paper." The invaders terrorized the Belgians, shooting thousands of civilians and looting and burning scores of towns, including -- most infamously -- Louvain, site of the country's preeminent university. The Rape of Belgium recalls this bloodshed and destruction, and the outrage they inspired abroad. Yet Larry Zuckerman does not stop there, taking us on a harrowing journey through the next fifty months of German occupation. Relying extensively on untapped Belgian and American archives, he documents how the occupiers systematically plundered a major industrial power and crippled it, deported Belgians en masse as forced laborers to make weapons and build defenses, and placed virtually all aspects of life under military surveillance. In other words, occupied Belgium was a forerunner of Nazi Europe. Nevertheless, history has largely forgotten the occupation, focusing almost wholly on the "scrap of paper" and the invasion. Now, The Rape of Belgium draws on a little-known story to remind us of the horrors of war. Further, Zuckerman shows why the Allies refrained from punishing the Germans for the occupation and controversially suggests that had the victors followed through, Europe's reaction to the rise of Nazi Germany might have taken a very different course.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Zuckerman argues that the atrocity stories about Germany's "rape of Belgium," which were so widely reported and discredited, have in fact distracted from telling the history of Belgian life under German occupation during World War I. Zuckerman, an independent scholar, begins his account with a discussion of the German decision to violate Belgian neutrality, a choice that violated international law and ensured Britain's entering the conflagration. Zuckerman goes on to juxtapose the genesis and propagation of the image of the "rape of Belgium" with the reality of events on the ground. His analysis of German attacks on Belgian civilians follows the story told in John N. Horne and Alan Kramer's German Atrocities 1914: History of a Denial. Zuckerman's strengths are his detailed analysis of the tribulations of Belgian civilians forced to endure mass expropriations, arbitrary and administratively chaotic occupation, and chronic hunger. That thousands of Belgian civilians were sent to Germany as forced labor might be regarded as a premonition of the next war. Zuckerman is weaker in placing German policy toward Belgium into comparative perspective, a perspective that could only strengthen an already solid book. A welcome addition to the literature, this is recommended for all history collections.-Frederic Krome, Jacob Rader Marcus Ctr. of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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