In researching an article I'm writing for the upcoming centenary of the start of WWI, I'm trying to find information on the conditions of life in Belgium during the German occupation. Any info, with cited sources, particularly if it has to do with Mons would be greatly appreciated.
I just finished reading this post on another thread about the occupation of Belgium. Pretty eye opening for me, and he included a lot of sources.
Going from Barbara Tuchmann's The Guns of August, and also Toynbee's The German Terror in Belgium
The initial occupation was pretty brutal. The German military would retaliate to a single partisan by burning an entire town down. 65,000 Belgians died during the invasion (out of 7 million), and 1.5 million became refugees.
Arguably the greatest cultural atrocity was the destruction of Leuven, where the Germans burned the university and library of Leuven, and killing 248 inhabitants during the sack. The greatest single atrocity of the period was the destruction of Dinant, where the German army massacred 674 civilians. As a general policy, the mayors and constables of Belgian towns were systematically executed by the German government.
Looting and rape was also widespread, particularly in Brabant, which led to sensationalist British and French coverage of 'The Rape of Belgium'.
After 1914, the German government attempted to regulate every aspect of Belgium life. The Belgian economy and industry was mobilized and rationed to a greater degree than Germany. Aristocrats, political leaders, and other important figures where subject to mass internment. As the production proved inefficient, the Germans simply seized industrial equipment and infrastructure and re-allocated it to German factories. 100,000 Belgian factory works were forcibly deported to Germany, and were essentially enslaved, being forced to work in mines and factories without pay.
For the remaining 75% or so of the Belgian population that weren't either refugees or in concentration camps, it was hard times. Travel restrictions were so harsh as to make it nearly impossible to leave one's town. Food rationing was so severe as the lead to constant hunger and malnourishment, although famine did not break out until 1918. Massive indemnities were levied collectively against the Belgian people, essentially meaning that all of your profits and earnings went to the German government.
The German administration practice a strategy called Flammenpolitik, which was a policy of deliberately aggravating ethnic tensions between Walloons and the Flemish. In 1917, the German government planned to divide Belgium into Wallonia and Vlaanderen- a Wallon and Flemish nation. Thus, French speaking Belgians faced constant discrimination and segregation, while Wallons and the Flemish were given favor and opportunities.
Lastly, after the German revolution in 1918, the withdrawing German army adopted a partial scorched earth policy, destroying canals, roads, and rails to slow the Allied advance. The objective was to make everything beyond the Hindenburg line impassable to any rapid advance of Allied forces.