Well about this time last year in AP European History we were learning about WW1. Our teacher was talking about how German troops asked Belgium to walk through their country to ambush France. They agreed, but when Germany entered the country he said they launched a surprise attack on Germans, but they quickly destroyed the Belgian forces and then proceeded to murder the Belgian people, burn their towns, and rape their women. However today in AP US History we were again learning about WW1, however this time when describing the intricacies how the war started she began to talk about how Britain was trying to gain support from the public for a war with Germany. She stated they used the propaganda of Germany invading Belgium as reason enough to get the public to find war reasonable. However she claims that Belgium remained completely neutral in the war and that the Germans never attacked anyone in Belgium. So what really happened, is it all propaganda or?
Both of your teachers are so egregiously, horrifically, and completely off point that I had to roll out of bed to make this post. Let's roll through this piece by piece:
Our teacher was talking about how German troops asked Belgium to walk through their country to ambush France.
The Germans never 'asked' the Belgians to walk through their country; it was presumed that the Belgians would simply roll over in the face of overwhelming military force. In other words it was assumed by German high command that Belgium would not put up any real resistance beyond an initial battle or two and thus have their country open for operations.
Belgium had no say in the matter. The Treaty of London 1839 which had Britain guarantee Belgium's freedom (of which Prussia, whose king was Emperor of Germany, was a signatory of), was written off by German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg as "a scrap of paper." There was no diplomacy here; not in the traditional sense. It was "Move over or we will destroy you."
They agreed, but when Germany entered the country he said they launched a surprise attack on Germans, but they quickly destroyed the Belgian forces and then proceeded to murder the Belgian people, burn their towns, and rape their women.
So not only did your teacher say that there was some secret talk where Belgium and Germany were in cahoots to use Belgium as a passageway....but now Belgium accepted and then double crossed Germany in invasion, 'surprise attacking' them? There is not a single piece of documentation, ever, anywhere, that supports this.
What your teacher was hopefully trying to explain was that the Belgians did not simply roll over after the initial few battles and actually put up a stiff guerrilla resistance which did legitimately infuriate the Germans. Belgian cutting of communication lines, destruction of bridges, and constant marksman fire caused chaos amongst the German ranks and slowing them down considerable.
However the myth of the Francs-tireurs, the Franco-Belgian marksman resistance, was heavily embodied in the German mythos at this point and it's actually severely overstated how hard the Belgians did actually resist. Most of the atrocities were based on just sheer German frustration and boogeyman spooks.
she began to talk about how Britain was trying to gain support from the public for a war with Germany. She stated they used the propaganda of Germany invading Belgium as reason enough to get the public to find war reasonable.
So far so good...yes Britain was more or less totally democratic at this point and it required popular support for the war. The plight of Belgium along with the treaty of london was the legal and public support justifications for going to war and yes, the Belgian plight was milked heavily. However that doesn't change the fact that the Germans actually did commit things which, under modern international law, would conclusively be considered crimes against humanity while also breaching various other war crimes they are signatories to.
However she claims that Belgium remained completely neutral in the war and that the Germans never attacked anyone in Belgium.
No
No
NO
Pardon my French but what in the actual fuck no.
This is so conclusively wrong it would be like your teacher telling you Poland remained completely neutral in WWII and no one died there or that Czechoslovakia was completely neutral in WWII and no one died there. It's just outright, completely, and utterly wrong. I apologize for breaking professionalism here but seriously it's breaking my heart and infuriating me at the same time that a representative of the public education, purportedly giving you a college level education on this topic, is outright denying:
That Belgium was an active military participant in the war
That Belgium had a stiff guerrilla resistance to the Germans
That the Germans did not kill 6,000 Belgian men, women, children, and elderly via execution and displaced 1.5 million (20% of their population) from their actions. 100,000 Belgians would also be forcibly deported to Germany to work in camps.
Let's just run through these, again, to show how conclusively stupid they are:
(1) The Belgians, even after the advent of trench warfare, held quite a piece of real estate on the front lines. By wars end they had ~170,000 soldiers fighting on the front line trenches in a sector controlled by their own soldiers, generals, and political officers.
(1b) The Battle of Liege, the very first battle of the war on the Western Front, was a battle fought between the Belgian and Germany armies. Liege was placed directly in the line of sights of the thin border Germany and Belgium shared and would require being taken for the great plains to its West to be opened up for German maneuver. It was the first place Germany intended to strike in the war and would have to have been taken fast for their plan to work. It was the most heavily fortified place in the world and held its ground for over a week before the final fort fell; all in all approx. 15,000-20,000 Belgians would be casualties in this initial battle. Even after Liege major siegies like at Namur occurred where ~100,000 Germans faced up against ~35,000 Belgians with the latter having 7500 killed/wounded and an equal amount taken prisoner.
(2) Belgian resistance was tantamount in slowing down the German advance. Again, objective, documented fact that the Belgians not only used their army to resist such as at Antwerp and Namur and Liege but many broke off and acted as guerrilla's; taking pot shots at German company's and battalions marching to send chaos.
Paul Pouradier of the 58th RID infantry brigade describes the chaos of a Belgian guerrila's shot into his battalion marching:
*"The wagons bump each other and collide. Shafts splinter. Horses spook and collapse. Oaths and agitated cries ring out into the arkness. One artillery piece even falls into the stream alongside the road. Suddenly, shots rang out. Now, the disaster is complete. Whoever has a rifle or can lay their hands on one begins to shoot about wildly."*^^1
As for (3); I'd just like to bring Maurice Tschoffen to the stand:
*"The Germans marched in two columns down the deserted street, those on the right aiming their rifles at the house on the left, and inversely, all with their fingers on the trigger ready to fire. At each door a group stopped and riddled the houses, especially the windows, with bullets. Almost as if to change the routine, other soldiers threw grenades and small bombs into the cellars of homes."*^^2'
I can do this game all day but it just gets redundant and, honestly, freaking depressing. Entire towns with their priests, women, and children lined up in a town square and all mowed down at once. One marksman shot taking a pot shot from a church tower and an entire village burned to the ground and its people starving and freezing on the side of the road if they weren't shot in recompense first.
TL;DR:
Your teachers are so absolutely, conclusively, and embarrassingly wrong it's shocking they managed to weasel their way into a teaching position. Those are strong words but they are deserved if what you're saying is true. Saying that the Belgians were "completely neutral" and "the Germans never killed anyone" is so completely ahistorical it's almost vomit inducing; imagine if someone told you that no Poles were killed in WWII and that they never actually fought back against the Germans; that's literally how outright wrong that statement is for Belgium in WWI.
Saying Germany and Belgium were in cahoots and Belgium let Germany in and then 'backstabbed them' at the last moment is also completely counterfactual conspiracy. The Germans did not going in expecting the Belgians to be allies they went in ready to kick the door down so hard the Belgians would crumble under overwhelming firepower.
Honestly I think your teachers are just taking hints of truth and taking them to radical conclusions. The first teacher was correct slightly; the Belgian guerrilla resistance was a legitimate surprise to the Germans who expected the Belgians to roll over after a decisive defeat at Liege. He takes that like 1000 steps further and says they must have been in secret cahoots and alliance before the war.
Your second teacher this is even more blatant: She points out the very real case that the affectionately called 'Rape of Belgium' was exploited for British propaganda to drum up popular support for the war. She takes that to the conspiratorial conclusion that therefore, since it was used as propaganda, the entire thing must have been a farce. When in reality it was more or less just as brutal as the British portrayed they just milked the crap out of it.
If you read your AP textbook it will explain all of these things in more or less detail; especially your AP European History one. I'd suggest you read that, find the place talking about Belgium in WWI, and then take it to your current teacher. Show her that and ask her to explain why she said a clearly active, military participant of the war was neutral which was home to a thoroughly documented series of high command complicit war crimes was supposedly free of German killing. If she waves you off / doesn't pay you any mind go to administration; I'm not joking. If she not only teaches outright, blatantly, absolutely basic historical facts in a completely counterfactual way in a class which is worth university credits but then shoos you off when confronted with these basic facts she has no business teaching you any longer.
^1 Deuringer, Die Schlact in Lothringen, p. 544
^2 Horne and Kramer, The German Atrocities of 1914, p.48
Herwig, The Marne: The Opening of World War I
Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary, 1914-1918