Neither the occupation of Belgium nor the occupation of French territory was planned long beforehand. Both were more or less a consequence of the failed execution of the so-called Schlieffenplan. Germany had invaded Belgium thus violating its neutral status , because it wanted to avoid the French fortresses between Belfort and Verdun.
The occupation of French territory on the other hand was a result of the Battle of the Marne , in the course of which French troops stopped the German advance. When in November the race to the sea ended in the stalemate of trench warfare, 3. Not only the brutal invasion, during which German troops killed more than 6, civilians and burned several villages in retaliation for alleged partisan warfare, but also the German occupation practices and policies caused massive protests from Allied and neutral countries.
They also had a considerable influence on the paragraphs of the Versailles Treaty concerning German war guilt.
In the interwar period, both the occupation of Belgium and France remained much discussed in literature and the press. After the Second World War, though, the occupations, particularly that of France, faded into obscurity in view of the horrors of the Second World War, and was only rediscovered by historians in the s.
Today, there exists a good, though not vast, variety of historiographical works on both occupations. Several of these studies are based on the concept of total war and the effects it had on the civil population. There is a widespread consensus that the situation for civilians was particularly precarious in occupied territories. The occupation practices and policies were altogether determined by the alleged or actual constraints of economic warfare, which led the occupier to exploit the resources of the occupied territories as much as possible.
