Abstract
This introductory chapter describes the neutralization of Belgium and Luxembourg prior to the First World War and the German occupation of those nations between 2nd and 4th August 1914. It discusses some British and American interpretations of the term “neutrality” within the context of Belgium’s position at the start of the war and concludes with an examination of the roles and attitudes adopted by British aid workers who travelled to Belgium during the first few weeks of the war.
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Notes
- 1.
Most of the territory that is now occupied by the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg had been already been united as the Seventeen Provinces in the sixteenth century.
- 2.
German Fetzen, translatable as “rag” or “scrap”, bears negative connotations and suggests an inherent worthlessness. Its use could also be seen as representing a more dismissive attitude than might be attached to English “scrap” or the usual translation into French, chiffon.
- 3.
- 4.
The phrase “Poor Little Belgium” most likely first appeared in local British press. After it occurred in both The Cheltenham Looker-On and the Gloucester Journal on August 15th, it became the heading for an article in the Newcastle Journal on September 3rd (British Library Newspaper Archive). In fact, the phrase “Gallant Little Belgium” predates this with a first occurrence in the Western Morning News on August 7th.
- 5.
This cartoon was also published on collectable cigarette cards.
- 6.
Hector Munro, a director of the London Medico-Psychological Clinic, founded the Munro Ambulance Corps under the auspices of the Belgian Red Cross in August 1914.
- 7.
May Sinclair was a co-founder of Munro’s clinic and it has been claimed that the Ambulance Corps was her idea (Raitt 2000: 155). Sinclair arrived in Ghent with the Motor Ambulance Corps on September 26th. She left Belgium on October 13th, ostensibly to fetch funds. She was not allowed to return, possibly due to her having been deemed unsuited to her desired role.
- 8.
Another memoir was published in 1917 by Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm, two dispatch riders for the Women’s Emergency Corps who became part of the Flying Ambulance Corps in Belgium (Mitton 1917).
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Rash, F. (2018). When Neutrality Cannot Protect Against Belligerence: The Position of the Low Countries Seen from Beyond Flanders Fields. In: Rash, F., Declercq, C. (eds) The Great War in Belgium and the Netherlands. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73108-7_1
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