1914: The Belgian Massacres

by Paul Ham

In the early stages of World War 1 some 800,000 German troops defied Belgian neutrality and marched across the border. In August 1914 the bulk of the German army - some 800,000 troops - defied Belgian neutrality and smashed across the border. Their orders were to invade France, destroying any Belgian resistance in their path. The German commanders were to achieve this within 6 weeks. What followed was the rape and massacre of hundreds of Belgian civilians. Scores of villages were burned. The beautiful library at Louvain was left in ashes. Such crimes were not arbitrary acts of drunken violence. They were planned and approved under the German military code. In this extract from his book 1914: The Year the World Ended, historian Paul Ham shows how the invasion of of Belgium set a brutal precedent for the Nazi occupation of Europe, 25 years later

35 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 7, 2014

About the author

PAUL HAM is a historian specialising in 20th century conflict, war and politics. Born and raised in Sydney, Paul has spent his working life in London, Sydney and Paris. He teaches narrative non-fiction at SciencesPo in Reims and English at l'École de guerre in Paris. His books have been published to critical acclaim in Australia, Britain and the United States, and include: 'Hiroshima Nagasaki', a controversial new history of the atomic bombings (HarperCollins Australia 2010, Penguin Random House UK 2011, & Pan Macmillan USA 2014-15); '1914: The Year The World Ended' (Penguin Random House 2013); 'Sandakan' (Penguin Random House 2011); 'Vietnam: The Australian War' and 'Kokoda' (both published by HarperCollins, 2007 and 2004). Paul has co-written two ABC documentaries based on his work: 'Kokoda' (2010), a 2-part series on the defeat of the Japanese army in Papua in 1942 (shortlisted for the New York Documentary prize); and 'All the Way' (2012), about Australia's difficult alliance with America during the Vietnam War, which he also narrated and presented (it won the UN's Media Peace prize). Paul is the founding director of Hampress, an independent ebook publisher, and a regular contributor to Kindle Single, Amazon's new 'short book' publishing platform, for which he has written '1913: The Eve of War' and 'Young Hitler', co-written 'Honey, We Forgot the Kids', and published several titles by other authors. Hampress welcomes your ideas! A former Australia correspondent for The Sunday Times (1998-2012), Paul has a Masters degree in Economic History from London School of Economics. He lives in Sydney and Paris, and takes time off now and then to organise the Big Fat Poetry Pig-Out, an annual poetry recital, for charity.

Some relevant links:

http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Ham/e/B001...

https://www.hampress.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ham

http://us.macmillan.com/hiroshimanaga...

http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/hir...

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18...

http://www.amazon.com/Sandakan-Paul-H...

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42...

http://www.randomhouse.com.au/authors...

http://www.harpercollins.com.au/97807...