Forbidden Reading in Occupied Countries: Belgium and France, 1914–1918

Abstract

From August to October 1914, as a result of the massive German offensive, almost the entirety of Belgium and large parts of Northern France fell into the hands of the enemy.1 For four years, the inhabitants of these countries lived through a war totally different to the one experienced by their fellow Allied citizens. For 9 million French and Belgians, the occupation gave a totally different meaning to the expression ‘home front’, as for them the front was literally at home, where they encountered the enemy face to face on a daily basis. Reading became a way to escape or to endure the war and its oppressive presence. However, the occupation also gave the enemy the power of ‘looking over the shoulder’ of the occupied population, and to sanction them further if what they were reading did not please their new masters. In multiple ways reading thus had to go underground, while the very act itself took on new meanings: it became a way to remain in the war, or even just to remain oneself in the alienating context of occupation.