Its soldiers suffered the horrors of the trenches and its civilians were used as human shields, were massacred in August 1914, and were deported and used for forced labor in 1916.
At the core of this torment, Belgium was particularly vulnerable. Indeed, total violence prevailed during the First World War. A pressing need can therefore be seen to retain something from the war in order to ensure that people did not die in vain, to recover one’s identity, and to secure the future. The last large group of commemorations occurred in 1930, the year of the hundredth anniversary of Belgian independence. Town halls, mostly without state aid, reacted rapidly most monuments were inaugurated between 19. The scope of the commemorations that developed in Belgium and throughout Europe testify to the pressing need felt by the population to keep the memory of World War I alive. Introduction: Belgian World War I Memorials ↑
