Introduction

At the date of writing, almost three-quarters of a century has passed since the outbreak of the Second World War. Many of the protagonists and certainly all those who held senior posts have passed away. It is now possible to try to dispassionately examine their feelings and situation, the decisions that were taken in the tragic days of the worst conflict the world has ever seen, the information on which those decisions were based, and the intentions that inspired them and their consequences. ‘The historians of the future will judge!’ is often heard whenever there is controversy. The fact that seven decades have now passed surely entitles us to count ourselves among those future historians.

In my previous career as a diplomat I often noticed how little is known outside its borders of the role Belgium played in the Second World War. Remarkably few books in English have been written about it. There are not many in any other language either, though a number have now been published in Belgium, in either French or Dutch, on particular aspects of the conflict. My intention has been to offer a factual, objective report of those momentous events, which left no family in my country unaffected (my own being no exception).

Also, with a few notable but relatively recent exceptions, not many books have been written about the Second World War or its most important developments that give an overall picture and they are too often based only on sources originating in one or other of the different belligerent countries. The tendency is rather to stick to what happened in this or that country (usually that of the author), and the sources tend to be monolingual. More often than not propaganda or some degree of mild nationalism is also present: our politicians and generals were all competent, our soldiers were courageous and victorious and behaved properly. The present book is indeed a relation only of what happened in Belgium and events concerning that country during those fateful years, but it also contrives to contribute to the bigger picture and draws on sources from all the affected countries.

Belgians know that they owe their freedom to the enormous sacrifices the British, Commonwealth and American troops made on their soil twice last century. Many, very many of the young English, Scottish, Irish boys and also young men from New South Wales, the Punjab, Manitoba or Wisconsin now rest forever in Belgian cemeteries. Their names are also read by visiting locals. The Belgian people have not forgotten them. If Belgium is attached to a closer integration of Europe it is in large part because it lived through two cruel and oppressive occupations, brought about through no fault of its own during two of the many wars between their neighbours which for centuries more often than not were fought on Belgian soil: at Sluys, Fontenoy, Seneffe, Ramillies, Oudenaerde, Malplaquet, Fleurus, Neerwinden, Waterloo, Ypres, Zeebrugge, Bastogne and many other places. European integration has the merit of having put an end to these wars.