Occupatio Bellica

The German occupation of northern France in the First World War is described for the first time on the basis of military sources.
The German occupation of northern France in World War I is described for the first time on the basis of military sources and classified in terms of the law of war.

The research discussion on the "German war atrocities" of 1914 continues to be controversial. Now, for the first time, the German occupation of Northern France in the First World War is described in detail on the basis of available sources from military institutions and classified in terms of the law of war. Larissa Wegner's account of the occupation shows how economic warfare became the all-dominant factor and the occupiers exploited the occupied territory ever more ruthlessly. The overarching question is that of violence and the development of violence in this first modern mass war. Against the background of the international legal aspects of occupation and its development since the 1870s, the author takes a look at military violence in its specificity as a fundamentally (international) legally legitimised and state-sanctioned form of violence, which at the same time is always influenced by situational dynamics. In doing so, she gains fundamental insights into the larger field of occupation policy in the First World War, which is still only beginning to be researched, as well as occupation practices in general.