Sophie De Schaepdrijver

In central Brussels stands a statue of a young woman. Built in 1923, it is the first monument to a working-class woman in European history. Her name was Gabrielle Petit. History has forgotten Petit, an ambitious and patriotic Belgian, executed by firing squad in 1916 for her role as an intelligence agent for the British Army. After the First World War she was celebrated as an example of stern endeavour, but a hundred years later her memory has faded. In the first part of this historical biography Sophie De Schaepdrijver uses Petit's life to explore gender, class and heroism in the context of occupied Europe. Petit's experiences reveal the reality of civilian engagement under military occupation and the emergence of modern espionage. The second part of the book focuses on the legacy and cultural memory of Petit and the First World War. By analysing Petit's representation in ceremony, discourse and popular culture De Schaepdrijver expands our understanding of remembrance across the 20th century.

The Death and Life of a Female Spy in the First World War

Gabrielle Petit

Op 4 augustus 1914 viel het grootste invasieleger tot dan toe ooit gemobiliseerd, een klein en weinig oorlogsbereid buurland binnen. En zo begon voor België de groote oorlog. Een oorlog die leek op die van andere landen en toch ook weer niet. Belgiës Eerste Wereldoorlog verliep od twee fronten: in de modder van de Ijzer en in het bezette land. Loopgraven en bezetting, gifgas en dwangarbeid, of twee oorlogen in één: '14-'18 was voor België, wellicht meer nog dan voor andere landen in Europa, de erfzonde van de twintigste eeuw. Sinds de publicatie van De Groote Oorlog in 1997 heeft het onderzoek naar Blegiës Eerste Wereldoorlog een stroomversnelling gekend. Deze heruitgave biedt een nieuwe inleiding. Het boek werd bekroond met de Arkprijs van het Vrije Woord.

De Groote Oorlog

Tammy M. Proctor

"Mary Thorp, an English governess working for a Belgian-Russian family in German-occupied Brussels, kept a secret war diary from September 1916 to January 1919. This long-forgotten diary sheds light on an important aspect of the First World War: civilian life under military occupation in a transnational conflict"--

The Secret Brussels Diary of Mary Thorp

An English Governess in the Great War

Our view of the First World War is dominated by the twin images of the fronts and the home fronts yet the war also generated a third type of ‘front’, that of military occupation. Vast areas of Europe experienced the war under a military regime and this book deals with the occupations by the German and Austro-Hungarian empires. Their conquests ranged from Lille in the West to the Don River in the East, and from Courland in the north to Friuli and Montenegro in the south. They encompassed capital cities such as Brussels, Warsaw, Belgrade and Bukarest, as well as areas of crucial economic importance. Millions of people experienced military occupation and, even though they were civilians, the war had a deep impact on their lives. Conversely, occupied territories influenced the states that had conquered them and on the way these states waged war. The chapters in this book analyze military occupation in 1914-1918 both from the point of view of the occupied and from the point of view of the occupier. They study counter-insurgency warfare, forced labour, food regimes, underground patriotism, and cultural policies. They demonstrate that military occupation was an essential dimension of the Great War. This book was originally published as a special issue of First World War Studies.

Sophie De Schaepdrijver

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