Rehearsals: The German Army in Belgium, August 1914

Rehearsals is the first book to provide a detailed account of the German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 as it affected civilians. Based on extensive eyewitness testimony, the book chronicles events in and around the towns of Lige, Aarschot, Andenne, Tamines, Dinant, and Leuven. Fearing resistance from guerilla fighters and determined to cross rapidly through Belgium, German armies, particularly in locations where they met resistance from Belgian or French forces, treated civilians with great ruthlessness. Nearly 6,000 non-combatants were executed as "franc-tireurs," including women and children (the equivalent of about 230,000 Americans today), and some 25,000 homes and other buildings were burned. But there were no franc-tireurs, only innocent Belgians who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even today, accounts of the killing, looting, and arson are dismissed as "atrocity propaganda," particularly in the U.S. and U.K. Those historians who acknowledge that the German war crimes took place attribute them to a spontaneous outbreak of paranoia about franc-tireurs. Rehearsals offers evidence that the executions were part of a deliberate campaign of terrorism ordered by military authorities, and reflected beliefs that differed from those of their counterparts in other Western European nations.