Populations under Occupation

The European military occupations of the First World War were a by-product of war. Occupied institutions, groups and individuals brought considerable agency to bear on their occupation. Possession through military conquest became a given of war, which found its way into the belligerent societies mobilisation for war on military, economic, social, political and cultural levels. The many private diaries kept by men and women under occupation all paint a picture of civilian life grimly, almost despairingly, restricted by military occupation. The range of civilian reactions to occupation during the First World War remained by and large more strictly civilian, particularly in Western Europe, where the continued fighting of occupied populations' own national armies encouraged a clearer division of labour between armed forces and civilian populations under occupation.