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September Program ( Septemberprogramm) A four-page document issued by the Reich Chancellery in its final version on September 9, 1914, with the innocuous title of Vorläufige Richtlinien über unsere Politik bei Friedensschluß (Provisional Political Guidelines for when Peace is Concluded). The September Program bears the signature of Reich Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg. It counts as the first, comprehensive war-objectives program of the German Reich leadership in the World War. It resulted from weeks of consultations by the Reich…

High Voltage Fence In early 1915 the German occupation forces in Belgium began the construction of a 300 km long high voltage fence along the Belgian-Dutch border. Conceived above all for security reasons, the project was a countermeasure against the continuing flight of more than 800,000 Belgians to Holland and Great Britain following the German occupation of their land. Moreover, German occupation forces feared enemy espionage and smuggling activities. The two-meter high barbed-wire fence, charge…

Mercier, Désiré Joseph (November 21, 1851, Eigenbrakel [Braine-l’Alleud near Brussels] – January 23, 1926, Brussels), Belgian cardinal. Ordained as a priest in 1874, Mercier was a highly successful teacher of philosophy and theology at the Catholic University of Louvain from 1882. In 1906 he became archbishop of the largest Belgian diocese of Mechelen, and was made a cardinal in 1907. With the outbreak of war in 1914, after the occupation of the country and the flight of King Albert I and the Belgi…