From the Autumn of 1914 to Autumn 1915, the Nord department was cut off by the front line. War was raging in the area from Armentières to La Bassée.

Soldiers from the world over know a wearing and monotonous life in the trenches between two murderous offensives.

Behind the lines, the occupation was being organized. For the Germans, the occupied territories were a restful area where the military authorities, the official newspapers, the military hospitals, and others set up.

Allied bombings were rare and generally targeted and limited by the fear of touching civilian populations.

Against the parading occupant, the resistance organized: information on defence measures and the size of troops and equipment had to be passed along; aviators who fell behind the lines had to be repatriated.

Networks fell one after the other: the Alice network, the Jacquet committee, etc. Arrests multiplied at the end of 1915.

If some organized civil disobedience or refused to manufacture for the occupying forces others accepted and consorted with the enemy.

The German occupation was rough and ferocious. But the 1920s followed the war with other occupations that were just as conflictual. From the Sarre to the Ruhr regions, French and Belgian troops hoped to take their revenge but they sometimes came up against violent opposition from the German population. In Ireland, the British undertook a quasi-colonial war against a population which rose to claim its independence.