For them, like the great majority of Belgians, the war years meant four years of occupation, misery, hunger and increasingly difficult living conditions. However, this didn’t mean that the war was without its consequences for the people of Ghent. The city didn’t suffer severe shell damage and, in fact, came out of the conflict relatively unscathed. The warring parties positioned themselves for deadly trench warfare, which was to last for more than four years.
At the end of October the front stabilized along the River Yser.
Belgium was dragged into the First World War by the German invasion on August 4 th 1914.
