Intelligence in occupied Belgium : the business of Anglo-Belgian espionage and intelligence cooperation during the two World Wars (1914-1918, 1940-1944)

Debruyne, Emmanuel [UCL]

(eng) During both World Wars, one of the most powerful weapons of Belgian citizens refusing the German occupation of their country, was the gathering of information on the enemy for the profit of the allied armies. But both Belgian secret wars were different on several aspects, one of the most important being the relationship between the Belgian secret services in exile and their British counterparts. If WW1 was essentially a story of bitter concurrency between them, WW2 was mostly a tale of “jealous” partnership. The relations with the intelligence networks in occupied Belgium formed a delicate but crucial issue, where money played an important role. And finally, the success (WW2) or the failure (WW1) of the cooperation between Belgian and British secret services affected the efficiency of the intelligence operations against the common enemy.