Belgium’s war literature, in both Dutch (Flemish) and in French, covers different war experiences: not just that of the front but also that of military occupation. Although none of it became canonical, it was a concerted effort to make sense of the war – or express bafflement. Front literature, like European combatant writings generally, moved from the heroic to the disillusioned mode. Postwar occupation literature, in contrast to 1920s historiography of the occupation, was steeped in cultural pessimism. Both genres, then, moved away from the tropes of glory of 1914-1915; but Belgian literature lacked the confidence, the coherence, and the audience to impose an alternative metanarrative. ... : 1914-1918-Online International Encyclopedia of the First World War ...