A Want of News in an Occupied Zone: Newspaper Content in Occupied Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing

The purpose of this dissertation is to ascertain exactly what news people in the occupied zone of France received during the First World War, in an attempt to assess the general assumption that the people of occupied France received little to no news. It is certain that the people in the occupied cities of Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing received less news than before the occupation, and most of the news they did receive came from an untrusted source, namely the German occupiers. However, research for this dissertation reveals that the cities at the urban heart of northern France, Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing, received more news than historians previously have believed. Research for this dissertation comprised of reviewing all the sources available in Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcong during the occupation, which included German-controlled newspapers produced in France and Belgium, a short-lived clandestine press, and newspapers published outside the occupied zone covertly imported into the cities