Editing Anti-German sentiment (section)

=== France ===

==== First World War ====
[[File:Shell Explosion Cathedral at Rheims.jpg|thumb|German shelling of [[Reims Cathedral]] in France early in the First World War]]
In 1914, when Germany invaded neutral Belgium and northern France, [[Imperial German Army]] regularly court martialed Belgian and French civilians under [[German military law]] for offenses including [[espionage]], [[perfidy]], or being [[francs-tireurs]] (illegal civilian combatants) and executed 6,500 of them.<ref>John Horne, and Alan Kramer, ''German atrocities, 1914: a history of denial'' (Yale University Press, 2001) p. 419. [[iarchive:germanatrocities00horn|online]]</ref> [[Rape of Belgium|These acts]] were both exploited and exaggerated by the governments of the [[Allies of World War I|Allied Powers]], who produced [[atrocity propaganda]] [[dehumanization|dehumanizing]] Germans as [[gorilla]]-like ''[[List of terms used for Germans|Huns]]'' who were all racially inclined to [[Sadomasochism|sadism]] and violence.