the Belgian government to allow free passage of German troops across its borders. The German army advanced rapidly into Belgium, besieging and capturing the fortified cities of Liège, Namur and Antwerp and pushing the 200,000-strong Belgian army, supported by their French and British allies, to the far west. Large numbers of refugees also fled to neighbouring countries. In October 1914, the German advance was finally stopped near the French border by a Belgian force at the Yser and by a combined Franco-British force at the Marne. As a result, the front line stabilised with most of Belgium already under German control. In the absence of any decisive offensive, most of Belgium remained under German control until the end of the war. While most of Belgium was occupied, King Albert I continued to command the Belgian Army along a section of the Western Front, known as the Yser Front, through West Flanders from his headquarters in Veurne. The Belgian government, led by Charles de Broqueville, established itself in exile in Le Havre, in northwestern France. Belgium's colonial possession in Africa, the Belgian Congo, also remained loyal to the Allies and the Le Havre government. The Rape of Belgium During the course of their advance through Belgium, the Germans committed a number of war crimes against the Belgian civilian population along their route of advance. The massacres were often responses to towns whose populations were accused of fighting as francs-tireurs or guerrillas against the German army. Civilians were summarily executed and several towns deliberately destroyed in a series of punitive actions collectively known as the Rape of Belgium. As many as 6,500 people were killed by the German army between August and November 1914. In Leuven, the historic library of the town's university was deliberately burned. News of the atrocities, also widely exaggerated by the Allied press, raised considerable sympathy for the Belgian civilian population in occupied Belgium. The sympathy for the plight of Belgian civilians and Belgian refugees continued in Allied newspapers and propaganda until the end of the war. Administration and governance By November 1914, the vast majority of Belgian territory (2,598 out of 2,636 communes) was under German occupation. From November 1914, occupied Belgium, together with the occupied French border areas of Givet and Fumay, was divided by the Germans into three zones. The first, the Operationsgebiet (Operational Zone), covered a small amount of territory near the front line