Interesting — and, surprisingly, not covered in my UK history GCSE — but besides the point.

I’m emphatically not saying “yay Central powers!”, I’m saying “WW1 Allied powers (not WW2! Just WW1!) also bastards”.

I may have to reevaluate this belief — GCSEs aren’t good qualifications, they’re what UK pupils do at 16 — it’s just that my current belief is everyone looked bad in the first war.

I know you weren't, just providing some background information. If you were a local living in the colonies, any of the imperial powers were going to treat you rather poorly. But in continental Europe, the treatment of occupied Belgium/France would prefigure WW2 behavior of the German troops. In either cases putting entire villages and their inhabitants to the torch and sword was rather normal.