How much peril is enough?

I'm working on a historical thriller, set during the First World War, and have reached a roadblock. Before I go back to restart, I was wondering whether I have to change my entire approach, as follows:

The novel takes place in Belgium in 1916, occupied by German forces, run as a police state. As I have it now, the main character is a Dutch engineer sent by his government to Brussels, with reluctant German consent. Several governments (and private concerns) have a strong interest in his mission and will, during the course of the book, try to influence it, and him. However, as a citizen of a neutral country, the threat to him isn't as great as it would be if he were Belgian. Does this matter absolutely, or is it enough that he quickly--from the first paragraph--gets involved with a Belgian in a resistance network? Would it work equally well (or badly) if the novel began with a Belgian risking his life or liberty to plead with him for a certain outcome to the mission?

Can anyone suggest a novel in which this kind of situation works--a person who has a certain immunity from danger, which he or she compromises? In that kind of book, you know that he can go home again safely, so long as he stays out of trouble. . . but he can't.

Conversely, would it seem stronger to you if I changed the whole thing around and had the main character be Belgian, and the engineer a lesser but still crucial character?

Thanks.

Thanks for your replies. I can see why everything depends on the main character's motivation, and I'm ready for that one. But the comment about this being more a suspense novel than a thriller intrigues me. I've checked around the Web, and I can't find anything that helps me distinguish between the two, though I did find a good (and apparently much-reprinted) article by Brian Garfield discussing the ten aspects of writing suspense. What's the difference, then, between a suspense novel and a thriller? Is it that in a thriller, there's supposed to be a character who's oozing evil from every pore? (But that happens in some suspense novels, too--the sociopath who can seem perfectly nice but will reveal his true character when no one's around to stop him.)

Histry Nerd said:

NH (Sorry--I couldn't resist) -

For instance, if he's working on a high-profile project, he might feel a strong personal obligation to become involved and receive pressure from his government to stay neutral. HN

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Thanks for not resisting. You've guessed my story, almost exactly. My engineer isn't building anything; he and a colleague have been sent to verify certain facts, which they'll report on when they get back to Holland. (This is based on a true story, BTW.) If they decide one way, the Germans will come down heavily on Holland; the other way, it'll be Britain and France. (What the Belgians want doesn't matter, though they have justice on their side, which can be persuasive.) So the technical envoys are indeed under intense pressure from all sides and strict orders from their own government to be absolutely neutral, not that they needed telling. Meanwhile, my MC isn't in Belgium long enough to unpack his suitcase before his neutrality is compromised, against his will, by a Belgian--and the game is on. And yes, there'll be a romantic attachment.