THIS DAY IN WWI HISTORY (Sunday, Aug. 23, 1914): An excerpt from my nonfiction book, Behind
the Lines,www.WWIBehindtheLines.com
Dinant—“The Town Is Gone”
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| Dinant excerpt page 20. |
A few days later, it was Dinant’s turn.
A town of more than 7,500, Dinant was the
second largest in Namur Province and sat on the right bank of the Meuse River
at a major crossing. Known for its stalactite caverns and chased copper and
brass wares, and for being the birthplace of Adolphe Sax (the inventor of the
saxophone), the town had survived for more than 700 years, squeezing itself in
between the river and the base of barren limestone cliffs, which were crowned
by a ruined fortress. The most distinctive element of the town’s skyline was
the 200-foot-high “curiously Oriental spire” of the Church of Notre Dame, a
restored thirteenth-century Gothic structure located in the town’s grand
place (main square).
Because of its strategic position at a major
river crossing and its close proximity to the French border, Dinant was quickly
fortified by French troops when war was declared. After heavy fighting, though,
the town was finally occupied by the Germans on Sunday, August 23. They
promptly accused the residents of fighting alongside the regular troops and in
retaliation began to destroy the town and kill its civilians.
That Sunday morning, according to later
testimony in a committee of inquiry, “soldiers of the 108th Regiment of
Infantry invaded the Church of the Premonastrensian [sic] Fathers, drove
out the congregation, separated the women from the men, and shot 50 of the
latter. Between 7 and
9 the same morning the soldiers gave
themselves up to pillage and arson, going from house to house and driving the
inhabitants into the street. Those who tried to escape were shot.”
In some cases the Germans lined up people
against a wall and executed them with machine guns. Monsieur Wasseige, the
forty-three-year-old director of a Dinant bank, refused to open the bank’s safe,
so he and his two sons, Jacques, nineteen, and Pierre, twenty, along with about
100 others, were machine-gunned down in the town’s
square, place d’armes. The Germans forced Wasseige’s three youngest
children to witness the murder of their father and two brothers. Later, an American observer said, “We saw the
wall with the machine-gun bullet marks, breast high, along its entire length.”
Another person said, with cutting sarcasm:
“Those killed [in Dinant] ranged in age from Felix Fivet, aged three weeks, to
an old woman named Jadot, who was eighty. But then Felix probably fired on the
German troops.”
When the Germans were finally finished, they
had “killed 674 people, deporting an unknown number and destroying 1,100
buildings.” The town’s distinctive church spire was gone, as was nearly
everything else.
“Dinant is far worse than anything I have
seen, or even dreamed the war could bring about,” said one American observer
walking through the devastation later.
“The town is gone,” said another
American. “Part of the church is standing, and the walls of a number of
buildings, but for the most part, there is nothing but a mess of scattered
bricks to show where the houses had stood.”
End of excerpt
My
Post:
As the above excerpt and my last post’s excerpt bear witness,
August 1914 was a very difficult month for Belgium. At the same time, Germany, France, England, Russia, and much of the world would be quickly sucked into WWI’s black hole of death and destruction.
I remind myself of that bleak time when I struggle with
mundane problems and little hassles that always seem initially bigger than they
really are. I only gain the right perspective after I purposefully take a breath and compare my problems to those of some of the people I'm researching from 100 years ago. It's then that I once again remember how fortunate I am to be where I am, doing
what I’m doing, surrounded by wonderfully supportive people.
Right now, I'm feeling very fortunate and lucky (thank you, United air miles! :) to be leaving soon with my wife for a trip to Europe. We start with a few days in Belgium—Antwerp and
Brussels -- then on to a river cruise and then a few days in Amsterdam. In Belgium we’ll be meeting with some wonderful local historians who I’ve been
email pals with for a couple of years but have never met. And we’ll be sharing an
evening meal with one of my mother’s best friends who lives outside of Antwerp.
Searching for
1914 Antwerp & Brussels
As part of my research for Book Two (no title yet), I’m going to take my huge (2 feet by 3 feet) 1914 maps
of Antwerp and Brussels. They're covered with my notes of where
certain characters lived, worked, or wandered while they were doing CRB or
Belgian underground work.
In Antwerp I can’t wait to see if my great grandfather’s (Edouard Bunge)
townhouse at 21 Ave Marie Therese is still there. During the war he gave the
place to the CRB so that the young CRB delegates could live there. It’s also
where Edouard and his daughters Erica (my grandmother), Eva and Hilda survived the
three-day bombing of the city in October 1914. Supposedly a shell hit the front door
but didn’t explode. If the townhouse is still standing, I might actually knock on the door and
see what happens.
I also want to find the spot on Place de Meir where the U.S.
Consulate office was and where one of the US photographers took a famous photo
of the German soldiers first marching into the city (see page 130 of Behind
the Lines).
I want to see if 74 Rue du Peage still exists. It’s the
townhouse where E.E. Hunt and other US war correspondents sweated out the
German bombardment of the city. A chunk of the townhouse was blown away with a
direct hit while they were in it (see pages 115-116 in Behind the Lines).
In Brussels, I’m hoping we can visit 66 Rue des Colonies,
where the CRB had its headquarters. Across the street was Emile Francqui’s bank.
In the still standing Galeries St. Hubert, I want to see if there is a bookshop.
Back in 1914, the Massardo Bookshop was a critical distribution center for the
underground newspaper, La Libre Belgique.
And I want to ask locals about the Caveau de Paris, a little restaurant on the
Rue du Marche aux Herbes that U.S. Legation Minister Brand Whitlock said was “where
diplomats were always found at noon, where one could pick up gossip of the
world” before the war began.
When we get back, I’ll write up what I found.
Author Appearances
Lastly, as a new item of each post, I’ll end by listing any
appearances I’ll be making in the next few months. I’m grateful to each group
for inviting me to participate.
October 17, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Rocky Mountain Literary Festival
Mount Vernon Country Club
Golden, CO
I’ll be the second speaker of the day
More info at: http://www.rockymountainliteraryfestival.org/
End of Post
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