THIS
DAY IN WWI HISTORY: An excerpt from my WWI nonfiction book, Behind the Lines, www.WWIBehindTheLines.com.
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| German uhlan (lance-carrying cavalry) |
On that first day of the invasion, Tuesday,
August 4, it was a hot and surprisingly clear summer day in the normally cool,
cloudy, and wet country [of Belgium]. At 8 a.m. German uhlans (lance-carrying
cavalry) thundered across the border, signaling the start of what became the
deadliest war the world had ever seen, and what Pope Benedict XV called “the
suicide of civilized Europe.” By evening six columns of German troops were two
to three miles past the border.
Around noon the Germans entered the frontier
village of Visé. Nestled on the right bank of the Meuse River, it boasted 3,800
people and 900houses. When the Germans arrived, the Belgian soldiers withdrew
from the town, crossed the Meuse, blew up the bridge behind them and settled onto
the left bank, where they shot at any German who came close to the river.
According to historian Jeff Lipkes, within ten
minutes of entering Visé, the Germans shot their first civilian. He was
“Monsieur Istas, a cashier at the railway station, [who was] gunned down as he
returned to work after an early lunch. . . . By evening, more than a dozen
corpses littered the streets. Most of the murders seemed wholly arbitrary. . .
. The Brouhas, father and son, brewers, were dragged out of their basement and
executed in front of their house.”
One of the town’s barbers, Louis Kinable, was
shot in front of his shop because he had a pair of clippers in his hand—hence
he was seen as a franc-tireur. One boy was battered so badly by rifle
butts “that his body could only be identified thanks to a card from his middle
school proclaiming him an honors student.” Meanwhile, a Berlin newspaper
reported that a sixteen-year-old Belgian girl in Visé had been executed for
mutilating German corpses.
On August 10 the Germans burned down Visé’s
church in the center of town, claiming its Gothic spire was being used by
Belgian artillery to sight their cannons. Then, on the evening of August 15,
eleven days after the town had been taken—and after the residents and their
homes had been thoroughly searched for arms—the German troops began firing
their weapons in response to what they said they thought were attacks by franc-tireurs.
As terrified residents reacted to the guns,
events escalated until the Germans were burning, looting, and killing. The
destruction went on door-to-door for two days and nights. By August 18, the
town was leveled, 631 citizens had been deported to Germany, twenty-three additional
residents were dead, and more than 600 homes had been destroyed.
It was the “first systematic destruction of a
Belgian town,” according to one history of German atrocities. Systematic or
not, as one observer later described it, all that remained were “heaps of brick
and mortar like a ruined Pompeii, the only difference being that the bricks of
the walls which still stand look newer.” One German captain bluntly summed it
up when he declared that Visé had simply “vanished from the map.”
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| German soldiers marching into Belgium. |
My
Post: I’ve surprised myself by writing this
new post only 10 days after writing the previous post. As those of you who have
followed this blog know, it usually takes me a month or so to get around to
writing a new post.
I was motivated primarily by the fact that the
start of WWI fell on a Tuesday exactly 101 years ago. I couldn’t let that sad
anniversary go unnoticed. That day led to so many incredibly horrible things,
such as the use of poison gas, aerial bombardments, and tanks. And as students
of history know, WWI was the fertile killing field from which the seeds of WWII
were planted and drew their bloody nourishment.
But alongside of such WWI horrors there were
countless stories of heroism, courage, and self-sacrifice that somehow balance
out much of the horrors of warfare – much, not all . . .
And, of course, there’s the old concept that
you can’t have light without darkness, goodness without evil, ice cream
without body fat.
So even though the war brought out the worst
in mankind, it also brought out a lot of good. I want to include some of the
good that took place in German-occupied Belgium in Book Two of the Behind the
Lines series. That’s a goal that will be beside me as I wade into the research
and start the writing of Book Two.
Meantime, I want
to report that the four scholar presentations at the Herbert Hoover
Presidential Library (mentioned in my previous post) were, in fact, aired by
C-SPAN3 on American History TV last week. For those who missed it, or don’t get
C-SPAN, you can watch it for free, with no sign in or registration at AmericanHistory TV. I’m speaker #2 and my presentation is about 25 minutes long. A
special thanks to all who actually take the time to watch the video.
Author
Appearances
Lastly, as a new item for 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.
August 8, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Poudre River Loves Reading Local Authors Book Fair
Fort Collins, CO, Old Town Public Library
Authors will be tables to talk about their
books and sign copies
October 17, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Rocky Mountain Literary Festival
Mount Vernon Country Club
Golden, CO
I’ll be the last speaker of the day
End of Post
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