Halen 18 – Cyclists Try to Reposition
1200 Hours. Lt. Van Overstraeten stated, “When 1st Battery opened fire from the Mettenberg” around noon, he saw Cyclists coming from the station, moving backward. He asked Capt.-Commandant Van Damme what this meant. “Commandant, the company is no longer in tirailleur. We cannot retreat. We have to wait for now until an infantry brigade comes to reinforce us,” adding, “The sunken road is the ideal place to accommodate your men.” This sunken road was the “Betserbaan.” Lt. Robin also noted, “One platoon of Cyclists emerges from a sunken track at about 600 meters in front of us [the Kannonierstraat] and positions itself in a green field after putting down their bicycles first.”
This repositioning smacked of a political hot potato in Belgium after the war. The accounts tended to be somewhat vague about the final position of the Cyclist Bn. When Van Overstraeten reached the rank of Lieutenant General, no one wanted to point the blame finger at such an accomplished man. However, despite many efforts to sugarcoat it, Van Overstraeten may have been directly responsible for stopping the Cyclist companies in a precarious position. Battalion Commander Maj. Siron did not like the position and asked for help; Van Overstraeten, as a direct representative of Lt. Gen de Witte, had apparent authority to help. It was a trade-off. The Cyclists could both observe and fire on the exits from the town of Halen; the Lancers could not from their position. The downside, of course, was the exposed position of the Cyclist Bn.
The Cyclists had already crossed the sunken track Velpen-Liebroek [Betserbaan] and headed towards the IJzerwinning position. Then, a staff officer of Lt. Gen de Witte ordered them to halt and form front toward the enemy. The terrain was completely naked. The Cyclists found themselves approximately 400 meters in front of the main line of defense. In the middle of the Lancer’s field of fire . . . 200 meters in front of them, the Germans occupied the sunken track. Well protected against the fire, they open fire on the Belgian Cyclists.
Van Overstraeten continued: “The other Company, the 3rd, continued moving backward, the battalion commander leading. He then went to Maj. Siron and ordered him to ‘hold and stand there and then’. . . At the end, the Cyclists took positions at about 200 meters west of the Betserbaan.” This position was very, very difficult. The enemy was advancing and firing from Halen. Behind them were the barrels of the Lancers’ carbines. The Cyclists were silhouetted between these two forces. In the open field, they had little protection. Siron, who was killed in September 1918, must have sensed perfectly well that they had been positioned there as sitting ducks. He asked how long he had to stand and hold this position, adding, “My right flank is adjacent to nothing. I’m going to have myself butchered here. I should be covered and my right should be reconnoitered. I see nobody. Ten minutes ago, I saw Gen. de Monge, Commander of the Guides Brigade, but he rode off without saying a word. Please do me a favor: intervene, so that they position cavalry at my right.” Van Overstraeten recalled, “I answer him that at this moment two squadrons of Guides occupy Velpen . . . and that I would transmit his demands.”
The booklet “Le Combat de Halen” of the Ministry of Defense (1934) was more explicit. It literally said, “The Cyclists halt in front of the Lancer’s line as a result of an intervention by Lt. Van Overstraeten, who thought it necessary to stand until the arrival of the 4th Mixed Brigade —under the rifle fire coming from Halen; rifle fire the Lancers were not able to answer.” In his manuscript Haelen (12 août 1914), de Witte stated that Siron supposed that it would be okay to position his 1st and 3rd Comp 400 meters in front of the IJzerwinning Farm.
