This week Sabine’s battlefield guide Saturday is going back to Zonnebeke
Life in Zonnebeke during the first months of WW1 part two
Friday 16 October 1914
The vacant rooms of the girls’ school are set up as an emergency hospital. Wounded soldiers, among them many Belgian soldiers arriving on foot from Antwerpen, are taken care of by the nuns. Tired and thirsty they drink the offered coffee. Towards the evening position is taken at the temporary defence line along the road Passchendaele – Beselare – Kruiseik. The cavalry positions itself north of Broodseinde. South of the crossroads is the infantry brigade of the 7th British Division.
Saturday 17 October 1914
A battalion of French territorials comes to Zonnebeke in the morning. They are part of the 87 infantry division. Together with the 89 Division, they will support a British attack.
Patrols are sent out in the afternoon they bring a few German prisoners in. Sitting on a chair on the stage of the banquet hall ‘St Elooi’, where they were put on display for the youth of Zonebeke. In the evening they are taken to Ypres by car.
Sunday 18 October 1914
For the second time the population of Zonnebeke is confronted with the refugee problem. From the direction of Moorslede groups of desperate looking women with children approach, elders ask for a chair to rest, they come from Roeselare.
They claim that a powerful German army is advancing towards our area, the road Brugge Kortrijk was crossed and there is heavy fighting going on in Roeselare. This worries the inhabitants, after the Sunday mass they have little interest in their weekly card game. Many of them hurry home, they start packing, money and valuables are carefully put in cases and buried.
Monday, 19 October 1914
The stream of refugees grows steadily, most of them from Roeselare, but also from Passchendaele and Moorslede, long lines of pedestrians approach, heavily packed, with bicycles, wheelbarrows, covered carriages and farm wagons, dogs, goats and cattle in between. In the afternoon Roeselare is taken by the Germans. They drive a number of civilians ahead of them. The French cavalry gives way. Many civilians are wounded, houses plundered, residents shot. The rumours of these actions cause panic, it becomes the general exodus. In the food shops there is a shortage of hands to serve the numerous customers. Since the occupying forces have already used up so much of the food, many products are sold out, and bakers have run out of bread.
Tuesday, October 20, 1914
After the 7.30 am mass a tremendous explosion , a French officer advises Pastor Pil to flee. This explosion destroyed the mill on Broodseinde. Immediately, the inhabitants of the Broodseinde were forced to leave their homes. Soldiers forced their way in, installed themselves in the attics, took away roof tiles and, armed with machine guns and binoculars, spied on the eastern ridge. Around 11 a.m., German artillery began shelling the village. The first shell fell in the Stationstraat. The refugees look back and walk even faster now, at the Frezenberg they stop, see the roofs and the church of the village, a few clouds of smoke rise. Pastor Gyselen, who in the morning hid some valuable barrels and robes under a grave in the choir, he pushed the statue of St. Joseph over it, is now standing with chaplain Lammens on the yard of a farm between Frezenberg and de “verlorenhoek”. But things do not calm down, the shelling intensifies. Even the crossroads of the Frezenberg gets a couple of hits in which a couple of refugees are killed. Returning now to the village is no longer an option.
Yet people stayed behind, farmers, concerned about their cattle, even three nuns stayed to care for the wounded, Sister Bernadine, Ida and Theodora. But in this all too hasty and forced exodus, a few tragedies happened: Zenobie Denexter Callewaert not inclined to flee because of her husband’s illness. They are taken from their home by the English and led away; they have already passed the church when she can persuade the soldiers to return, for her two-year-old child is still in its cot.
The Depoorter family, refugees from Roeselare, is hit by the shelling, their old uncle is wounded, and is taken on a pushcart to the St. Joseph institute where he dies.
By the evening the British hold a real raid in the village, all houses are searched for the remaining residents, they are brought together at two locations where they spend the night.
Source : Zonnebeke 1914-1918 by Aleks en Andre Deseyne
Images : Stationstraat now called Langemarkstraat, English at the station on 20th of Oktober 1914