This week Sabine’s battlefield guide Saturday
Beselare in the early days part two
RIR 247 had arrived during the evening of the 20th of October 1914, by early morning on the 21st of October German canons, ammunition and food wagons had arrived. At one stage they got hit by their own artillery fire.
What happened with the civilians that stayed behind? ( see last week’s blog)
Maurits Decroix and farmer Jules deltour were found by the Germans, taken prisoner and brought to Geluwe to be interrogated, Jules end up in Kriegsgefangenlager Schneidemuhle that is now part of Poland and is called Pita. Deltour Jules Victor who was married to Devlies Augusta Helena died a Schneidemuhle in the camp Hospital on the 25/02/1915.. By looking in his POW red cross records, the cause of death was tuberculosis. Maurits ended up in Gefangenlager Hassenberg he would not be the only inhabitant from Beselare there, moved later to Holzminden.
Vereecke Amelie born 17/02/1844 widow of Karel Lodewijk or Charles Louis Van den Abeele died at Schneidemuhle on 10/11/14. A 70 year old woman living at the ‘Reutelhoek’, what on earth did she do to become a POW. Simple answer she was seen as a spy and transported to the same camp as Jules and Maurits. No record for her in the red cross files , I even tried with her late husband’s name, but no luck. A simple answer to why I didn’t find anything, it seems she died while being transported from the train to the Lazaret in Schneidemule, so she died before reaching the camp.
Her son Pieter Leopold born on 11/11/1872 fled to Pont-du-Château in France with his 3 children but no mention at all of his wife.
Theofiel Decottenie was found in his cellar on the 21st of October, same faith as above, ended up at Hassenberg , moved to Holzminden but got lucky in 1916, the red cross negotiated and he could reach his family who had fled to France via Switzerland . I wondered why only him. Seems it had to do with the age, on a list I found that people older than 55 could be transferred to Switzerland. He ended up in Adelboden.
Katarina Van de Moortele wife of miller Pieter Dejonghe was the only that stayed behind, her husband had left to Ieper, she was found by the Germans hiding under the oven. and was brought to Dadizele.
Remember last week the civilians who were hiding in the cellar of the brewery. Only late afternoon on Wednesday 21 October they were allowed to leave their safe haven. They saw the bakery being on fire just like the inn “De kroone’. The complete group leaves and ends up at Slypskapelle.
A few civilians paid a high price. Careyn Lucie died as a prisoner of the Germans at ‘de molenhoek’. On the 23nd of October 1914.
Decroix Joannes Inn owner died in his garden on the 20th, he was hiding behind some wood, a German just shot him dead . The story goes that the shooter told this a year later in the printing house A. Strobbe in Izegem to Marcel Cardoen who had found refuge there. 5 more died that day.
Many inhabitants who fled before the village ended up In German hands , managed to flee to France (some of you know I do have a part of Beselare witch blood in my vains). My great great granddad Boucké Francis born in France 17/05/1873 but somehow ended up in Beselare married Brulez Marie Louise and had 5 children, one of them was my grandmother’s mother on fathers side. They ended up in Ouzouer-sur-Trezée in France during the war. And did return.
The buildings in the village
The church was emptied, chairs ended up outside and matrasses and blankets were taken from the houses for the wounded. Stretcher bearers poured in with the wounded and it didn’t take long before the church was full, mostly Germans, but also British and French. Oberstabsarzt Dr. Gärtner of RIR 246 kept a diary. he wrote that the sacristy served as a dressing and operating theatre. The hopeless cases were laid in the storeroom until they died and carried outside towards the cemetery. In the church, friends and foes lay against each other, covered in blood and dirt, fearfully dazed. Shattered limbs causing unbearable suffering, red glowing with fever. In three languages one hears begging and stammering for an sip of water. Some were sitting with their backs against the cold walls, eyes closed, you could see them making fists from time to time, some were delirious calling their parents, or screaming, march, forward, look out, machine gun!!! Verdammt. In the sacristy one after the other arrive some had waited more than 2 days to get treatment. Anything that could be used as bandages was ripped a part: altar and table damask, vestments of priests name it, if it could be used as a dressing it was used.
with a tremendous bang, a bomb strikes close to the church. Planks and shingles fall down from the nave, the church space is filled with caustic sulphur fumes. Doctor Gärdner writes the following : two stretcher bearers have brought a tall Saxon infantryman, a big fellow. as there is no more room in the church, they put him on a chair in the porch. I am urgently called in and as I am loosening his bandages, a shrapnel explodes right in front of the church door, the air pressure causes me to fall against the tower stairs, while the shredded body of the Saxon slides lifelessly off the chair. The next one falls into the churchyard, again hitting and crushing the bodies already buried, the sight is eerie. Coffins( from civilian burials in the past) protrude from the upturned earth. Inside the church, more planks tumble down. At the altar, undisturbed, chaplain Holtzmann writes to the relatives of each dead person a ‘ feltpostkarte’ with each time the same laconic message : ‘Gestroben in die kirche von Becelaer’
On the 25 of October the church is cleared out and in between de shooting the wounded are brought to the cellars of the brewery , many had already left to Dadizele and Kortrijk. The distance between the church and the brewery is small but still there were dead bodies, for months the brewery was used as a Lazaret on the roof of one of the buildings was the red cross flag.
A few of the men that were buried in the cemetery around the church : Renkenberger Wilhelm 23/10/1914 Krgsfrw and Reiser Mathias 24/10/1914 Gefr., are buried in Menen wald now.
Source :
Gedenkboek aan Beselare in de eerste wereldoorlog 1914-1918 J.H. Maes
Heemkring Zonnebeke database refugees
A big thank you to Jürgen Schmieschek for helping me out with doctor Gärdner
Images : postcards from my own collection