This week Sabine’s battlefieldguide Saturday.
The Korps der Congolese Vrijwilligers (Congolese Volunteers Corps) part one
This was a special unit, consisting of around three hundred old colonials and colonials on holiday, it was founded on the 5th of august 1914. Some of the volunteers were those who had returned from the Congo on the last ship to arrive in Antwerp on 26 July 1914. The Corps was made up of an amalgam of civil servants, company directors, engineers, deputies, lawyers, company inspectors or agents, all of whom occupied or had occupied
prominent positions in the colonies. The Ministry added to the Corps the former legionnaires who were too few in number to form a special corps. The Corps left Sint Niklaas on the 17 th of August.
They fought between the 20 and 23 of August, 1914 to keep Namur. Willy Van Cauteren was one of them , he was taken prisoner and brought to Germany, he kept a diary that was published after the war, at least 38 were taken pow and ended up in Munster( found the list in the red cross files)
this is what he writes about their arrival in Munster-lager:
There were no demonstrations when we arrived at Munster-lager. No crowds. The major and a section of veterans of the 38th Landsturm were waiting to welcome us.
Munster station is a cold, quiet place. We were led to the camp along wide paths through the forests that stretched as far as the eye could see on all sides.
It seems that the country is like this all the way to the sea. Various camps are set up among the clearings of the forests and occupy a vast site with their barracks and annexes.
Prisoners come and look at us through the latticework that enclose these camps, but are kept at a distance by the guards to avoid any communication with the newcomers. (they who preceded us were mostly Belgians caught in Liège. Very few were French.)
more to come next week.
Sources: La querre et la captivité by Willy Vercauteren ( book in my own liberary)