This week Sabine’s battlefield guide Saturday is going back to Boezinge
a German spy?
The violence came closer and closer and on the 20th of October the front was close to Boezinge. Daily life was still relatively safe behind the left bank of the canal and was even exciting for the remaining residents. Every day there was something going on with all those foreigners and soldiers in the village, they traded with the soldiers and fraternised. For the children, who were not afraid of anything, it was a great time. But at the bridge, it was serious, everyone had to move back, because the enemy was a few kilometres away. Everyone was on their guard, every strange looking stranger could be a spy.
Especially the English were suspicious and did not trust anyone. There were all sorts of rumours about nocturnal ghost tours between the enemy lines at night, signals would be sent out?
In the vicinity of Staden, a small German soldier was captured, although he was wearing a red cross armband, he was not treated like an ordinary prisoner of war. Jozef Decuypere who lived in the Bruggestraat next to priests house , saw how the man was led from a meadow behind the café “de papegaai ” (37 on the map) to the house of pastor Henri George (33 on the map). This house was empty because the pastor had already fled after the first shelling of the village. It was used by the French as the headquarters of their 87th territorial division. Sometime later, the German prisoner was executed in the meadow behind the house of August Ampe on what charge is unclear. Shortly after the soldier was buried , a French officer ordered two villagers to open the grave. The French had forgotten to remove the necessary pieces of identity, such as the armband . A dozen people were allowed to attend the exhumation and the French even allowed some to take sovenirs from the uniform. After the war in 1927, the body was found by Aloïs Vanoverberghe and Aloïs Gouwy.
Now finding the identity of this soldier, the French archives are pretty easy for me, so I thought well get all ‘les dossiers Allemandes fusillés de la premiere guerre mondiale’ and there is your answer. Well I was wrong, 26 files with loads of pages to read but none of them were executed in Boezinge. Wat is strange since these files start from august 1914 on and have loads of details; There must be a reason why this is not in the execution files.
So next step see if the 87e French territorial division diary has something on this subject. They do mention that they collided with the Germans near Staden but no mention about prisoners they took only what their casualties were that day. So you move towards brigade diary and find Staden at the 20th but no mention of prisoners yet again, next move to the regiments of the division : 76e régiment d’infanterie territorial was around Staden on the 19th and 20th only one left and that is the 2 Corps cavalry to check and as expected loads of information only nothing on The German prisoner.
The civilian name that could help me was August Ampe because of that meadow ,to find where he lived I had to find where and when he died and the name of his wife and if they had children. Lucky for me they did have two sons, with the birth date of one of the sons I could move from the geneanet site to the’ rijksarchief ‘birth certificates’. Where August Ampe’s profession was revealed but no address. Then I remembered I had a book in my private liberary that could be helpfull.
August Ampe was actually running the Inn named ‘de papegaai’ and that is easy to locate see map and image.
Historische kranten of 1927 did not reveal anything
End of this blog one disappointed guide because I did not find the answer I was after and a month ago the only one who could help and might have known the answer, died.
Sources : Geneanet
Ieper graaag gezien de oudste prentkaarten
Boezinge 14 18 Baccarne- Steen
Boezinge na de oorlog Baccarne _ Steen
images :
Map village, postcard of bridge and inn de Papegaai, picture of the inn and bridge, picture of meadow