Civilians were more often suspected of espionage than soldiers. If one lit a candle at night when a cow calved, the farmer was immediately arrested and taken for interrogation. He was put behind bars until the Belgians acquitted him again. A uniform on the contrary was seen as a guarantee of honesty, especially with the English, they did not really expect espionage among soldiers. Germans made good use of that, they gathered valuable intelligence by deploying German soldiers who spoke perfect Dutch English or French. They used uniforms of fallen soldiers. The Belgians would have been the first to suspect this, only the English did not believe it.
A dove
Cyriel Degezelle found a pigeon one day, she had her leg tangled up in a fence wire. He thought it would be good to go and tell this fact in the town hall. There, he was immediately sent to headquarters. An apparently innocent incident cost him a whole day of interrogation.
Wall in your valuables , not a good idea
Bruno Petillion, commander of the fire brigade and bricklayer by profession, thought it was best to wall in his furniture and valuables before fleeing from the first shelling. Like many, he came back when things were calmer. Had anyone discovered or dobbed him in that valuables had been walled in? He was arrested and accused of espionage, threatened with execution without a single solid reason being given. In the end, he was locked up in the chateau for a while and suddenly released without any explanation.
How repairing a broken chimney had bad consequences:
A chimney on the ‘Paratonnerres’ farmhouse was broken.( ravestraat 24) The French had hit it when they fired into the valley in Reningestreet near ‘ferme bellevue over the farmhouse towards the German positions between Sas and Steenstraete. Jules Vandenberghe crawled on his roof to repair the chimney, but was promptly taken down by the French. They saw this as espionage, he was taken to Woesten for interrogation, and finally he ended up in Veurne prison for three days.
Mediator on duty
It is true that suspects were not always taken to Woesten. If the French were of the opinion that the case was not very serious or if the person on duty happened to be in a good mood, it was often sufficient to defend oneself in Boezinge. The ‘Police secrète’ had its seat in the house of cattle trader Cyriel verstraete. There, the Boezinge people were usually assisted by Dr Snick, who in those days had to play the role of interpreter, lawyer and doctor, was called upon every day to give explanations about suspected fellow villagers.
French soldier shot
It was not only for espionage that you could be shot.
Augustin Bacalou, a French soldier of the 10th Engineer Regiment, who was stationed between Kapellestraat and Elperseweg. Their assignment was to throw a bridge across the canal on the” st pietertje quarter”. Therefore they removed the poles from the hops field of the farm widow Amand lemahieu _ Marrant, at Kapellestraat stood the rural inn ‘ de lelie’, operated by Theopiel Ooghe. who was also a farmer and in possession of a couple of beautiful daughters. Early in 1915, during a quiet period at the front, the French bridge builders had discovered this oasis of pleasure. After a brawl, a fierce argument started. Help was called in from the watch commander, this lieutenant was billeted in the railway crossing guard’s house. He called on everyone to stop fighting and report. Only Augustin refused. The officer then used his authority to make a stand and shot the rebel. This brought back the calm, at least for a while. The next day, the lieutenant was transferred to another unit for fear of possible counter-actions by the soldiers. Augustin was buried in the garden of “the lelie” under a plum tree, but strangely enough his body was not found after the war.
Sources
Boezinge 14 18 Baccarne- Steen