This week Sabine’s battlefield guide Saturday:
Priest Henri Leroeye’s account about who is using the Germans for some dirty tricks in Stene
I quickly learned the apparent reason for these arrests. That English car had fallen into disuse here, the engine was gone and the thing was worth nothing, the people had dragged it to a piece of land once leased by the mayor. The car was not even hidden, the children played in it daily. Lefever and Tanghe had indeed fled when the Germans arrived, but they returned via England and the Netherlands with the correct papers. At the beginning of the war, Charles Sanders regularly travelled to Bruges by horse and cart, just as he had done before the war. So the net was woven to catch us as spies so that the aid and food committee could be set up without us. The three prisoners were released after 10 days without even being questioned once.
Lefever and Tanghe had heard the German agents talking during their transfer to Ostend and heard who had accused them, the same as the one who was assigned to me as guardian during all meetings, indeed the town clerk of Steene!
In the meantime something happened in the council that made it clear to us how the Steene friends of the Germans acted. About 3 weeks earlier on 17 January there had been a meeting in my house where the mayor and other members of the wellfare council were present. They were not very happy about the fact that the majority of the town councillors were also there. And not without reason! Those councillors had openly accused the welfare council of wasting money. They had refused to approve a loan that was recommended by the higher authorities to help those in need. They had transferred all the work and authority of the welfare council to their elected members of the nutrition and assistance committee. They left the soldiers’ wives without pay for 7 weeks, forcing them to seek refuge in public charity. But the secretary refused verbally and even in writing to the chairman of the welfare council to convene it. So it was very convenient for the town clerk that three of them were captured by the Germans. It gave him time to convene the council himself where he openly lectured them and even said that he could have them imprisoned by the Germans, all because they had signed a letter during that meeting on the 17th of January, he threatened them and said that they had to sign that they did not know what was in the letter. His threats were successful and they all signed what he wanted.
After the release of the mayor, they repented and declared that they knew what they had signed but were forced to lie about it.
And so began the management of terror, composed of Germans and residents of Steene, indeed some of our residents prevented us from carrying out our charitable work.
– No more meetings possible of the women’s committee, who supported the soldiers’ wives, Mrs. Delaere who was treasurer didn’t even dare to keep the money at her home anymore and gave it to me. So the 750 francs and a few hundred francs that I added myself, I could then secretly distribute so that the soldiers’ wives could survive.
– The money that we wanted to lend to the municipality, namely 20 000 francs but with an interest rate of 4% a year, was also thwarted.
They did not want us to use the interest for good causes. The town clerk Jerome Ameloot and his brother said that they wanted to lend money to the town but without interest.
They managed to make the council believe this, but I am sure that interest was charged and went into their pockets.
– Support of the benevolence committee
that had nothing more to do except what the Germans and their friends from Steene wanted to happen.
A bit later Sanders was arrested and suddenly the town clerk appointed a German soldier as a member of the welfare council, probably to prevent questions being asked about Sanders’ arrest. Anyone who dared to ask awkward questions about the new functioning of the benevolence committee was fined.
Edward Claeys was one of them, the charge was: insulting and falsely accusing Mr Ameloot the town clerk, result 100 marks to be paid as a fine. Fines and punishments under all kinds of pretexts for those who did not meekly follow the Germans and their supporters.
Alderman August Vermander, who with the mayor had the majority in the college of aldermen, had to endure 3 months in jail and a fine of 3000 marks. As a result, he was removed from office by the Germans and replaced by someone more sympathetic to the town clerk. Why did August get this punishment? Simple because he had used barley to feed his starving cattle after all his other supplies had been confiscated.
There were 13 cells on the village square whether they were ever all empty I cannot say. Henri mentions several German commanders, Koch who was nicknamed ‘the swine’, Commandant Mössche and Commandant Abt who he called an honest man and the only one who wanted to punish German cattle thieves only the military court acquitted them for stealing in distress. But the disadvantaged were compensated. The other commanders punished the injured party with a 100 mark fine because the stables were not closed properly. Now you may think why did the victims report a theft of cattle if they knew that a fine would follow? Well, they had no choice: the livestock was known and recorded, so in the event of loss, death or death, everything had to be reported, and failure to do so resulted in a fine.
Henri also describes how Jules Bauwens gets the death penalty, only he got the date wrong, he wrote down the summer of 1915 but this happened in January 1915. It is important to know that his diary was destroyed and that after the war he wrote everything down again on request of the bishop for the archives, therefore it is possible that dates are mixed up but the facts are real.
On 9 January 1915 Jules BAUWENS, a farmer born in Leffinge but living in Stene, was sentenced to death by the Germans because a rifle and 150 cartridges were found .
The verdict was without appeal and had to be carried out the same day. He was to be executed in De Haan. At 4 o’clock three cars left for De Haan with the following persons: Jules BAUWENS sentenced to death, the German commander in chief, a German chaplain P. SEILER as interpreter and clergyman, because the dean was not allowed to attend, a German doctor, Mr. Petrus Jacobus Vandeweghe, mayor of Stene and Dr. VERHAEGHE, alderman of Oostende.
Sources :
archief van het bisdom oorlogsverslagen parochie Stene
“Oostende onder de Duitse bezetting 1914-1918, by A. ELLEBOUDT and G. LEFEVRE).