Around
the city of Liege the fighting war continued.
In
its wake fighting swallowed unsuspecting places.
Such
one small Belgian town, Boncelles,
Was
to have a dreadful fate...
The
resting people of Boncelles had retired for the night
As
Darkness fell, clouds darkened any sign of a moon
An
unsuspecting people, were soon to be greatly disturbed.
In
the quiet deserted streets boots began to tread and thud
Amid
the darkened houses, came a Belgian officer,
An
engineer, leading a quiet army of sappers who knocked
Urgently
and ferociously on every door of every house.
A
shaky people were summoned outdoors into darkness,
Where
the engineering officer gave dreadful explanation,
For
the town’s fort to operate guns without obstruction,
Every
house Boncelles had to be cleared with no exception.
So
it was each home was to be hurriedly burned down.
The
fort had every authority in the destruction of houses.
But
it was that during the day no warning had been given,
As
the officer addressed the people the sappers began.
Under
orders each soldier hurried into each house,
Carrying
wood and petrol - to throw beneath the stairs,
Wood
piled and then soaked with stench of petrol.
The
Belgian soldier that conveyed this reality in a letter
To
his brother in South Wales, to say how the English
Cannot
grasp such horrors and tragedies of war
Unlike
Belgium, having often been the battlefield of Europe.
This
man, Waroquiers, at first hand saw the shock and
grief
Of women and children. He states ‘All they do is weep.’
At this painful time many went to the church
to pray for hope.
Others
begged the soldiers for time to gather furniture,
For
what little they had – but taken firmly by the arm
They
were led weeping outside as sappers pushed by.
By
touch of torch, petrol ignited each house was soon ablaze.
A
distraught woman tried to rush back inside for some photo,
Or
other souvenir or precious object, but was ordered back
By
the soldiers. As fires began the dark clouds of a dark sky,
Maybe
in equal weeping of the people’s loss, began to pour.
Some rain dampened fires extinguished so the
soldiers,
Striking rifle bayonets into petrol soaked cotton,
hurried
To smash windows and reignite each waning house
fire.
‘All they did was weep’ the soldier Waroquiers watched flames.
He saw how helpless men folk watched with wife and
child.
One such man, in some strange stupor stepped aside
The burning of their home - then as if he had gone
mad,
Rushed across to assist the soldiers in the burning
down
Of homes. At his example others now took up
torches.
By the midnight hour came the sound of the ringing
bells
Of Boncelles church, where the people had been
praying.
But now gathered wood piled high about alter, into
the tower
Once lit dancing flames rocked the bells in
dreadful fate,
Engulfing fire made climbed and danced towards the
night.
Soon this aged tower crumbled and caved in a
smoking heap.
With
surrounding trees cut down around a burning town,
Boncelles, a place of home and life now laid to
terrible waste.
It would seem destruction had given the enemy
strange victory
So this tactic carried out now the fort’s guns had
no obstruction,
All
for the sake of Belgium guns.
Waroquiers
had followed orders and assisted in the task
His
eyes had watched the burning of his town as he promised,
‘I
shall never forget the sight of it.’
by
Jamie Mann
Anon.,
1914. What War Means - Terrible Scenes in a Belgian Town. The Daily
Telegraph, [online] 13 Aug. p.3. Col.6.
Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11025934/Daily-Telegraph-August-13-1914.html
[Accessed: 13th August
2014].
Mann, J., 2014. 100
years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal communication, 13
August 2014).
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