Impression
Sketch Emile Vandervelde meeting the 'Warrior Monk' - By Jamie Mann.
Where the rising
river of French Flanders
Flows into
Belgian Flanders, the Yser waters
Marks where the
Belgian Minister of State
Once visited some
Belgium held trenches.
As reported by M.
Emile Vandervelde,
This Minister
ventured out to an advance
Post - not a hundred yards from enemy
Trenches, to meet
one Belgian officer.
This officer was
seen as out of the ordinary -
Having spent his adult
career in the army,
Reaching a
prominent part of a commission -
Then left to
enter a Franciscan monastery.
With war's outbreak,
the monk rejoined -
To fight as an
ordinary soldier - by Thursday
8 April, the
private became a lieutenant -
Having been decorated
for his bravery.
Messieur
Vandervelde told of The Minister's
Visiting this so
called Warrior-Monk, whose
Lieutenant's
station based at an observation
Post - which was
seen as a 'pigeon house.'
Every 24 hours
the men he commands
Were relieved -
yet still he refused to leave
His post - the
spot's only link a telephone;
His food being
brought on peaceful nights.
During those times
of heavy enemy artillery
Communications of
the soldier monk became
Halted - one time
over three nights, weeks
Before, he was left
without water supplies.
In order to drink,
the Lieutenant scooped
Water from the
bottom of the trench - which
He then boiled
within a kettle - the resultant
Drops collected,
he then licked from the lid.
The ex-monk told
Messieur Vandervelde
How, during one
evening of fierce gunfire,
A shell hit his
pigeon house - he escaped
By some miracle -
save a cut to his finger.
The minister, asking
how he did not find
Such conditions
intolerable, was answered,
To be told that
he had never been happier -
And how time
there passes quite quickly.
To end the
interview the soldier monk told
How he enjoyed
watching over his men -
Being very aware
how he helps his country,
had engraved in
stone to say 'Vive le Roi.'
by Jamie Mann.
Anon.,1915. Paris
Day by Day - A Warrior Monk. The Daily Telegraph, [online] 10 Apr. P.11. Col.6-7. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11520509/Daily-Telegraph-April-10-1915.html
[Accessed: 10 April 2015].
Mann, J., 2015. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal
communication, 10 April 2015).
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#worldwarone #worldwaroneremembered #WW1Belgium
