Remembering Flemish American Veterans

Drie Staden - Belgian medal for WW1 Military Service

Tomorrow, Monday, November 11th, is Veteran's Day here in the U.S. It was started to commemorate the end of the "Great War": what we today call World War 1. In earlier posts here, here, and here, I have spoken of the contribution by Flemings and Flemish Americans to the events in World War 1. 

Although it is a National Holiday and U.S. federal government offices are closed, many people only have a dim understanding of the holiday's importance. My childrens’ high school invites local veterans to speak of what they have endured and done for this country. But there is (of course) no reference or mention of Flemish Americans and their involvement in World War 1 (or beyond).

Belgium at the start of the First World War (August 4, 1914) had a very small army of 48,000 men but quickly mobilized to more than 100,000 soldiers. Without question, this was tiny compared to the several million soldiers Germany sent over the frontier in August, 1914.[i]

Newly-enlisted Flemish Americans in front of St John Berchman's Church, Chicago ca 1917

As a result, many Flemish Americans responded to an inner 'call to arms'. So many Flemish Americans in Chicago responded to the call to arms in fact that their families were left destitute. The Belgian Government responded by redirecting a daily payment of 6.5 cents per family per day (even then, insufficient to feed a family used to living on $3 a day, as my grandmother’s family was).[ii] Newspaper reports of the time show long queues of women, old men and children lined up in front of the Belgian Consulate in Chicago receiving their daily allowance.[iii]

One of the very first Flemish Americans to heed the call to arms was Paul Vandervelde of Dallas, Texas. Vandervelde fought for 34 days in five significant battles before being forced to retreat. As a US citizen, he was returned to the US on the White Star Line ship Cedric.[iv] 

 

The inequalities of the Belgian Army - overwhelmingly Flemish soldiers fighting under overwhelmingly Francophone officers - spurred the movement for equal language and education rights for Flemings

On the home front, some Flemish Americans fought without weapons. Johannes Schreuers, a Flemish immigrant living in Chicago and playing for the Chicago Symphony, became a combatant (in a war of words and stringed instruments) with his German and Austrian colleagues (who outnumbered him 76:1). Eventually a sort of truce "for the duration of the war" was agreed upon.[v]

Others, who could not fight, opened their pocketbooks. The Belgian American Club of Chicago quickly established a Red Cross Society chapter, appropriated $200 from the club's treasury, and proceeded to discuss other ways to raise money for their ancestral homeland.[vi]

Led by Flemish American veteran (of the Spanish-American War of 1898) Felix J. Streykmans and supported by Belgian Consul General Cyriel Vermeren, the fundraising garnered support from civic leaders even outside of the Flemish American community.[vii] Eventually, seven Belgian Clubs in Chicago came together to raise money through a series of fund-raising events - such as theatrical performances.[viii] 

Herbert Hoover telegram in 1914

Despite all this support, by October, 1914 it was estimated that more than 1 million Belgians (out of a total population of 7 million people) were starving. Consequently, Herbert Hoover, future (31^st) U.S. President, former global mining engineer, and occasional resident of Belgium, organized an ad hoc system of relief for those caught in the conflict.[ix] By the end of the war, at a time when individuals measured daily earnings in cents, the “Commission for the Relief of Belgium” (as it came to be called) moved nearly $1,000,000,000 in relief to these starving Flemish civilians.[x]

Flour Sack Reworked by Belgian woman

In addition to bringing money, food and clothing to family and friends in Flanders, Flemish Americans offered other relief. In the midst of the war, Fr. John B. De Ville of Saint John Berchman's "Belgian parish" in Chicago crossed the front lines to bring out 1500 noncombatants. Of those were 50 young women who decided to wed their Flemish American beaus on Ellis Island.[xi]

The Belgian state, long ambivalent about its Flemish-speaking majority, modified its Francophone bias during the later stages of the war in an attempt to dissipate Flemish nationalist sentiment.[xii] In an appeal to Flemish Americans in 1916, the Belgian Government in the Detroitenaar newspaper (later absorbed into the Gazette van Detroit), published the below picture and poem. 

De Detroitenaar's appeal to Flemish Americans December 1917

The poem, "Aan mijn volk" in Dutch:

Nieuwjaarsgeschenk Van De Detroitenaar

Ween niet mijn volk mijn natieNog leeft de Vlaamsche leeuwNog staat hij onverschrokkenOndanks het krijgsgeschreeuwAl is zijn huis vernietigdVerpletterd en doorzeefdVan kogels en granatenHij scherpt zijn klauw, Hij leeftNog sta ik aan zijn zijde, terwijl mij 't harte blaaktVan liefde voor mijn Vlaandren! Ween nietUw Koning waaktWeen niet mijn volk, mijn trouwenWeen niet, Uw Koning leeft!Ik weet, dat God ons eenmaalOns Vlaanderen wedergeeftAl is het thans vermorzeld,Vertrapt, verscheurd, vernield,De Vlaamsche leeuw is levendMet leeuwenkracht bezieldHoudt moed, mijn trouwe natie en nooit denplicht verzaakt!Eens zal verlossing komen, Uw Koninginne waakt!

In (rough) English translation: "To my people"

"New Year's Gift from the Detroitenaar"

Weep not my people, my nation

The Flemish Lion is still alive

[and] ever fearless,

Despite the battle cry

Though his house has been destroyed

Crushed and riddled,

By bullets and grenades

He sharpens his claws, he lives on.

Still I stand by his side, while [from] me it [blood?] oozes warm

O how I love my Flanders! Do not cry

Your King awaits

Weep not my people, my betrothed

Do not cry, your King lives!

I know that once again God will [give us]

Our Flanders again 

Though it is now crushed,

Trampled, shredded, destroyed,

The Flemish Lion is still alive

With lionine strength

Take courage, my faithful nation and never fail [to do your] duty!

Once [more] salvation will come, Your Queen awaits![xiii]

David Baeckelandt in Flanders, November 11, 2012

Even without the historical allusions to past Flemish history and King Albert's cloaking himself in black and yellow (the colors of the Vlaamse Leeuw/Flemish Lion) as above, the Flemish and Flemish Americans responded with fervor. Both in the Belgian and US armies they fought and died for rights and self-determination. Some, like Flemish American Charles S. Brokaw, whose ancestors left Flanders in the 16^th century, returned to their ancestral home to fight and die. Today he lies buried in the American Cemetery at Wareghem.[xiv]

Cyriel Barbary

Flemings fought and died literally up until the last day of the war.[xv] At the end of the war, one of those veterans, Cyriel Barbary, gave up his devastated West Flemish home in Klercken, and together with his young bride, relocated to Detroit. There he quietly raised a family in the suburb of Royal Oak. Cyriel gained fame only in his last years: he became the last surviving Belgian veteran of World War 1.[xvi]  

Julien Baeckelandt in the Belgian Army, Ruhr, Germany 1924

Today, then, I wish to recognize all the Flemish Americans who fought for our countries. Closer to home, my grandfather Julian Baeckelandt served in the Belgian Army (during the occupation of the Ruhr in 1924) and my father Werner Baeckelandt served during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War. Today my son Luke serves in the Golden Eagle Battalion. It is to you - mijn grootvader, mijn vader en mijn zoon - that I dedicate this post. Thank you - and all Flemish Americans - for your service to our countries.

Luke (Cadet, GEB) and Werner Baeckelandt (veteran)

Endnotes

---

[i] “The Belgian Factor”, Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922); Aug 5, 1914; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1986), pg. 6. Accessed November 10, 2013.

[ii] The stipend eventually was upped to 15 cents per day plus 5 cents a day for each child. In the event of her husband death while in service, the children's daily allowance would be doubled, to ten cents per day per child. See The Chicago Daily Tribune, September 10, 1914, p.8. Regardless of the improvement, these were subsistence amounts. My great-grandmother, before departing Antwerp for America in August, 1905, told the Belgian Inspector Venesoen that her husband-to-be, my great-grandfather Edmond Dupon, Sr., earned $3 a day as a butcher in Chicago. This may have been an exaggeration (one can almost feel the boast in the statement). The Chicago Daily Tribune, August 30, 1908 p. G2 claimed Belgian women working in mines in Wallonia earned 50 cents  - 75 cents/day. So 6.5 cents per day  - or even 15 cents per day plus a nickel a child - was hardly sufficient to feed a family.

[iii] “Belgium Caring for Its Defenders' Wives and Families”, AMERICAN PRESS ASSN. Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922); Aug 27, 1914; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1986), pg. 5. Accessed November 10, 2013. The August 3, 1914 edition of The Chicago Daily Tribune (p.7) estimated that 50,000 to 75,000 of Chicago's immigrants returned to their respective countries to enlist in the belligerents' miliatries. Of the 7,000 or so Flemings in Chicago at the time, it appears that at least hundreds of young men returned to Europe. 

[iv] See “Yankee, Former Belgian, Served 34 Days in War”, Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922); Sep 19, 1914; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1986), p.3. Accessed November 10, 2013.  Unfortunately, Paul Vandervelde vanishes from history after his 15 lines of newsprint fame. There is no record of him in Ellis Island online archives. Nor is there a record of him in the University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures’, Belgian Texans, (San Antonio: University of Texas, 1982 – Principal Researcher is Samuel P. Nesmith).  Nor is there any record in Ancestry’s voluminous online files of a Paul Vandervelde in Dallas of Belgian origins – among the 56 U.S. resident Vandervelde entries in its database.  For sports buffs, it is unlikely that Mr. Vandervelde is related to this Flemish American football player, Julian Vandervelde  http://www.hawkeyesports.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/vandervelde_julian00.html . And, since he is originally from Chicago, not to this Dallas resident either: http://www.dallasobserver.com/2007-04-05/music/david-vandervelde/.  Genealogical note: My great-grandfather, Edmond Dupon, Sr., also traveled on the White Star Line ship Cedric to America – but at a different time and under better circumstances of course.

[v] “Martial Tunes Cause Near War”, Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922); Aug 17, 1914; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1986), pg. 11. Accessed November 10, 2013.

[vi] “Belgians Aid Red Cross”,  Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922); Aug 11, 1914; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1986), pg.7. Accessed November 10, 2013.

[vii] “All Nations Help Belgian Benefit”, Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922); Aug 27, 1914; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1986), pg. 11. Accessed November 10, 2013.

[viii] “Round About the Clubs and Societies”, Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922); Oct 16, 1914;

ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1986), pg. 11. Accessed November 10, 2013.

[ix] “American London Committee to Carry Food to 1,000,000 Starving Belgians”, Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922); Oct 22, 1914; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1986), pg.2. Accessed November 10, 2013.

[x] To put this in further context, $1 billion in 1913 was the total national debt of the United States at that time. George I. Gay, Public Relations of The Commission for Relief in Belgium: Documents, (Stanford Unversity: Stanford University Press, 1929), vol.1, p.vi. In the Chicago Daily Tribune, October 22, 1914, p.2, Herbert Hoover asserted that there were 1,000,000 civilians starving of which more than 700,000 were Belgians. The overwhelming majority of the Belgians were in what is now called Flanders and ipso facto were Flemings.

[xi] “50 Belgian Brides on Way to United States to Wed”, Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922); May 6, 1916;

ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1986), pg. 4. Accessed November 10, 2013.

[xii] There is, of course, a great deal of debate as to actual numbers of Flemings in the Belgian Army during World War One. At the high end are some immediate postwar documents that suggest that the Flemings constituted upwards of 90% of all enlisted men. According to these sources even nominal Wallon regiments received reinforcements that mainly if not wholly included Flemings. The Flemish units were of course 100% Flemish. The only exception to this rule was the officer corps, which were overwhelmingly Francophone. See Daniel Vanacker,De Frontbeweging: De Vlaamse strijd aan de Ijzer, (Kortrijk: De Kaproos, 2000), p.15 for the discussion of numbers as low as 60%. See Luc Schepens, 14/18: Een Oorlog in Vlaanderen, (Tielt: Lannoo, 1984), p.162, for the belief that the true percentages were “65 to 70% (and not 80 to 90% as widely believed)”.

[xiii] This image appeared in the The Detroitenaar probably in December 1917. E-mail correspondence with Judy Mendicino, nee DeMeulenaere, November 3, 2013.  

[xiv] It is unclear to me whether this Brokaw is related to American television journalist Tom Brokaw (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Brokaw) but my suspicion is that he must be. Christopher Sims, untitled and un-numbered excerpt “Brokaw, Charles S., from “The Soldiers of Flanders Field American Cemetery”.  Waregem, W.Vl., Belgium. E-mail correspondence November 13, 2012. BTW, the official website of the cemetery can be found here: http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/ff.php and a brochure is available online here: http://www.abmc.gov/publications/CemeteryBooklets/FlandersField_Booklet.pdf. This is the only American cemetery remaining in Flanders.

[xv] It is possible that several Flemings perished in the very last minutes of the war. See, for a commentary about this (in Dutch): http://www.forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl/viewtopic.php?t=9990 .

[xvi] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary,_Cyrillus-Camillus_(Cyriel) and http://www.gva.be/Archief/guid/laatste-belgische-veteraan-van-wo-i-overleden.aspx?artikel=3f435976-5e21-4fa1-a356-a48fb53b57fc . There is a bit more detail on his actual military service here: http://wo1.webserver.dmenp.be/ned/geschiedenis/gastbijdragen/barbary.htm .

Copyright 2013 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. No reproduction without my express, written permission.

Pro Flandria Servanda - Flanders' Right and Claim for Autonomy

November 11 is Veteran's Day in the U.S. It is Wapenstilstandsdag in Flanders. Both days recognize the sacrifice of millions during the Great War of 1914-1918[i]. A war fought overwhelmingly by Flemings for the defense of the Belgian State. 80% of those who served - and died - for Belgium were Flemings, a disproportionate percentage. Moreover, they fought and died for a state that ruled and oppressed the Flemings for the sake of a Francophone German royal family and an elite of foreign language users. In an earlier posting I have illustrated in part the sacrifice of the Flemings and the Flemish-Americans to that cause.

In response to what he perceived as the subjection of smaller ethnicities by larger ones,

Woodrow Wilson promulgated his 14 Points. Of course, during the war this was a means of justifying the struggle of the Allies against the Central Powers.[ii] The underlying principle of Wilson's 14 Points was self-determination of ethnicities in Europe (especially Point #5) and the example of the liberation of the Eastern European ethnicities (Poles, Ukrainians, Finns, etc.) as embodied in Point #6. Point #7 called for the "restoration of Belgian sovereignity” without reference to redress of the oppression of Belgium’s 4,400,000 Flemings by the 3,000,000 Walloons.

As Colonel House, President Wilson's closest confidant, stated:

"What are the "interests of the populations?" That they should not be militarized, that exploitation should be conducted on the principle of the "open door," and under the strictest regulation as to labor conditions, profits, and taxes, that a sanitary regime be maintained, that permanent improvements in the way of roads, etc., be made, that native organization and custom be respected, that the protecting authority be stable and experienced enough to thwart intrigue and corruption, that the [protecting] power have adequate resources in money and competent administrators to act successfully.”[iii]

In the Belgian capital of Brussels, a Flemish Committee of the Council of Flanders was formed on October 30th, 1918 in response to this proclamation. Members included prominent academics and local leaders. After deliberations, they sent an official appeal to Wilson, which read in part:

“Our Committee, voicing the interests of a population of over four million people, expresses its confidence that alike with the Poles, the Yougo-Slavs [sic], the people of Ukrajn [sic], the Finns and the irish, the Flemish people will see its future safeguarded by the Peace-conference on the basis of full autonomy within the Belgian State.”[iv]

These appeals fell on deaf ears. The Flemish community in the U.S., perhaps 100,000 strong in 1919, had poor economic or political sway. Most certainly, Flemish Americans had barely a fraction of the clout that the Irish Americans or Polish Americans had. Moreover, support for the Flemish Movement by Wilson would have been the antithesis of what not only the Francophone Belgian elite wished for, but more importantly, what France demanded of Wilson. Wilson’s response was to ignore this appeal.

Flemish rights activists however did not give up. In March, at the same time that the vast mass of the Flemish army established the political paper “Ons Vaderland” (March 4, 1919) the Flemish Committee again, on March 30th, sent an appeal to Woodrow Wilson.

“According to [the] fourth point [of] your general principles, [we, the] undersigned beg [that this] should be brought before [the] Council [of] Four, the clearly expressed national wishes of [the] Flemish race, hoping our claims may be fully granted.”[v]

What did the Flemish Committee – and in fact, the Flemish “Front Movement” (De Frontbeweging[vi]), through their publication in “Ons Vaderland” agitate for?

“Autonomy for Flanders in legislation, government, education, justice, [and the] army, on [the] basis of [the] principle: ‘In Flanders Flemish’ as the only means to secure the rebirth of Flemish civilization.

“Wallonia and Flandria should form a federation of two selfgoverned parts of Belgium.

“[The] entire educational system should be founded on [the] population. Hence in Flanders all schools from board[ing] schools to university (including secondary and technical education) [should be conducted] in Flemish.

“All courts of justice in Flanders [should be conducted] in Flemish.

“[In] all regiments [of the army the] mothertongue of [the] men should be also the vehicle for administration, drill and command.”[vii]

The authors closed their appeal with the emphasis that “this program does not ask for any favor[s]. It simply demands the rights of a self-respecting race, a race with a glorious past, and which wants to rise again to [the] height[s] of its abilities.”[viii]

Many of us know how this story ended: the Flemish delegates were ignored, hounded and imprisoned. However, a movement of the Flemish people rose up in response.

When the Great Powers redrew the map of Europe at Versailles, in late June, 1919 , the reaction among the Flemish veterans and people of Flanders was spontaneous. Across the country a hue and cry of indignation arose. Clearly democracy self-determination that Woodrow Wilson promised existed only for those to whom it was either politically expedient to grant it.

The Flemish had suffered and endured four years of warfare and destruction for what? They had exchanged one oppressor (the Germans) for another (the Walloons). It was with this as the background that first a small group of veterans marched toward Diksmuide, on the Ijzer River, where the best of Flanders young men had fought and died. They marched for Peace, Autonomy, and Goodwill Toward All.[ix]

This is the legacy of November 11, 1918 for Flemings. These are the roots of Flemish ethnic pride today. For Flemish Americans – and others of Flemish descent in the great diaspora around the world – this is what we should dwell on this coming November 11th.





Endnotes

[i] For an excellent website in English and Dutch that offers unique glimpses into the impact and participation of Flanders in WW1 please see http://www.wo1.be/
[ii] http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=62
[iii] http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/doc31.htm
[iv] The Flemish Committee, Pro Flandria Servanda: Flanders’ Right and Claim for Autonomy, (The Hague: Martijnus Nijhoff, 1920), pp.v-vi
[v] The Flemish Committee, Pro Flandria Servanda: Flanders’ Right and Claim for Autonomy, (The Hague: Martijnus Nijhoff, 1920), pp.vii-viii
[vi] I am unaware of any books in English on this very important subject of study. The most recent, comprehensive study I am aware of is Daniel Vanacker, De Frontbeweging: De Vlaamse strijd aan de Ijzer, (Kortrijk: De Klaproos, 2000). A fascinating comment by Frans Van Cauwelaert in the book (p.232): "Een Vlaming aan 't front die niet met de activisten is, moet een rare vogel zijn."
[vii] The Flemish Committee, Pro Flandria Servanda: Flanders’ Right and Claim for Autonomy, (The Hague: Martijnus Nijhoff, 1920), p.ix
[viii] The Flemish Committee, Pro Flandria Servanda: Flanders’ Right and Claim for Autonomy, (The Hague: Martijnus Nijhoff, 1920), p.ix
[ix] The official website for the Ijzer Bedevaart (Pilgrimmage to the Ijzer) is http://www.ijzerbedevaart.be/

Copyright 2009 by David Baeckelandt. No reproduction in any form of this and any and all postings on this blog without my express, written permission.

Wapenstilstandsdag/Veterans Day - In Flanders Fields

Flanders' Fields....of Mud: Passchendaele 1917

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae December 8, 1915. McCrae died January 18, 1918 - and is - buried in Flanders

Armistice Day

Today, November 11, 2008, is Armistice Day. Although commonly referred to as Veteran's Day here in the U.S., it is of course meant to mark the date ninety years ago when the guns fell silent on the Western Front in World War 1. In Dutch, this day is called Wapenstilstandsdag and just as here in the U.S., in Belgium it is a national holiday. In both countries we are meant to remember the fallen dead and the futility of war. We are also called to reflect upon the purpose of their sacrifice and ensure that such sacrifices were not in vain.

Flemish Americans as well as Flemings would do well to re-examine our own special tie with this date. It is from the crucible of this war that not only new waves of Flemish immigrants left a wrecked and lunar landscape and came to America. But, equally important for our history, is that the sacrifices on the fields of battle birthed a stronger self-consciousness of and for the Flemings.

The military artist Joe English (1892-1918), born in Brugge of an Irish father and Flemish mother, served on the Ypres front and his artwork not only captured the Flemish-Catholic consciousness of his fellow front-liners but also served as the inspiration of later generations of Flemings.



Invasion and Occupation

Many commentators forget that for the Western Front, the First World War began with an invasion of neutral Belgium. And it was Germany's violation of Belgium's neutrality that brought Great Britain into the war. The German plan - called the Schiefflen Plan, after its author - was to slip behind the French frontier fortifications facing Germany via relatively defenseless Belgium. The German High Command's belief was that by doing so they could knock France out of the war early - and before either the British could field a meaningful expeditionary force to support France or, more ominously for them since Berlin sat only 100 miles from the Russian frontier - Russia could mobilize and bring to bear their overwhelming numbers on the Eastern Front.


Within the first 3 months of the war - August through October, 1914 - Germany had occupied more than 75% of Belgium. Immediately, coldly-efficient German authority was imposed on the local, Flemish-majority populace. But the harshest repression was inflicted on that part of Belgium closest to the front: West Flanders.


The initial impact of German occupation was harsh. As one German officer in November, 1914 recalled (according to Larry Zuckerman in "The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War 1" (NY: NY University Press, 2004 p.94):

“’Only a month ago, this country might have been called rich; there were cattle and pigs in plenty.’
Now, requisitions had emptied the place.

‘We have taken every horse, every car; all the petrol, all the railway-trucks, all the houses, coal, paraffin, and electricity, have been devoted to our exclusive use.’ “

German occupation troops requisitioning supplies in the West Flemish town of Koekelare.

It may be hard to believe now, but on the eve of World War One, in 1913, Belgium produced 4.4% of the world’s commerce (Zuckerman, op.cit., pp. 44-45, 50).

“[Belgium’s] population, in short, on the 31st of December, 1913, numbered 7,685,000 souls. … This means an average of 676 inhabitants to the square mile. …. “Finally, we shall find that the national trade of Belgium - that is, the sum of her imports and exports (through freights being deducted) – amounted in 1913 to L350,000,000, or L46 5s. 7d. per inhabitant, which was – proportionately – three times the trade of France or of Germany: an enormous figure, which gives Belgium the fifth place in the statistical table of the world’s commerce.”

The above quotes are from "Belgium in Wartime" by Commandant De Gerlache De Gomery (New York: Doubleday, 1915). Certainly not the most objective of sources. Yet it captures the impact of Germany's barbaric, systematic, despoiling of occupied territory. Zuckerman - and others - in fact claims that the lessons learned by the Kaiser's military administrators in Flanders in 1914-1918 were copied and refined by Nazi Germany and applied to Europe in 1940-1945.

The Westhoek corner of West Flanders where the bulk of the fighting in Flanders took place from 1914-1918. It is also the home of dozens of military cemetaries holding the war dead on both sides as well as the world's largest peace memorial to the First World War, the Ijzertoren.


What makes this more shocking perhaps was that this did not occur in some lawless land on the fringes of Western civilization but smack dab in the heart of Europe. In 1913 Belgium was not only the world’s most densely-populated country but it ranked sixth among all countries in terms of GDP (contradicting the good Baron above). Antwerp was the world’s second busiest port (after New York) – busier than London, Rotterdam or Hamburg. Belgium was also the most densely populated country in the world with an average of 250 inhabitants per square mile. And since the bulk of the population of 7 million (nearly 70%) were Flemish and Flanders comprised less than half of the total Belgian land area, the densities in the area most wracked by warfare – West Flanders – meant that the impact of the war was devastating and concentrated on an area where the human impact was extreme.
The fighting on the Yser Front, the tiny corner of southwestern West Flanders that the Belgian Army held behind the Yser River from 1914-1918, was characterized by vicious actions like the one depicted here.


In other words, Belgium in 1913 was one of the 10 largest industrial powers. By 1919, the first full year of peace after the war had ended, Belgian production was up to 64% of its 1913 levels, according to a New York Times article. Not only had her fields and farms been destroyed by the battles raging across them and her towns - especially the Flemish towns - but the Germans had imposed wholesale deportations of working age males to German factories. German soldiers also inflicted atrocities on the civilian population - in part perhaps due to the savagery of war but these atrocities became not only widely known but helped tilt public opinion in the U.S. against Germany and the Central Powers (as Germany and its allies were collectively known as).


Even in 1918, four years after the war began, the American public's desire to wage war in Europe for the Allies was easily stoked by references to brutal German atrocities against Belgian civilians, as depicted in this suggestive Ellsworth Young poster.



The Cost of War

When, on November 11, 1918 at 11 AM the guns fell silent on the Western Front in World War One - or as it was known for more than twenty years in nearly every language, the Great War, the full scale of human losses could only be guessed at. It was a 'Great War' in large part because of the horrendous loss of life. Superficially, the United States and Belgium saw relatively low military casualties. In the case of the United States, this was due to our late official (April 6, 1917) and effective (Summer, 1918) entry into the more than four-year war. For Belgium, the numbers do not tell the full story. Although 270,000 men were mobilized for war only 100,000 men remained under arms in Belgium at the end of the war (see table below). tens of thousands were interred by neutral Holland - and not released until more than four years after the war's end. Tens of thousands more were MIA. An innocuous designation for those dead not recovered. Thus the true toll is far, far greater than simple tables below suggest.

Numbered tables also hide the human element. The human element for the Belgian army was overwhelmingly - some documents claim 85% - the Flemish element. And, as in many wars, some families bore this sacrifice in greater numbers than others.

In his book "The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War One" (p.83) Larry Zuckerman gave horrific descriptions of the plight of the refugees.

‘The forty-mile road to Ghent [from Antwerp] “was a solid mass of refugees,” as was “every road, every lane, every footpath leading in a westerly or northerly direction.” And when the army retreated, the soldiers slogged the same routes. “White-haired men and women” clung to harnesses of horses hauling guns, and “springless farm wagons literally heaped with wounded soldiers with piteous white faces” leaked bloody trails. The din was dreadful. Wheels rattled, drivers cursed, the wounded groaned, women and children cried, and one heard “always the monotonous shuffle, shuffle, shuffle of countless weary feet.”

Flemish refugees fleeing the German attack on Antwerp, October, 1914

“The [Belgian Government] cabinet left Belgium for the French port of LeHavre, whereas 1.4 million or perhaps even 2 million less distinguished Belgians, almost 27 percent of the prewar population, had also fled. More than a million civilians went to Holland, and so did thirty thousand soldiers, whom the Dutch interned, as the Fifth Convention required.”
(Zuckerman, op.cit., p.85)

Take also the story of the last surviving WW1 Belgian veteran, Cyriel Barbary (1899-2004). Barbary volunteered, fought in the Belgian Army on the front line at the Yser Front while his refugee family eked out a living near the Belgian front lines taking in wash and doing odd jobs. After the war ended, the family returned to their farm in Klerken, West Flanders to find it literally obliterated. All they found of a thriving farm and home were posts marking their property boundaries. At that point, as his great-granddaughter later recalled in an award-winning essay, the family gave up on Belgium to emigrate to the promise of America. Thus, the last surving veteran of World War One's Belgian Army was not only Flemish but died a Flemish-American in Michigan.

The Van Raemdonck brothers, Edward and Frans, as sketched by Joe English in 1917.

Other Flemish families gave even more. The story of the Van Raemdonck brothers, Edward (22) and Frans (20) captures the sacrifice of Flemings. The two brothers, who had volunteered as teenagers in 1914, died on a patrol to try and rescue a Walloon soldier lost behind German lines in March, 1917. More than two weeks later their bodies were found in the pose sketched above by Flemish frontline artist Joe English. Although hastily buried due to wartime exigencies, the Flemish frontline troops wished to arrange a brief truce to retrieve the bodies. Senior Belgian Army generals rejected the idea - reportedly in part because the brothers had been outspoken in defense of Flemish rights - such as receiving orders in the language they understood, Flemish, instead of a foreign tongue such as French. Not only do the brothers' deaths underscore the commitment to the ideal of sibling devotion but the reality that although Flemings had spilled their blood in disproportion to Belgian demographics, they remained second class citizens in a country where they numerically were the majority.

On the front lines, this translated into tragic events. Walloon officers shouting commands in French to Flemish farmboys whose French was imperfect while the din and confusion of battle, which made even regular discussion impossible, resulted in what in effect was tragedy but by Walloons was perceived as insubordination or treachery. Flemish soldiers - and even in so-called Walloon regiments, the majority of serving soldiers were, in fact Flemings - felt that they were oppressed by a country where true universal suffrage did not yet exist and where the majority not only were politically disenfrachised but forced to abandon studies in their mother tongue for a foreign language (French) and culture. Thus, more than 100 years after the American and French revolutions, in one of the most industrialized countries in the heart of Western civilization, the Flemings whose own history in fact inspired the ideas of universal suffrage, were prevented from exercising not only universal suffrage but also more basic rights such as secondary education in their native Dutch. Flemish soldiers began to ask: "Hier ons bloed, wanneer ons recht?" ("Here is our blood; where are our rights?"). This consciousness sparked the Frontbeweging or 'Front Movement' for Flemish rights. Later this would become known as the Flemish Movement.

The AVV-VVK - "Alles Voor Vlaanderen - Vlaanderen Voor Kristus" superimposed upon a celtic cross gravestone was designed by Joe English and became a symbol of the futility of the Great War.

Cyriel Barbary in other words fought a futile war. Not just because of his personal sacrifices or the mindless waste of young lives. But because the sacrifices he made were for a country whose birth was by deception (see Paul Belien's superb "A Throne in Brussels: The Belgianization of Europe"). A country, Belgium, where demographically the Flemish majority were a disenfranchised and subjected minority in their own land.

The image that many Flemings had of their work toward building an equitable, new world was captured in this Joe English pen-and-ink sketch of a Flemish soldier building upon the foundations of the Battle of the Golden Spurs (Guldensporenslag) in 1302 through the battles of WW1.


Although now the stuff of legend, these stories of sacrifice deserve retelling here. In part because they are formative for me and other Flemish Americans. They form the bedrock of familial remembrance of things that were unnecessary and needless. The insensitivities of one community upon another. They tie very directly into the Flemish community here in Chicago. Less than three years after the war's end, in 1921, the Flemish colony in Chicago laid the cornerstone of the Belgian-American Club of Chicago. The legend was an aspiration still not realized today: "All Belgians Are Equal."

If we then wish to commemorate those who have served, sacrificed, and died on Flander's Fields ninety years ago today, what better way than to commemorate the peace they strove for and the rights they died for: the rights of Flemings and Flemish Americans. Perhaps Flemings are best served by remembering that the monument to Flander's contribution to "the war to end all wars" is the largest peace monument in Belgium, the Ijzertoren. And the annual August pilgrimmage to commemorate this peace, the Ijzerbedevaart, is the remembrance of this urge for world peace.

For Flemish Americans, it is important that we not only recall what our forefathers fought for at the Yzer, but also what they dreamed of: equal rights for Flemings in their own country. For those rights to happen - and for our 'cousins' in Flanders - the best service we can render is to remember that we are not 'Belgian-Americans'. As Jules Destree, the prominent Walloon politician, stated in his Lettre au Roi sur la separation de la Wallonie et de la Flandre ("Letter to the King concerning the separation of Wallonia and Flanders") to King Albert in May, 1912, as war clouds loomed over Europe: "Sire, il n'y a pas de Belges, il n’y a que des wallons et des flamands" ("Sire, there is no such thing as a Belgian; there are only Walloons and Flemings"). And, if there is no such thing as a 'Belgian', as this prominent Walloon parliamentarian pointed out, and we are indeed either Walloons or Flemings, then it is hardly likely that there is anything such as a 'Belgian-American'.

Jules Destree's detailed and rational letter ended with a plea. "A dishonest unity, imposed...that exists in official proclamations but not in the hearts of citizens, will never be worth a union freely agreed to" (quoted from "The Flemish Movement: A Documentary History, 1780-1990" edited by Theo Hermans, et.al. London: Athlone Press, 1992; Document 31, pp 206-217). I for one, could not agree more.

As Flemish-Americans, it is time all those of us with Flemish ethnicity recognize and catelogue our unique cultural roots. To our cousins in Flanders, we Flemish Americans here ask that you recognize that the literally millions of Americans with Flemish roots will only begin to connect with their cultural and ethnic origins when the haze of ambiguity over the status of Flanders is cleared up. Only then will the suffering, death and destruction inflicted on Flanders' Fields 1914-1918 be atoned for. Only then will the "wapen" truly 'stand' 'still'.

© 2008 by David Baeckelandt - All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without my express, written, consent.