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Updated: May 8, 2025
Two days after the defeated garrison had marched out, the King went to Dinant, to join the ladies, with whom he returned to Versailles. I had hoped that Monseigneur would finish the campaign, and that I should be with him, and it was not without regret that I returned towards Paris. On the way a little circumstance happened. One of our halting-places was Marienburgh, where we camped for the night.
And one day he came to where the herdsmen were engaged, and seated himself to rest among them. By chance there passed along the road near by a Cornish knight named Sir Dinant, with whom rode a lady. When the giant saw them coming, he left the herdsmen and hid himself under a tree near a well, deeming that the knight would stop there to drink.
Many of the outlaws from Liege, who had been expressly excluded from the terms of the peace, had joined the ranks of a certain free lance company called "The Companions of the Green Tent," as their only shelter was the interlaced branches of the forest. To Dinant came this band to aid in her defence. At one time it seemed as though a peaceful accommodation might be reached but it fell through.
The Pioneers are not worth much. As for the Artillery, they are a band of brigands." A final extract seems to be the only one that gives the truth: "Brin ... troops of all arms are engaged in looting." It has been possible sometimes to prove premeditation. On the 17th August, a German officer was billeted with a Belgian magistrate. Their talk turned on Dinant.
Terrorism was used, from the first, at Aerschot, Louvain, Tamines, Andenne and Dinant, whilst the invasion progressed towards the heart of the country. Then, under the governorship of Von Bissing, the method was altered, and attempts were made to induce the chiefs of industry and their workmen to resume work for the greater benefit of the enemy.
Yet, area considered, no place in Belgium that I have visited and this does not exclude Louvain suffered such wholesale demolition as Dinant. Before war began, the town had something less than eight thousand inhabitants. When I got there it had less than four thousand, by the best available estimates.
A German officer, newly arrived on the spot and apparently sincere in his efforts to alleviate the misery of the survivors, told us that, judging by what data he had been able to gather, between four and six hundred men and youths of Dinant had fallen in the house-to-house conflicts between Germans and civilians, or in the wholesale executions which followed the subjugation of the place and the capture of such ununiformed belligerents as were left.
He was therefore reconveyed to Namur; from thence removed to Maestricht, and treated with great reverence and respect, till the return of an officer whom he had despatched to Versailles with an account of his captivity. Then he engaged his word, that the garrisons of Dixmuyde and Deynse should be sent back to the allied army. He was immediately released and conducted in safety to Dinant.
Perhaps he had never flown behind the town, and seen the wild mountains that began at the last house on the other bank of the river. Or the river itself, greener than any other which flowed over black rocks, in cold gulleys the jade-green Meuse flowing to Dinant, to Namur.
It was the 28th of August, nearly a month after the order had been given for mobilisation. And the armies had been fighting for some days already. What had happened? We could only glean part of the truth from the short official announcements. We knew there had been hard fighting at Charleroi, at Dinant, and in the direction of Nancy. But the result had not been defined.
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