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CHAPTER 8 Dinant: Les Rivages, Neffe LES RIVAGES: OVERVIEW Les Rivages in 1914 consisted of two streets running parallel to the river. Homes faced the water across quai de la Meuse and lined both sides of rue des Rivages a block east. Because of its exposed position, the Germans didn’t reach the Meuse at Les Rivages until mid-afternoon on Sunday, the 23rd . The first man to arrive that day was an engineer, Karl Ermisch, the captain of a company of the 12th Pioneer Battalion, who came by himself to locate the most advantageous site for a pontoon bridge. Only after he had been reconnoitering the area for an hour did the rest of his company arrive. No francs-tireurs troubled the lone German. “In Les Rivages, all was peaceful,” Ermisch recalled.¹ Soldiers in the company nonetheless rounded up all the civilians in the immediate vicinity. A more thorough cleansing was carried out not long after by a detachment under the command of a Colonel Meister.² Not surprisingly, when Major Karl von Zeschau, a staff officer, arrived around 6:00 p.m., all the houses appeared closed up and there were no residents in sight. Nevertheless, the major dispatched a patrol to once again search the homes. They were indeed quite empty, the sergeant in charge of the patrol reported.³ For a quarter of an hour von Zeschau watched the German artillery bombard the left bank. He then took off to report to the Corps Headquarters . When he returned at 8:00 p.m., he was surprised to find a heap of corpses by the bridgehead. He was told that after his departure, “firing had come from the seemingly empty houses.” ⁴ Needless to say, the unarmed hostages under German guard beside the Meuse did not suddenly escape their captors, rush back to their homes, locate hidden weapons, and begin firing on German troops. When the pontoon bridge had nearly reached the middle of the river, French rearguard troops opened fire on the exposed pioneers. The gunfire then slackened. Edmond Bourdon, the commune’s deputy registrar, whom the Germans took to be the burgomaster, was sent across the river to warn the 344 CHAPTER 8 “francs-tireurs” to cease firing. He was given half an hour; if he did not return in that time, everyone would be shot. Bourdon naturally found no francs-tireurs. The residents remaining in Neffe, across the river, were sheltering as best they could from the German barrages. He returned, not without being shot at by the Germans , and reported that there were only French troops firing from the heights. A short time later, there was more rifle fire from the French. Bourdon and eighty-nine others were shoved up against his garden wall and shot. Thirteen escaped with injuries. Of the seventy-seven massacred, thirtyfour were women and girls, and sixteen were children under fifteen years of age. The youngest were Gilda Marchot and Claire Struvay, both two years old, two babies a little over a year and a half, Gilda Genon and Maurice Bétemps, sixteen-month-old Félix Balleux, one-year-old Nelly Pollet, and, finally, Mariette Fivet, three weeks old.⁵ Major Schlick, the commander who issued the order to slaughter the civilians, was pleased with the performance of his troops: “I have always since admired the calmness our men maintained in the presence of such brutes, and the way they abstained from all cruelty.”⁶ THE BOURDON WALL Six families were completely annihilated. Five others had but one survivor. One of the latter was the Bourdon family, in which fifteen-year-old Félix was the only member to escape. On Friday, the 21st , some German soldiers entered the garden of the Bourdon house and four adjacent houses facing the Meuse, and began digging trenches behind the walls of the homes. They also made loopholes in the walls to fire across the river. Early the next morning they installed a machine-gun in a window of one of the homes. The occupants thought it prudent to leave.⁷ The soldiers did not otherwise disturb the inhabitants. They dug and drilled without the least regard for any “francs-tireurs” who might be lurking in the vicinity. (The activities of the troops apparently escaped the notice of the French on the opposite shore, or else they had been ordered to wait until a crossing was attempted before opening fire.) Saturday was calm, as was the following morning and early after- [18.221.41.214] Project...

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