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1917 - The Passchendaele Year. The British Army in Flanders
The Diary of Achiel Van Walleghem
By Achiel Van Walleghem, Dominiek Dendooven, Guido Latré, Susan Reed Edward Everett Root, Publishers, Co. Ltd.
Copyright © 2017 EER Edward Everett Root, Publishers, Brighton
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-911454-42-7
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Achiel Van Walleghem and his diary
Dominiek Dendooven
A very Catholic background
Achiel Van Walleghem was born on 18 December 1879 in Pitthem, a rural village in the east of the Belgian province of West Flanders. Catholicism permeates Pitthem. Beside the Romanesque tower of the church of Our Lady there has stood since 1913 a statue of the Jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688), a missionary who entered the service of the Chinese emperor as astronomer, founder of Peking's observatory and reformer of the Chinese calendar. The village is still home to the thriving mother convent of the 'Sisters of Mary of Pitthem' and from time immemorial the municipality has been governed by the Catholic and later the Christian-Democratic party. In the heart of this village lived the family of farmer August Van Walleghem (1843-1920) and Sylvia Lauwers (1851-1925). August was a long-standing member of the local church council and was for many years its chairman. From 1884 he was part of the local municipal council, from 1901 to his death even sitting as an alderman. Founder of a local fire insurance fund which still exists today, and president of the Guild of Saint Eloi, he surely belonged to the great and the good of Pitthem. He and his wife were blessed with eight children, of whom Achiel was the eldest. And truly blessed they must have felt, as none of the children died in childhood, certainly an exception in those days. The second son, Modest, (1881-1948) remained unmarried and spent most of his life on the farm. He, too, sat on the Pitthem church council. During the First World War Modest resided as a refugee in unoccupied Belgium or France and thus he is occasionally mentioned in the diary of his elder brother. The eldest sister, Marie (1883-1959), became a nun and was known as Mother Angélique of the Sisters of Mary in Pitthem. Hélène (1884-1960) did not marry either: she devoted most of her life to her elder brother Achiel, being his resident housekeeper. Her role in his life must have been more important than her presence in the diary would indicate. She makes an appearance now and then, but much less frequently than would be expected of a resident and close family member with whom one shares joys and sorrows. This is another indication of her subservient role in the service of her elder brother, the priest. Jules (1886-1905) is the only family member who died before reaching full adulthood. The two youngest sons, Joseph (1888-1965) and Remi (1891-1963), also appear briefly in the diary: during the First World War both served in the Belgian army, with the Grenadiers and the 13 régiment de ligne respectively, which enabled them to keep in touch with their brother Achiel and sister Hélène and even to meet each other during exceptional periods of leave. Both later farmed: Joseph on the family farm in Pitthem where, following in the family tradition, he became a member of the church council. Despite marrying at an older age – a consequence of the war – he fathered seven children, including an Achilles who in his turn entered the priesthood. The youngest in the family of father August and mother Sylvia was Rachel (1893-1966), the only one who remained at home in German-occupied Pitthem. With her sister Marie in the convent and her other sister, Hélène, and all her brothers beyond reach or even contact on the other side of the front line, she took on the care of her ageing parents.
It will be clear that the Van Walleghems were a quintessential farmer's family, strongly embedded in the local community. The father, August, and several of his children can be regarded as leading members of the village community. That several family members entered the clergy will have enhanced the family's local prestige. Not without importance is the impact the Great War had on this Flemish family: five family members resided on the other side of the front line, where it was virtually impossible to keep in touch with their parents in occupied Belgium. The parents were entrusted to the care of the youngest daughter Rachel, who as a consequence sacrificed her youth and eventually remained unmarried. The war years were also to blame for the belated marriage of Joseph, who served in the Belgian Army.
The diarist: Achiel Van Walleghem
Achiel Van Walleghem enjoyed an excellent education for someone from a rural background: elementary school in his native village and a secondary education in St Joseph's College in nearby Thielt were followed by enrolment in 1899 in the episcopal seminary in Bruges. The first decade of his priesthood was characterised by a series of temporary duties as curate in villages all over the bishopric of Bruges, interrupted by a long period of illness between 1908 and 1911. In September 1913 he was appointed curate of Dickebusch, a small village west of Ypres where he had previously served for a year and a half at the beginning of his career. Less than a year later, war broke out and he took up the pen to record the extraordinary events happening in his parish. While he wrote very little about himself – Van Walleghem is more a chronicler than a diarist – the war clearly had an impact on his personality. His portrait photos from the end of the war speak volumes: despite being not even forty, the priest looks many years older. He was visibly marked by the war. Besides the misery which he daily witnessed within his 'flock,' he was also personally affected by the contingencies of war. Thus he was forced to move several times: on 19 July 1915 he left the parsonage in the centre of the village, taking up a room at the farm of a parishioner less than half a kilometre to the west. Eleven months later, on 14 June 1916, he was forced to leave Dickebusch and to move in with his colleague in Reninghelst, a village five kilometres further west. From Reninghelst he continued to visit his parishioners in Dickebusch daily. After all, since the flight of his anxious superior, pastor Dassonville, on 3 November 1914, he bore full responsibility for the salvation of those residing in Dickebusch, both villagers and refugees. As acting pastor in a besieged and occupied village, he frequently acted as a middleman between the different military and civilian authorities and the local population, for whom he was an important adviser. Finally, the onslaught of the German Spring Offensive forced him into exile on 18 April 1918. The remainder of the war he spent in Normandy, serving the community of Belgian refugees in Cagny (near Caen). Only in mid-1919 did Van Walleghem settle in Dickebusch once more, becoming one of the main advocates of the reconstruction of the totally destroyed village. It was his responsibility to supervise the rebuilding of the schools, the convent, the parsonage and the church. A major setback was the fire which destroyed his temporary wooden church in January 1924, also destroying the church treasures which he had managed to save during the war. Throughout this equally trying period of reconstruction he continued to act as middleman between his parishioners and the authorities and he was a much respected village notable when in 1928 he was appointed to a different parish. Van Walleghem would eventually end his active career in 1947, by then no longer capable of celebrating mass due to increasing deafness and forgetfulness. He was taken care of by his family in Pitthem where, suffering from severe dementia, he died on 21 November 1955, a sad fate for a diarist who had given proof of his remarkable powers of observation.
For indeed, his diary shows us Achiel Van Walleghem as someone with a great gift for detail and a strongly inquisitive nature. On a number of occasions he paid visits to the camps of non-European soldiers and auxiliaries such as the British West Indies Regiment or the Chinese Labour Corps, commenting on their food and other habits. In the 1915 pages of his diary he accused the Indian soldiers of being too nosy, and this while he himself had enquired into their customs and had even tasted Indian food. This double standard is a recurrent feature throughout his writings: without much distinction he generally looked at Christians of other denominations (Protestants, Presbyterians etc.) negatively. As a Catholic clergyman he naturally held fast to the truths of his religion. Yet, the inherent prejudices and even xenophobic traits he displayed in his descriptions and judgments of the French, and even more so of the British, as well as the troops from the British colonies and the Chinese labourers, were mainly due to ignorance: no one in the rural west of Flanders in 1914 had encountered southern French or kilted Scots, not to mention Africans, Indians or Chinese. The quiet back of beyond in which he performed his clerical duties was all of a sudden submerged by thousands of people speaking very different languages and displaying very different cultural habits. The local population had become a minority, small and powerless, in its own country. It was a situation which encouraged a retreat into an inward-looking mentality. And yet we also note a certain openness, probably reinforced by his curiosity: Van Walleghem was always keen to find out more about who was present in the rear of the Ypres Salient. He differentiated between the various ethnic groups and army units and tried to fathom them. While they are only very seldom mentioned, he must have had numerous conversations, especially with officers. This explains why he is so well informed on military matters, even on issues which others might consider of a secret nature. In addition, his duties entailed travelling large distances within his parish and within an ever-increasing adjacent area (which at one time reached all the way to the outskirts of Ypres and Voormezeele) to minister to the handful of remaining inhabitants. And his actions certainly speak for his sense of responsibility and duty towards those under his care. Without being uncritical – after all he was their religious leader – he again and again stood up for those he considered 'his people.' Despite his usually prosaic, even matter-of-fact narrative style, his sincere sympathy with the population of the front zone is obvious. His no-nonsense Flemish common sense often clashed with what he sometimes considered as absurd military logic. Finally we should stress that Van Walleghem was not devoid of joie de vivre and humour. His way of writing often testifies to a mild (and sometimes less mild) sense of irony and at times he actually makes fun of someone or something.
All in all Father Van Walleghem was a child of his time and a product of his social environment: strongly connected with the peasantry of rural West Flanders and very conscientious in his role as a Catholic priest.
Dickebusch and Reninghelst
Before focusing on the restricted area of the front where Achiel Van Walleghem was living, we must stress the exceptional nature of the situation which confronted the local population in the Flemish front zone. In Belgium the front line ran for a mere 50 kilometres, from Nieuport on the coast to Ploegsteert on the French-Belgian border. The deadlock here began in October 1914, and ended on 28 September 1918, when the war of movement finally resumed. The war-stricken zone was the southern part of the province of West Flanders, a rural backwater, less densely populated than the rest of the country, better known under its unofficial name Westhoek (the 'West Corner'). The front line ran through or near the towns of Nieuport, Dixmude and Ypres, while Furnes and Poperinghe formed the backbone of the rear area. These five towns were all small in size – none had more than 17,000 inhabitants. The language spoken in this region was and is a local dialect, one of the many Flemish versions of Dutch. The local Flemings who did not flee or who stayed on as long as possible found themselves in the position of a minority not only due to the arrival of refugees from other parts of Belgium, but also due to the influx of hundreds of thousands of military. In the Yser area (Nieuport-Dixmude) the majority of these military belonged to the Belgian Army, but near Ypres and Poperinghe, it was a highly multinational (and multicultural) force that occupied the territory. For the locals, most of whom had never come into contact with foreigners (except for French people), it was a most extraordinary situation, a fact which, indeed, is reflected in other diaries, memoirs and interviews. Due to the lack of any census or later research we do not have a precise number for the population of the Westhoek at this time. We therefore do not know what percentage of the total population the local inhabitants represented as against the temporary population (including both refugees and military). However, it seems that at no point could the local inhabitants have made up more than 10-15% of the total population, making them a very small minority indeed.
While Achiel Van Walleghem was curate of Dickebusch and continued to visit the remaining inhabitants during 1917, from June 1916 he was living in the neighbouring village of Reninghelst. Dickebusch is about three kilometres from Ypres in a south-westerly direction. It was, and still is, mainly a street village characterised by ribbon development along the main road from Ypres to Bailleul. Only in the neighbourhood of the church, in the middle of the village, was there a small, more densely-built centre. The wide 88 acre Dickebusch Lake, once dug to provide the mediaeval population with drinking water, was the only place of interest which attracted visitors from beyond the village.
Both Dickebusch and Reninghelst were quintessential rural municipalities. Neither in physical size nor in number of residents could they be considered important: Dickebusch had just under 1,400 inhabitants in 1914 while Reninghelst, including the parish of La Clytte, had a total population of about 2,500. Nowhere in either place was more than an hour's walk from the municipal boundaries. Unlike nearby Vlamertinghe, neither Dickebusch nor Reninghelst had a resident doctor or solicitor. The most notable persons were the burgomaster (as a mayor in the Flemish part of Belgium is called), the pastor and the curate. Yet, as was usual in Flanders, each village had its own brewery and a large number of inns, both in the village centre and in the rural part of the municipality. It was customary to use the names of inns to indicate particular locations. 'At De Hert' (i.e. The Hart) thus means 'in the neighbourhood of the De Hert inn'.
If we suppose the level of education in Dickebusch and Reninghelst to have been the same as that in the rest of Flanders, this would mean that on the eve of the Great War about 29% were unable to read or write. Many children, especially in a rural community, only attended school in winter. As a result, during the rest of the year they all too easily forgot, in an environment that boasted few books, what they had learnt in the winter. Taking into account the nature of their population – with very few belonging to the upper classes – few if any inhabitants had French as their mother tongue, a notable contrast with towns such as Ypres or Poperinghe. On the contrary, Achiel Van Walleghem provides evidence of a certain sensitivity to the status of Dutch, or better, of its Flemish variants. He remarks, for instance, on 3 November 1917: 'Le Vingtième [Siècle] increasingly seems to us to be a hateful paper because of its sly propaganda against the Flemish cause.'
As was the case for all villages near the front, the war meant a radical caesura for Dickebusch and Reninghelst. Not only did thousands of military from different armies flood into the region, but the perils of war also brought refugees looking for shelter. In mid-1915 Van Walleghem estimated that Dickebusch had five times as many residents as before the war. While the farmers tried to maintain their traditional lifestyle working the fields, this was increasingly difficult: servicemen were billeted in barns and other farm buildings, camps were built in pastures, batteries were positioned and many other military installations were established. Civilian life was totally subordinated to the necessities of warfare.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from 1917 - The Passchendaele Year. The British Army in Flanders by Achiel Van Walleghem, Dominiek Dendooven, Guido Latré, Susan Reed. Copyright © 2017 EER Edward Everett Root, Publishers, Brighton. Excerpted by permission of Edward Everett Root, Publishers, Co. Ltd..
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