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The Battle of Dinant was an engagement fought by French and German forces in and around the Belgian town of Dinant in the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, during the German invasion of Belgium. The French Fifth Army and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) advanced into Belgium and fought the Battle of Charleroi and Battle of Mons from the Meuse crossings in the east, to Mons in the west. On 15 August 1914, German troops captured the
Citadel of Dinant The Citadel of Dinant (french: Citadelle de Dinant) is a fortress located in the Walloon city of Dinant in the province of Namur, Belgium. The current fort was built in 1815 on a site which was originally fortified in 1051 when the region was ru ...
which overlooked the town; the citadel was recaptured by a French counter-attack during the afternoon. French troops spent the next few days fortifying the Meuse crossings and exchanging fire with German troops on the east bank. A German raiding-party drove into Dinant on the night of but the attack degenerated into a fiasco, in which Germans may have fired at each other. Rather than consider that the small-arms fire may have come from the French troops on the west bank, the German soldiers blamed Belgian civilians, killing seven and burning down 15 to 20 houses in
reprisal A reprisal is a limited and deliberate violation of international law to punish another sovereign state that has already broken them. Since the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (AP 1), reprisals in the laws of war are extreme ...
. The raiders withdrew having suffered and On 23 August, the Germans attacked Dinant again, under the impression that the town was full of (civilian irregular forces, who were defined as terrorists under German military law). German troops of the 3rd Army massacred Belgian civilians while fighting French troops, who were still dug in along the west bank and on the east end of the bridge. The massacre was another reprisal against anticipated civilian resistance and was the largest of the
German war crimes The governments of the German Empire and Nazi Germany (under Adolf Hitler) ordered, organized and condoned a substantial number of war crimes, first in the Herero and Namaqua genocide and then in the First and Second World Wars. The most nota ...
perpetrated during the invasion, which became collectively known as the
Rape of Belgium The Rape of Belgium was a series of systematic war crimes, especially mass murder and deportation and enslavement, by German troops against Belgian civilians during the invasion and occupation of Belgium in World War I. The neutrality o ...
.


Background

In 1914, the town had a population of and was an important strategic crossing on the Meuse, where the river flows through a south–north gorge. Three roads and a path converged on the town from the east, over an escarpment and down into the town, along which an attack from the east would come. The wooded ridge on the east bank was topped by the
Napoleonic era The Napoleonic era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislativ ...
stone
Citadel of Dinant The Citadel of Dinant (french: Citadelle de Dinant) is a fortress located in the Walloon city of Dinant in the province of Namur, Belgium. The current fort was built in 1815 on a site which was originally fortified in 1051 when the region was ru ...
overlooking the town and the Meuse bridge, below. In 1914 there was a ribbon of streets about long on the east bank, a few hundred metres wide. Before the battle, the Mayor of Dinant urged the population to not take part in the fighting and forbade manifestations in support of the Allies.


Prelude


6–14 August

The German invasion of France began with the Occupation of Luxembourg and the invasion of Belgium on 4 August. Five German infantry brigades, three cavalry divisions with horse artillery and machine-gun detachments and ten battalions crossed the Belgian border. The 5th Cavalry Division and the Guard Cavalry Division advanced through Luxembourg and entered Belgium on 10 August, with orders to advance north-west to Dinant and then scout the Meuse as far as the French border near
Givet Givet () (german: Gibet Walloon: ''Djivet'') is a commune in the Ardennes department in northern France surrounded on three sides by the Belgian border. It lies on the river Meuse where Emperor Charles V built the fortress of Charlemont. It ...
. The town of Dinant was close to the French border, between Liège and Mons, on the east bank of the
Meuse The Meuse ( , , , ; wa, Moûze ) or Maas ( , ; li, Maos or ) is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a t ...
. On 6 August, Belgian engineers dispersed a patrol of German Hussars at Anseremme and on 12 August, French infantry at Dinant destroyed a cavalry patrol. By 14 August, the French Fifth Army had occupied Dinant and the west bank of the Meuse with two divisions; next day the main force of the German 3rd Army (Colonel-General
Max von Hausen Max Clemens Lothar Freiherr von Hausen (December 17, 1846 – March 19, 1922) was a German army commander. He participated in the Austro-Prussian and Franco-German Wars and became ''Generaloberst'' of Saxon troops and War Minister in the Kingd ...
) arrived.


15 August

On 15 August, troops of the German 3rd and 4th Cavalry divisions, five battalions of and three field artillery groups, attempted to take Dinant by
coup de main A ''coup de main'' (; plural: ''coups de main'', French for blow with the hand) is a swift attack that relies on speed and surprise to accomplish its objectives in a single blow. Definition The United States Department of Defense defines it as ...
. The French
I Corps I Corps, 1st Corps, or First Corps may refer to: France * 1st Army Corps (France) * I Cavalry Corps (Grande Armée), a cavalry unit of the Imperial French Army during the Napoleonic Wars * I Corps (Grande Armée), a unit of the Imperial French A ...
held the west bank of the Meuse and at Dinant, the 2nd Division (
Henry Victor Deligny Henry Victor Deligny (5 September 1855 - 2 January 1938) was a French divisional general who served in the First World War. Biography Deligny was born in Rennes in 1855, the son of Victor Valéry Deligny, a house painter, and Anne Émilie Gil ...
) had a battalion of the 33rd Infantry Regiment, two companies of the 148th Infantry Regiment (detached from the 4th Division) and a section of machine-guns in the citadel and in the exits from Dinant, towards the St Nicolas and Leffe suburbs. At German cavalry guarded the flanks as the 12th Battalion and the 13th Battalion supported by horse artillery and machine-guns, attacked the town and
citadel A citadel is the core fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of "city", meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. I ...
. The Germans got a machine-gun into the citadel around and the French retreated through a small stairway along the cliff, having suffered 50 per cent casualties. descended the stairway and advanced into the town by The French, lacking artillery, were forced out of the citadel and then back over the bridge to the west bank. Parties of crossed the bridge in pursuit, as Germans on the high ground on the east bank and in the citadel engaged the French at the end of the bridge with machine-gun fire. The French retired to the slopes on the west bank, where there was good cover and towards French artillery were heard, as the 8th and 73rd Infantry regiments counter-attacked down the slope with great determination. The were forced back across the Meuse and by the French had climbed the to the citadel and retaken it. The Germans withdrew from the town and the heights with their prisoners towards the main body of the 3rd Army. During the battle, the French Cavalry Corps (
André Sordet General Jean-François André Sordet (17 May 1852 – 28 July 1923) was a senior officer of the French Army. During the First World War his cavalry corps operated in close proximity to the British Expeditionary Force during the Battle of the Fron ...
), attempted to attack the German flank on the east bank but was held up by German infantry. The French retired to the west bank having suffered and occupied the bridge and houses nearby. Two battalions of the 148th Infantry Regiment in Leffe and St Nicolas also retired to the west bank. In Dinant a civilian had been killed, one had been wounded and the hospital and houses on the east bank had been hit by shells.


16–21 August

On 16 August the French fortified the west bank of the Meuse at Dinant. The bridge was blocked with barbed-wire entanglements and the streets near the river were barricaded. The railway station and the level crossing on the Dinant–Onhaye road were garrisoned and the Hotel de la Poste and houses along the Meuse were loopholed to command the riverbanks, bridge and the approach roads. On the east bank the French built barricades and put up barbed-wire in front of the bridge-piers and near the church. From skirmishing took place between the Germans on the hills on the east bank and French patrols. Some German detachments conveyed in motor vehicles armed with machine-guns, attacked houses in the neighbourhood of Dinant and several inhabitants of Houx were killed and the village sacked and burnt down. On 20 August, the infantry divisions of the 3rd Army closed up to the cavalry divisions east of Dinant. By 21 August, four of the six divisions of the German 3rd Army intended to cross the Meuse, had arrived but the heavy artillery was a day away, yet an attack by frontal assault had been ordered by the German
Chief of the General Staff The Chief of the General Staff (CGS) is a post in many armed forces (militaries), the head of the military staff. List * Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ( United States) * Chief of the General Staff (Abkhazia) * Chief of General Staff (Af ...
,
Helmuth von Moltke the Younger Graf Helmuth Johannes Ludwig von Moltke (; 25 May 1848 – 18 June 1916), also known as Moltke the Younger, was a German general and Chief of the Great German General Staff. He was also the nephew of '' Generalfeldmarschall'' ''Graf'' Helmuth ...
, for 23 August. Hausen ordered XII Corps (General
Karl Ludwig d'Elsa Karl Ludwig d'Elsa (born 1 November 1849 in Dresden – died 20 July 1922 in Tannenfeld bei Nöbdenitz, Löbichau, Thuringia) was a Kingdom of Saxony, Royal Saxon army officer who was a Generaloberst in the First World War and awarded the Pour le M ...
) and the XIX Corps (General
Maximilian von Laffert Maximilian August Hermann Julius von Laffert (10 May 1855 in Lindau – 20 July 1917 in Frankfurt am Main) was a Saxon officer, later General of Cavalry during World War I. He was a recipient of the Pour le Mérite. Maximilian von Laffert suffered ...
) to advance on the town and artillery began to bombard Dinant, preparatory to the attack. Barges and pontoon bridges were gathered in anticipation of the French blowing the Meuse bridges.


Night raid, 21/22 August

A German raiding party mounted in motor vehicles attacked Dinant in the night of German infantry and pioneers advanced from Ciney along the central road into Dinant, killed seven civilians and burned Members of the reconnaissance force claimed later that civilians had attacked them and civilians thought that it had been an attack by drunken soldiers. A German soldier wrote later that they had been ordered to The party moved along rue Saint-Jacques in the dark and threw a hand grenade into a café, at which gunfire was opened; the party panicked and ran off, leaving and The foremost troops had reached the Meuse, where they were fired on from all sides; in the panic, Germans may have shot at each other but claimed later that revolvers and shotguns had been used by civilians (no survivors admitted to taking up arms). French soldiers held the bridge over the Meuse and had patrols in the town, which may have engaged the Germans in the rue St Jacques and probably fired on the Germans at the river. In the aftermath the Germans took Dinant to be full of hostile civilians.


Massacres, 23 August

At on 23 August, in a thick fog, artillery batteries began to bombard Dinant. Most of the 40th Division was sent south to Givet and Fumay, thence to cross the Meuse and attack the right flank of the Fifth Army, which reduced the attack on Dinant to XII Corps. The 32nd Division (Major-General Horst von der Planitz) and the 23rd Reserve Division (Major-General Alexander von Larisch) crossed the Meuse on barges and pontoons at Leffe, north of the town and the 23rd Division (Major-General Karl von Lindemann) crossed to the south at Les Rivages. The French I Corps had been moved north-west to reinforce
X Corps 10th Corps, Tenth Corps, or X Corps may refer to: France * 10th Army Corps (France) * X Corps (Grande Armée), a unit of the Imperial French Army during the Napoleonic Wars Germany * X Corps (German Empire), a unit of the Imperial German Army * ...
(General Gilbert Desforges) at Arsimont, having been relieved by the 51st Reserve Division ( René Boutegourd) and two brigades of the 2nd Division. Four columns of the German 46th Infantry Brigade of the 23rd Division advanced into Dinant, against a regiment of the 51st Reserve Division and Belgian irregulars (alleged). The northern column entered Leffe and the hamlet of Devant-Bouvignes, as two columns advanced into the Dinant town centre, along rue Saint-Jacques and a road down into Faubourg Saint-Nicolas and the Place d'Armes. The southern column attacked along the Froidvau road into Les Rivages. French troops on the west bank engaged the Germans with small-arms fire and artillery; the French also held both ends of the principal Dinant bridge and some advanced posts in the town centre. Leffe was overlooked by
Leffe Leffe () is a premium beer brand owned by InBev Belgium, the European operating arm of the global Anheuser–Busch InBev brewery giant. There are several beers in the range, and they are marketed as abbey beers. They are brewed in large quan ...
Abbey and its brewery and as Infantry Regiment 178 (IR 178) and Infantry Regiment 103 (IR 103) advanced into the area, they thought that civilians fired on them as well as the French from
Bouvignes-sur-Meuse Bouvignes-sur-Meuse ( wa, Bovegne) is a village of Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Dinant, located in the province of Namur, Belgium, on the River Meuse. In municipal terms, the ''commune'' was merged with Dinant in 1965. Eith ...
on the west bank. Three civilians were shot at the riverbank where they had fled from the soldiers, who later admitted that they had no idea if the victims had taken up arms. The 3rd Company of IR 178 was ordered to clear Leffe of , who had supposedly fired at the Germans from a saw-mill. Infantry Regiment 108 (IR 108) and Infantry Regiment 182 (IR 182), accompanied by artillery moved along rue Saint Jacques into the town just north of the bridge, where they were fired on by the French. The Germans killed male civilians during the day and at were shot by IR 108 in the rue des Tanneries. The German troops barricaded streets with furniture and soldiers from IR 182 captured a man on suspicion of firing at them, although he was unarmed and tied him to a barricade as a human shield. When German artillery mistakenly bombarded the force, the man was shot before the Germans withdrew. German troops set fire to houses and by late afternoon the area was on fire; in Leffe and St Jacques had been killed by the Germans. Near the town centre, Grenadier Regiment 100 (GR 100) entered Faubourg Saint-Nicolas, where they were fired on by French troops. The Germans had anticipated attacks by civilians, moved forward in two columns and each time they reached a door they stopped, fired through windows and threw bombs into the cellars. To cross the Place d'Armes, which was visible to the French across the river, the Germans used civilians as a human shield. Dinantais forced from houses were held at an iron works and the prison in the Place d'Armes. German soldiers on high ground outside the town fired on civilians in the prison courtyard for a time. In the late afternoon, at the ironworks were shot; the rest were taken to the Place d'Armes, being made to shout, "Long live Germany! Long live the Kaiser!" along the way. Soldiers of GR 100 separated lined them up against a garden wall and shot them, on the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel von Kielmannsegg, the I Battalion commander. Grenadier Regiment 101 and the 3rd Pioneer Company entered Les Rivages during the afternoon, to build a pontoon bridge over the Meuse. The right bank narrows to a defile between the escarpment and the river, with only a road and one line of dwellings. The area was particularly exposed to French fire but for an hour no resistance was encountered. Houses were searched, hostages were taken and of the bridge assembled. At about several Germans working on the bridge were shot and killed and German soldiers later claimed that the gunfire came from on both sides of the river, while Belgian civilians said the bullets came from the French on the west bank. Some inhabitants of Dinant cheered the success of the French and the cliffs nearby created
echo In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the lis ...
es, which made it difficult to judge the direction of fire. The unusual acoustics contributed to the German belief that they were attacked from behind by civilians, while they were being engaged by the French from Bourdon on the west bank. A local magistrate was sent across the river to warn that the hostages would be shot if the firing continued. The magistrate returned having been shot and wounded by the Germans on the way and said that only French soldiers were firing. After more gunfire, civilians were lined up against a wall and shot. Of the seven were men over women or girls and children under being babies). When the Grenadiers reached the west bank, they killed in Neffe; found hiding under a railway viaduct were shot and taken to the east bank and shot there. German attacks between Houx and Dinant were repulsed but the Germans got across the Meuse at Hastierès and pushed the 51st Division reservists back to Onhaye. Boutegourd called on I Corps for reinforcements and d'Esperey ordered the corps to reverse direction. Two battalions of the 8th Infantry Brigade were in reserve with an attached cavalry regiment and d'Esperey ordered the commander,
Charles Mangin Charles Emmanuel Marie Mangin (6 July 1866 – 12 May 1925) was a French general during World War I. Early career Charles Mangin was born on 6 July 1866 in Sarrebourg. After initially failing to gain entrance to Saint-Cyr, he joined the 77th ...
to rush to Dinant. The reinforcements met the remnants of the 51st Reserve Division, made a bayonet charge towards Onhaye, on the
Philippeville Philippeville (; wa, Flipveye) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Namur, Belgium. The Philippeville municipality includes the former municipalities of Fagnolle, Franchimont, Jamagne, Jamiolle, Merlemont, N ...
road and established a blocking position east of Onhaye. With the 51st Reserve Division to the north, the 8th Infantry Brigade restricted the Germans to a bridgehead from Onhaye to Anhée. Next day the French I Corps arrived from the Sambre to Dinant and contained the 3rd Army in bridgeheads on the west bank of the Meuse, as the Fifth Army retreated from the angle of the Sambre and Meuse rivers.


Aftermath


24 August

On 24 August, the area of Dinant south of the bridge, which had not been attacked on 23 August, was systematically burned down by the Germans. Dinant was looted and German troops destroyed public and historic buildings, including the collegial church and the town hall. When IR 178 crossed the Meuse to Bouvignes, were killed and south of Dinant at Hastière-par-delà and Hastière-Lavaux, civilians were caught between Infantry Regiment 104 and Infantry Regiment 133 as they tried to cross the Meuse and French troops on the west bank. The Germans claimed that the civilians helped the French and including two ten-year-olds from Hastière-par-delà, were killed and the village burned. By 24 August, when the German advance resumed, the French had gone.


Casualties and commemoration

Fires set by the Germans on the night raid of provoked the flight of the next day. On 23 August, about were massacred, were burned down and were deported to Germany and interned until November. This massacre was the largest of the
Rape of Belgium The Rape of Belgium was a series of systematic war crimes, especially mass murder and deportation and enslavement, by German troops against Belgian civilians during the invasion and occupation of Belgium in World War I. The neutrality o ...
, which led to the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
establishing the
Commission for Relief in Belgium The Commission for Relief in Belgium or C.R.B. − known also as just Belgian Relief − was an international (predominantly American) organization that arranged for the supply of food to German-occupied Belgium and northern France during the Wor ...
chaired by
Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
, which oversaw food imports through the British blockade and stopped the Germans from interfering with their distribution. The killings continued on 24 August; houses burned for days and lit up the countryside and a stench of corpses polluted the air as they decomposed in the sun. The Germans lost killed and about and the French had about in the fighting around Dinant. In the 4th Infantry Brigade (
Philippe Pétain Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain (24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), commonly known as Philippe Pétain (, ) or Marshal Pétain (french: Maréchal Pétain), was a French general who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of Worl ...
), Lieutenant Charles de Gaulle was among the first to be wounded, receiving a bullet in the
fibula The fibula or calf bone is a leg bone on the lateral side of the tibia, to which it is connected above and below. It is the smaller of the two bones and, in proportion to its length, the most slender of all the long bones. Its upper extremity i ...
. On 6 May 2001,
Walter Kolbow Walter Kolbow (born 27 April 1944, in Spittal an der Drau) is a former German politician of the SPD. He was Parliamentary State Secretary (1998-2005) in the Federal Ministry of Defense, as well as deputy chairman of SPD Parliamentary Group in ...
, a high secretary at the German Ministry of Defence, placed a wreath and bowed before a monument in Dinant to the victims bearing the inscription: ''To the 674 Dinantais martyrs, innocent victims of German barbarism''.


Notes


Footnotes


References

Books * * * * * * * * * Journals *


External links


Combat de Dinant (French site)

Sambre-Marne-Yser (site in French)



Massacre of Dinant, Poverty Bay Herald, 9 November 1914 (New Zealand)
{{Authority control Dinant Dinant Dinant 1914 in Belgium Dinant Dinant Mass murder in 1914 August 1914 events France–Germany military relations Dinant