Dinant

The Citadel

The tour of the Citadel is made with a guide, who speaks French and Flemish and can usually master a bit of English as well if you make yourself known to them.

There are a few panels of information concerning the Citadel which you can read waiting upon your guide. It struck me that for such an imposing position it was forever being captured by being taken from the rear.

Or you can try playing boules with the cannon balls!

The tour

The guided tour starts in the corridors overlooking the river and the bridge. The Citadel saw fierce fighting during 1914. The French had destroyed the bridge and had the advantage of height.

Within these first corridors the hand to hand fighting became particularly desperate. After the citadel had been taken the bodies of a number of soldiers were found at bayonet point where the French had fought to the last man.

If you look to your left as you eventually leave the citadel you will see a small monument marking where the ashes of the soldiers concerned - 58 French and 12 German are buried.

The tour continues around some of the gun emplacement and other barrack rooms. In one is guillotine plus a chopping block for removing hands. The guide explains that under their law anybody who was found guilty of killing a parent had their right hand removed, and then their head!

The final stage of the tour brings you to a room which was struck by a shell causing it to tilt rather alarmingly to about 30 degrees. Coming down the stairs and then trying to walk along its short length is an interesting experience somewhat akin to trying to walk down the deck of a boat, only the deck isn't going up and down. My sister-in-law ended up feeling quite ill.

Before leaving the citadel make sure you walk round to the front parapets as there are fine views over the cathedral and looking down to the river.

A short river cruise along the Meuse

The sacking of Dinant 1914

On August 23 1914 following claims that German soldiers repairing the bridge over the Meuse had been fired on by civilians, the Germans rounded up 612 men, women, and children, and shot them. The town was subsequently sacked by the German army, who destroyed almost every building.

This was one of the worst of the recorded atrocities carried out by the German Army during the war.

Enquiries were held by both sides. The German Military Commission needless to say declared that the franc-tireurs (civilian partisans) had instigated the whole thing. If the civilians had kept out of it then the Germans would not have had to have taken hostages - and then shot them. As the Commissioner pointed out - there was not much point in making vain threats.

The British Bryce Report more or less says the opposite, that there was no reason for the civilians to take up arms against the German invaders. This report by an ex-Ambassador to the USA was quite influential in getting America to side with the Allies.

I would suggest that there is little doubt that the Germans did commit some of the atrocities they were blamed for, including Dinant, but overuse of such terror propaganda by both sides ended up being self defeating. Even today we are sceptical of Official Enquiries.

There is a memorial to those murdered (One of whom was only three weeks old) at the old prison commemorating those who died.