the budingen combat
(august 18, 1914)
death of lieutenant count w. d'ursel. by colonel de schietere de lophem, commander of the 4th lancers
the combat of budingen is an episode of the forcing of the gette by the vanguards of general von kluck's army. the attack extended from diest to tirlemont and was particularly violent at tirlemont and at hauthem-st. marguerite.
on the 17th of august, towards 6.30, in the evening, i received orders to go to budingen, with the staff of the 2nd group of the 1st guides. early in the morning, the two squadrons under my command had been sent from geet-betz on reconnaissance: the 3rd, towards looz and the 4th, in the direction of oreye. it was, therefore, without troops that i arrived at budingen towards 7.30 p.m.
i took up my quarters at the dubois farm where there was already a relief post. the passage of the gette, the bridge of which had been destroyed, was defended by a company of the 4th line regiment, installed in good trenches. the commander, lieutenant dothée, informed me, though, that he had instructions to go on to cumptich during the night. as i[pg 78] could not remain alone in a locality so accessible to the enemy, i begged him to stay until other troops came to replace him, and i informed my colonel of the situation. during the evening, captain commander de favereau was sent to my support. he was at the head of the 1st squadron of the 2nd guides. they bivouacked in a field near my farm, and after having his horses attended to and his men fed, the captain was ready at 2.30 to relieve the company of the 4th line regiment.
lieutenant formanoir occupied the bridge and the left bank of the gette; lieutenant comte d'ursel the trenches to the south, keeping watch, too, over the mill of the st. job farm. between them was lieutenant viscount de jonghe d'ardoye's platoon and, established in the chapel, 300 yards to the east of the bridge, a post kept watch on the graesen and léau roads.
during the night there was no sign of any approach by the enemy and we were perfectly tranquil. towards 6.30, the 4th squadron of the 1st guides, under commander van den branden de reeth, arrived. his men were tired out after a very difficult reconnaissance. they took some rest and supplied themselves with fresh provisions before occupying the northern sector.
towards 7 o'clock, i made an inspection of the positions. the defence did not reach sufficiently near geet-betz. i therefore sent baron de crombrugghe (a pupil of the military school) with about ten horsemen, about 300 or 400 yards further north. at another place, i discovered a little footbridge which i ordered to be surrounded with brambles pulled up from the neighbouring estates. this passage was thus[pg 79] rendered impracticable. the soldiers were now at their posts everywhere, impatient to fight and anxious to distinguish themselves.
on my return along the gette, i heard a detonation. it was lieutenant d'ursel firing on some german soldiers, who were hidden in the woods a few yards away. i armed myself with a carbine and very soon caught sight of two germans crouching down, preparing to shoot us. i brought one of them down and d'ursel accounted for the other. after shooting for a few minutes, we rendered several of our adversaries hors de combat. suddenly a ball whizzed by and i heard a slight snapping noise to my right. on turning my head, i saw d'ursel stretched inanimate on the slope of the trench. he appeared to be dead. one of the cavalry, simon, approached and raised the poor man's colback. a gaping wound was to be seen at the back of the unfortunate officer's head. what a painful impression, and what a feeling of intense sadness a chief feels on seeing one of his bravest officers fall at his side!
the combat was now going on all along the line and many balls whizzed by our ears. i hurried to the dubois farm and ordered commander van den branden to bring his horses to the rendezvous to the west of the station, and to occupy the trenches to the north of the bridge, immediately, with as many men as possible, while the squadron of the 2nd guides continued to defend those on the south. after sending a patrol on horseback to glabeck, to watch the stream between this hamlet and the gette, i sent the doctors from the relief post to fetch d'ursel and attend to him. the combat was violent, the enemy sending us bullets and shrapnels all the time. our[pg 80] men answered with great precision. all the enemy sharp-shooters who ventured out of the wood were brought down. fortunately, towards 8 o'clock, quartermaster bonnejonne, of the 1st chasseurs, arrived with a machine-gun. this was placed to the south of the bridge, under the direction of lieutenant de jonghe.
a few minutes later, i received the following order by telephone: "in case the line of the river should be forced, rally at grootenbosch, to go to vroen and kersbeck-miscom," and at the same time the following notice: "commander of squadron of 2nd guides at budingen. by order of general commanding cavalry division, you pass under my orders, and have for mission to defend, to the uttermost, budingen bridge. a machine-gun is at your service. communicate with me at geet-betz.—colonel 1st guides."
as i had the direction of the budingen combat, i took these orders for myself. on going again through the trenches to the south of the bridge, i came to the spot where d'ursel had been hit. the lieutenant was lying at the foot of the slope and seemed to be asleep. an almost imperceptible wound marked the corner of his left eye with a red spot.
"well, d'ursel," i said, "how do you feel?"
before he had even opened his eyes, he answered: "ah, it is you, major?"
i was surprised to see that his eyes were clear and animated.
"are you suffering much?" i asked.
"no, not much," he answered.
"i have given orders that you are to be taken to the relief post," i said. "with good care, you will soon be yourself again." he thanked me and then[pg 81] said: "if i should not get through, will you tell my wife that my last thought was of her."
i promised, but assured him that his wound was not at all grave and that the doctors would soon dress it. on seeing him perfectly conscious and calm, able to talk quite easily, i hoped that the ball had only gone round the skull, and that the wound at the back of the head was merely a slit caused by the exit of the projectile. on leaving him, i gave orders for the removal of the wounded man. unfortunately, the order could not be carried out, as the german attack now became more violent and more decisive. the enemy's shrapnels reached our trenches and the number of the assailants increased every minute. at the chapel, the observation post had been compelled to fall back, and there were masses of enemy foot-soldiers there, who were being mown down by our machine-gun and by the platoons of lieutenant de jonghe and of lieutenant d'ursel. it was then a quarter past nine. a fresh order now reached me: "in case the river should be forced, rally at vroen.—colonel 1st guides."
as i had previously received instructions to hold out to the uttermost, i considered it was my duty to resist still. my men were behaving admirably, but some of them declared that they heard balls whistling behind them.
"you are mistaken," i said to them, "what you hear are the balls against the walls of the houses near."
our machine-gun was now choked and could not be used for a time. quartermaster bonnejonne was wounded. lieutenant de jonghe managed to repair the mechanism of the gun and went on firing himself.
at 9.30, i went to the village square, where commander van den branden was stationed. two shells[pg 82] burst a few yards away from us. just at this moment, brigadier desterbeck, of the 4th squadron of 1st guides, who was on patrol with glabeck, hurried to me to tell me that an enemy company, preceded by a number of sharp-shooters, was coming along by the railway line from geet-betz towards budingen.
this changed the situation, as superior forces would attack my flank rendering our resistance useless. i gave the order to retreat and mentioned grootenbosch as our rallying point.
some germans already occupied houses in the villages, and others had reached the big farm and the buildings to the west of the halt. the conditions of the retreat of our two squadrons were therefore against us, as, in order to get to their horses, my men had to cross a space which was now being fired on by the adversary. this was a bad piece of ill-luck. whilst the fight had been going on, some of our horses, terrified by the noise of the firing and by the bursting of the shrapnels, had escaped from their keepers and were galloping about on the plain. a wild chase now took place, in order that my men should capture their mounts. when they were once more in their saddles and the retreat had commenced, the germans, hidden in the farms, fired on them to the best of their ability. fortunately, their aim was not good, so that only a few of our men were hit, more or less seriously. captain commander de favereau had his left arm fractured and his horse killed under him.
the moment was critical, as the enemy foot-soldiers, more and more numerous in the adjacent houses, continued firing, although nearly always unsuccessfully. if their aim had been good, not one of us would have escaped. there was no time to lose and[pg 83] a rapid gallop saved our squadrons from the enemy projectiles.
as i was one of the last to leave the spot where the combat had taken place, when i went, at full speed, to the place where the horses had been left, men and mounts had started. only quartermaster keucker de wattlet and two or three others were there. it was impossible to find my horse. to avoid danger, as the bullets were whistling through the air on every side, i took refuge behind a house. luckily, a horse was just passing. i caught it, sprang into the saddle and set off at a gallop in the direction of grootenbosch, across the open country. i was almost grazed by hundreds of bullets. it is perfectly incomprehensible that i should have escaped uninjured. i drew up near a brick-kiln, and called out to the various isolated horsemen who rode past. about forty men were soon with me, when an important group of other guides joined us, and told me of the presence of cavalry between dries and miscom. at the head of these men, i went off in the direction of hoogen, a hundred yards to the east of grootenbosch, where i met lieutenant de formanoir with his platoon. i at once gave orders to this officer to reconnoitre the cavalry we had heard was on the plain. twenty minutes later he returned, telling me that it was the 1st regiment of guides on the way to kersbeck-miscom. it was then about 12 o'clock.
it will be of interest here to give an extract from a letter sent to me by dr. lepape, who was wounded during the combat and taken prisoner.
"at the beginning of the engagement," he said, "i was with dr. spelkens, near the dubois farm, which we had converted, as well as we could, into a relief[pg 84] post. we each went our way, in order to make final arrangements about getting the wounded in as promptly as possible. just then, only a few rare balls whizzed over the road, but there was firing, parallel with the railway line, at the horses grouped between the farm and the railway. it was here that i was first called for, and, whilst i was dressing wounds, i saw the helter-skelter among the horses, which were rearing and pulling at their tethers, in order to get away. it was all in vain that their keepers and the farriers endeavoured to soothe them. afterwards, they tried to rally them in the direction of the level crossing. i saw gevaert, the farrier, killed by a shot in his forehead. i was just getting up, as i saw my efforts were all in vain, when i was hit in the knee by a projectile. fortunately, after extracting this and bathing my knee, i was able to continue my service. when our soldiers were retreating, i saw that they were being followed, at about a hundred yards' distance, by men in grey uniforms who were creeping along by the railroad. my orderly now came rushing back to tell me that we were retreating. i went into the farm and destroyed all the papers which the sub-officers had left there, when surprised by the alert. among these papers were officers' lists, papers with the regiment headings, diaries of the campaign, letters, etc. i then went off to join the troops. i was unwise enough to spring on to a horse without thinking of my leg, so that a few yards farther on i fell off and fractured a rib. when i came to myself, all my papers and my weapons had disappeared, most of the houses were in flames, and a few belgians, inside one of the houses, were still firing. a little while later, i saw troops of infantry with machine-guns and cannons filing along for[pg 85] about two hours. i remember a few things that i noticed:
"1st. the german officers made their men believe that we were french and not belgians (the red trousers served as a proof).
"2nd. the doors and windows of the houses were systematically forced with the butt end of guns, and the dwellings were set on fire by means of plugs piled up in packets, that certain soldiers were carrying. in a few seconds the flame appeared and spread rapidly.
"3rd. the germans wanted to shoot the prisoners, one of whom was a quartermaster, because they had fired from a window, and this they said was contrary to the laws of warfare. as i could speak a little german, i endeavoured to interfere and, for my intervention, i received some heavy blows. i do not know how the matter ended.
"the medical service was perfect. the service of burying was extremely faulty. the grave-diggers did not trouble about the belgian dead, leaving them to be buried by the inhabitants. needless to say they were robbed."
as regards lieutenant d'ursel, i knew he had been wounded under the left temple, but i heard that he was dead when i was at st. trond. according to information that i received, when the body of this officer of the guides was identified, he was wounded in the face and heart.
from this account, we see that the germans attacked the budingen bridge with considerable forces, that the two squadrons of guides resisted with the greatest bravery, and that, in compliance with their instructions, they defended to the uttermost the passage of the[pg 86] gette. to my deep regret, i was obliged to leave lieutenant d'ursel on the battle-field. but i affirm that, at the time i left him, he had only one wound in the head and that if he was wounded afterwards in the heart, he had been killed when wounded, in contempt of the laws of warfare.
