Text : Christian Defrance 21 South Africans NewfoundlandersNewfoundlanders ELVILLE Wood, Butte de War fails to learn from its lessons. On IVE impressive bronze caribou east of Monchy-le-Preux. However, Warlencourt. Death inhabits 12 October 1916, the South African bri- memorials in Beaumont- they walk straight into a huge German Dthe corner of the wood and gade was once again annihilated at the FHamel, Courtrai, Gueudecourt, counter-attack and almost all are killed the blood of thousands of soldiers Butte de Warlencourt, a hill just 50ft Masnières and Monchy-le-Preux or captured. In Monchy, the military fills the furrows of the fields of in height. Losses were high. No rest immortalise the suffering and worth leaders of the Newfoundlanders put up the Somme and the Artois. A was in store and from 1917 the South of soldiers from Newfoundland. heroic resistance (thanks to their elite catastrophe for the 1st South Africans saw action at Arras, Ypres snipers) to all enemy attempts to take African Infantry Brigade. and elsewhere. “Reduced to the size of This province, the oldest colony of the village. A dozen or so men succeed a battalion” in March 1918 during the the British Empire, had a population in holding 200-300 Germans at bay for Having taken part in military operations German offensive, the valiant brigade of 250,000 inhabitants in 1914. Its four hours before relief arrived. The in Egypt and Libya, South African troops distinguished itself in Meteren in July. citizens participated in the Great War Newfoundland Regiment is almost obli- came ashore in Marseille on 20 April It is estimated that 5,000 South and during the four years of the conflict, terated: 166 dead, 141 wounded, 153 1916 and headed north to the trenches. Africans (almost all of them white) were the Newfoundland Regiment mobilised taken prisoner. At the end of June 1917, Acclimatisation was harsh in Flanders. killed, which brings us to the subject of over 6,000 men. 1,200 died in Belgium, the Newfoundlanders were posted near On 2 July, the brigade entered the Battle the black workers of the SANLC (South in the north, the Somme and the Pas- Langemark in Belgium, returning to of the Somme head on. 537 men lost African Native Labour Corps), from de-Calais. France in mid October, distinguishing their lives in the first week of fighting which 25,000 volunteers left Cape Town 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle themselves once more near Masnières. alone. And this was just the beginning between October 1916 and January of the Somme, near Beaumont-Hamel: Their determination resulted in the king as the fighting frenzy continued. 1918. Alongside Egyptians, Chinese, 802 Newfoundlanders attack the enemy of England awarding the title “Royal” On 15 July, the South Africans (121 Fijians etc, they unloaded millions of trenches... the following morning only to the Newfoundland Regiment, who, officers and 3,032 men) were assigned tonnes of munitions and supplies in 68 of them were still capable of fighting. in September 1918, took part in the the mission of taking Delville Wood the ports of Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne- On 12 October 1916, the same regiment last major offensive of the war around and to hold it whatever the cost. The sur-Mer etc. In Europe, the SANLC is involved in the Battle of Le Transloy Ypres. Germans outnumbered them and the lost 1,120 men, and those who returned and takes the German entrenchments in The “best sniper” in the regiment was result was a slaughter. A week later, to South Africa did not even have the Gueudecourt. one of the fifteen Inuit volunteers from the brigade was left with only 780 able- right to receive the Inter Allied Victory On 14 April 1917, the 1st battalion of the Labrador, John Shiwak, a hunter and bodied men; 763 had been killed and Medal, such were the odious effects of Essex Regiment and the Newfoundland trapper who was killed during the Battle 1,709 wounded. apartheid. Regiment capture Infantry Hill to the of Cambrai on 20 November 1917. Text : Marie-Pierre Griffon For Belgian refugees in France: a civilian hospital in Neuville-sous-Montreuil HEN Belgium was invaded by the Germans in 1914, many of its inhabitants fled. As was the case Welsewhere in France, the Montreuil-sur-Mer area witnessed the influx of a large number of these refugees. Initially, they were warmly received. However, after four years, having all these new mouths to feed was taking its toll and these poor Belgians were sometimes referred to as the “the Bosch of the North”. However, this exhausted population, some of whom were wounded, needed to be taken care of, hence the establishment of a hospital for them. To invade France, the Germans for War set up his headquarters had to pass through Belgium in Dunkirk and the army set and violate its neutrality. up military hospitals in Calais, Consequently, they declared war Normandy and Brittany. At the on their neighbours on 3 August same time, the influx of refugees 1914. The entire country was meant that civilian hospitals occupied incredibly quickly. needed to be established. The King Albert, who was at the one at the Chartreuse Notre- front with his soldiers, was par- Dame des Prés in Neuville- ticularly popular with the French sous-Montreuil, which existed A Belgian army camp near Arras. Photo: Alain Jacques documentary collection public. He was decorated with the from 1915 to April 1919, was Military Medal, and a “Belgian “placed under the patronage beds, and the medical staff you look at the numbers who at once. To deal with the ever- flag day”, on which badges were of Her Majesty the Queen and from Belgium was made up of died there. 610 were registered increasing roll call of wounded sold for the benefit of refugees, His Excellency the Belgian nuns, a chaplain and two or with the town hall in Neuville arriving unexpectedly at the rai- was created. Interior Minister”. Yann three doctors.” According to alone…”, not counting the times lway station in Montreuil, the The French public’s affection Hodicq, a First World War enthu- Yann Hodicq, it is impossible to when military personnel were also hospital was forced to evacuate even led to a dessert of Austrian siast and author of “Montreuil- work out now many patients were treated there. On some occasions its most able-bodied patients to origin being renamed “café lié- sur-Mer: 1914-1918” explains treated there : “one supposes the number of dead was so high other towns on a regular basis in geois” ! The Belgian Minister that “the hospital had 700 that the number is very high if that two bodies had to be buried order to free up beds..