The Couillet Treaty details the heavy war reparations imposed by the Imperial German Army on the Belgian town of Charleroi and its surrounding communes, in retaliation for the action allegedly carried out by francs-tireurs against its soldiers as they entered Charleroi.
On 22 August 1914, during the Battle of Charleroi at the start of World War I, German General Max von Bahrfeldt, commander of the 19th Reserve Division, set himself the objective of taking the bridges over the Sambre located at Charleroi and Couillet and held by soldiers of the French 3rd and 10th Corps. As they advanced through the town, the German soldiers were rarely fired upon by the French soldiers. Convinced of the presence of snipers, the Germans took civilians hostage and set fire to houses.
On 23 August, fearing that the town would be completely destroyed, a group of Carolorégian notables, including the burgomaster Émile Devreux, went to meet the general to negotiate. He accused the civilians of firing on his soldiers. Under threat of cannon fire, he forced the members of the delegation to sign the "Treaty of Couillet", which stipulated the payment of a hefty war indemnity in money and other assets, to be settled at 6 p.m. that same day.
The toll of German atrocities was 41 civilians killed and 159 homes burnt down in Charleroi itself. Around 250 civilians were killed and 1,300 buildings were destroyed throughout the Charleroi region.
The Charleroi region at the beginning of the 20th century After the depression of the last quarter of the 19th century, the twenty or so years leading up to World War I saw Belgian production rise at a rate of over 3% a year.(fr) Jean-Louis Delaet, "L'âge d'or industriel du pays de Charleroi.", on Charleroi 1911-2011: L'industrie s'associe à la culture, 2011, 563 p. (), p. 215-216.
Given that coal was the main source of energy at the time, and that the region's subsoil contained different qualities of this fuel, Charleroi saw the emergence of a large number of industries linked to coal production. This growth was also linked to the technological skills of local and foreign entrepreneurs, the support of financial groups, and the exploitation of the working masses, who in 1914 had one of the lowest rates of unionization in Europe.(fr) Francine Bolle, "Les effets de la Première Guerre mondiale sur le mouvement syndical en Belgique", on La bataille de Charleroi, 100 ans après (Actes de colloque, Charleroi, 22 et 23 août 2014), Académie Royale de Belgique, coll. "Mémoires de la Classe des Lettres - Collection in-8° / IV-VII" (no 2097), 2014, 320 p. (), p. 163.
The Charleroi Exhibition of 1911 was the golden age of the Charleroi region. For the city, it was the year of its demographic peak, with 32,553 inhabitants, a record never reached again until the merger of the communes in 1977. The budget was balanced at just under 2,400,000 Belgian francs. Gustave Viseur, "L'administration de la ville depuis l'indépendance nationale", on Caroloregium valde concelebratur 1666-1966, Charleroi, 1966, p. 157.
World War I and the invasion of Belgium
The tensions caused by the international situation in the spring of 1914, and the assassination of Archduke François-Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June and its aftermath, led King Albert I to decide on general mobilization on 31 July 1914. Germany demanded free passage for its troops through Belgian territory on 2 August and sent an ultimatum to the government.Delaet, p. 58.
On the following day, 3 August, this ultimatum was rejected. That same day, the 1st Regiment of Foot Chasseurs left Charleroi for Liège to the applause of the crowd. The brewery "Aux caves de Munich", in the rue du Comptoir, was ransacked by a few rioters. The Germans entered Belgium near Aachen on 4 August. The King appealed to France and the United Kingdom. In Charleroi, the mob attacked the German consulate, taking down its flag and coat of arms. However, it escaped the fate suffered by the brewery the day before. The following day, the Garde Civique was mobilized.
On 16 August, the last fort in Liège surrendered. The press began to report German atrocities, including the massacre of civilians and the burning of houses. From then on, the authorities issued a series of calm orders to the population to prevent any acts that might provoke retaliation. In Charleroi, seven ambulances manned by volunteer doctors were ready for action. Over the next few days, several thousand people, mainly families of industrialists and shopkeepers, left Charleroi by train for other Belgian towns or France. On 20 August, the 3rd and 10th corps of the 5th French army commanded by General Lanrezac arrived in the town, where the population greeted them enthusiastically and awaited the British Expeditionary Force, which they knew was not far off.Delaet, p. 58-59.
However, the next morning, uhlans scouts from Generaloberst von Bülow's 2nd German army arrived in the town under the cover of a thick fog. They were initially mistaken for British but were eventually recognized by the French soldiers manning the barricade set up on the rue du Pont Neuf, who opened fire. Of the five Germans, two were wounded and a third killed. In the afternoon, we learned, to our dismay, that the Germans had entered Brussels the day before.Delaet, p. 59. Again that afternoon, the Belgian authorities ordered the civic guards to be sacked.Lemaire, p. 13-14.Lemaire and Nonclercq, p. 10. From then on, the French alone were responsible for guarding the bridges over the Sambre and defending the city.Lemaire, p. 14.
On 21 August, the Battle of Charleroi began, centred on the capture of the bridges over the Sambre. From those at Tamines, Auvelais, and Arsimont, on the Lower Sambre, to those at Lobbes and Thuin, on the Upper Sambre.Conraads and Nahoé, p. 149. During the three days of fighting, civilians were indirect victims but were also targeted. Numerous massacres of civilians were perpetrated by the Imperial German Army.Baldin and Saint-Fuscien, p. 125. The Germans believed that there was collusion, including armed collusion, between the French army and Belgian civilians.Baldin and Saint-Fuscien, p. 128.
Since the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, officers of the Imperial German Army had been intensely concerned about how to deal with potential franc-tireurs. They were convinced that they would have to face them in a future conflict with France. This collective fear, combined with other factors such as alcohol, inexperience, physical and nervous exhaustion and the disorientation caused by fighting in an urban area,Steg, p. 49-50. meant that they saw the city as a "nest of franc-tireurs",Baldin and Saint-Fuscien, p. 129. with snipers popping up everywhere.Steg, p. 50.
There was also religious fanaticism. The Protestant German soldiers present felt that the Catholic priests were inciting their flocks to popular warfare.Delaet, p. 67. The fear of a workers' insurrection was much weaker. However, in 1906, a novel entitled 1906: Der Zusammenbruch der alten Welt (1906: The Fall of the Old World). It is said to have sold no fewer than 150,000 copies. It depicts a war between Germany and Great Britain, during which "a socialist insurrection by the workers of Charleroi responds to Germany's invasion of Belgium".Horne and Kramer, p. 237.
22 August 1914
On 22 August, the 2nd German Army tried to take the bridges over the Sambre from the north and establish itself on the right bank. At around 6.30 am, troops from General Max von Bahrfeldt's 19th Reserve Division, a unit of the 2nd Army, came from Gosselies along the Chaussée de Bruxelles. Their targets were the Charleroi and Couillet bridges. Preceded by Belgian civilians taken hostage, they were fired upon by French soldiers entrenched at La Planche in Dampremy. After this altercation, the German soldiers turned back and marched up the road towards Bon-Air in Lodelinsart, where, claiming that civilians had been seen near the barricade, they looted and set fire to houses. From the heights of Jumet, German artillery bombarded the valley floor and Charleroi.Delaet, p. 61.
At Bon-Air, General von Bahrfeldt divided his troops into two columns. One headed towards Montignies-sur-Sambre and Couillet to take the Écluse bridge over the Sambre. The other was to capture from the rear the French troops entrenched at La Planche, who had evacuated the area in the interim. It headed towards Dampremy via the Warchat and the Deschassis slag heap and finally arrived, still preceded by civilians used as human shields, at a place called Viaducs by the rue de Heigne.Delaet, p. 61-62.
From here, the Germans headed towards the Prison Bridge via the Rue du Grand Central. From the bridge, the French, whose sole mission was to stop the incursions of German cavalry, fired, killing, and wounding soldiers and hostages. German soldiers cut holes in doors and windows to spray incendiary pellets inside houses. The whole of the Rue du Grand Central and the Digue Square went up in flames. Around twenty hostages were killed or injured.Delaet, p. 62.
Later that morning, the Germans, still accompanied by hostages, advanced along Boulevard Audent. Under the pretext of possible snipers, the soldiers methodically set fire to the bourgeois houses on the Boulevard Audent, but also in the Boulevard Defontaine and the rue d'Orléans. Only the Palais de Justice, the Protestant church, and a few houses around the Jesuit college, which served as an ambulance hospital, were spared. The Germans arrived in the rue du Pont Neuf at the crossroads with the Café du Luxembourg, from where they fired towards the barricade set up by the French in front of the bridge.
As the French had already evacuated the area, the German officers thought it would be difficult to take the Ville Basse and the bridges over the Sambre before the end of the day, so they turned east towards Montignies-sur-Sambre.Delaet, p. 63.
At nine o'clock in the evening, the houses on the boulevards, streets and squares along the east–west axis were still burning."Rue de la Montagne, Rue Charles II, Rue du Grand Central, Place de la Digue. All this forms one huge inferno where long flames are twisted into madness, where fantastic sprays of sparks shoot out in disproportionately high jets. In Rue Charles II, the house of a druggist was burning and looked like a huge green Bengal fire in this infernal firework display. Walls came tumbling down, burnt-out roof timbers collapsed. The whole earth is shaking and the heat is intolerable".Dermine and Grandchamps, p. 50. The town's inhabitants wondered about the Germans' intentions. Would they continue to set fire to the town and bomb it? Refugees from Couillet claimed that cannons were pointed at Charleroi. Léon Henvaux, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, passed on this information to the mayor, Émile Devreux.Delaet, p. 71.
23 August 1914
On Sunday 23 August, just after 5 am, a delegation set off in search of the German general, bearing a certificate of good conduct issued by the German consul before his departure. The group was made up of Émile Devreux, mayor, Émile Buisset, alderman for finance, Albert Dulait, a lawyer, whose car was driven by his son Paul, and Louis Smeysters, an exporter with a good command of German, who had agreed to act as interpreter. The latter was carrying a white flag.
The group headed for Montignies-sur-Sambre. In the square, the Caroloregians were accused of shooting at German soldiers. After displaying the document obtained from the German consul, the group, now accompanied by Lieutenant Hermann von Hanneken, was invited to head for Couillet, where they could meet General von Bahrfeldt at the Château de Parentville.