THE OCCUPATION

The Early Days and Beyond

It did not take long for the German army to take control of the city and early on 29th August 1914 posters appeared over the signature of the German Commandant and Town Major stating that henceforth Saint-Quentin was under the German military and ordering the surrender of all arms and equipment. The Henri Martin school which only a few days before had been used by the British as a casualty clearing station was quickly taken over, together with all its medical supplies and equipment.

Irksome regulations were promulgated - some very ominous. For instance, all men aged between 18 and 48 had to register with the German authorities. A curfew operated from 7 p.m. and all citizens were confined to the city. Very quickly shortages of certain commodities arose, for the German army was confiscating coal, factory equipment, wine and mattresses (for wool). Two British soldiers left behind during the evacuation had been given shelter by French families, but for the sake of the reward money, their presence had been given away to the Germans and they were both shot, being deemed to be British spies. The French families who had so generously given the soldiers shelter were dealt with extremely harshly, one of them - Gustave Preux - was deported to Germany to a labour camp and returned at the end of the war in broken health.

Three French soldiers found in possession of military equipment were arrested and shot without trial. No doubt because of the reluctance of the German firing squad to execute a former enemy, one of the Frenchmen was not killed outright and the senior NCO of the firing party had to administer the coup de grace. Another Frenchman, a veteran of the Franco-Prussian war, was shot for failing to hand in two ancient rifles he had found on the battlefield in 1871.

Gradually the atmosphere was one of oppression and terror for the inhabitants; the rural workers being treated like serfs. Those that objected were threatened with prison or even shooting. Old people and those too ill to work were despatched to unoccupied France via Switzerland, being classified by the Germans as “useless mouths”.

In October 1915 the city was visited by the Kaiser and he took the opportunity to inaugurate the German Military Cemetery outside the city.

In 1916 the artillery fire of the Battle of the Somme could be heard in the distance and with great sadness the inhabitants saw a train draw into the station loaded with French prisoners from the Somme. All attempts to pass food or money to these dejected and hungry men resulted in very severe punishment to the women who tried to do so.

By 1917 huge numbers of French labourers and some 2000 Russian prisoners were placed in a state of effective slavery and sent to work on the concrete dugouts and barbed wire entanglements which the Germans were constructing north of the city. These extensive and almost impregnable defences were later to be known as the Hindenburg Line and were to cost many Allied lives before they were breached. With the line’s construction finished, the complete evacuation of all French citizens from the city was ordered by the German authorities. They were not to return to their homes until the winter of 1918.