Spying in World War I: The true story of Margriet Ballegeer

Spying in World War I: The True Story of Margriet Ballegeer

Spying in World War I: The True Story of Margriet Ballegeer

Janet Dean

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND AUTHOR’S NOTE

INTRODUCTION

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1: GROWING UP

CHAPTER 2: THE OUTBREAK OF WAR

CHAPTER 3: FATHER MOONS

CHAPTER 4: MARGRIET’S FAMILY SHELTERS THE PRIEST IN KONTICH

CHAPTER 5: ARREST

CHAPTER 6: HENRI VAN BERGEN

CHAPTER 7: AT WORK

CHAPTER 8: SUCCESS IS SHORT-LIVED

CHAPTER 9: ARRESTED AGAIN

CHAPTER 10: IN PRISON

CHAPTER 11: THE TRIAL

CHAPTER 12: THE END

CHAPTER 13: AFTER THE EXECUTION

CHAPTER 14: IN ENGLAND

APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Germaine’s letter

Appendix 2: The last letter of Father Moons

Appendix 3: The last letter of Henri Van Bergen

NOTES

Acknowledgements and Author’s Note

Thanks:

To my cousin Michael Joyner who provided me with so much material.

To my godmother, Suzanne Van Reeth, who looks after the family archive.

To Mike Chappell, who encouraged me and advised as to how to seek publication.

To Hugo Smits, a mine of information and a great help with Flemish history.

To Aleyda Maycock, for translating those difficult documents.

To John Young, for lending me his smelly old books.

To Carine Lybaert, for her ability in tracking down rare information and giving me a place to stay.

To Nick Matthews, for lending me books and taking photographs.

To Naomi, Siri and Walter Lybaert, for their interest and support.

To Maurice Janssens, for his practical help.

To Frank Hellemans and Paul Wyckmans of the museum in Kontich, for their enthusiastic involvement.

To Alan Dean, for his map.

To all my friends who have expressed interest in my project and have followed its progress over the years.

To Graham Shardlow, for being patient throughout.

Thanks also to Dr Debbie Daniels, for the therapy which ran alongside and helped the writing of this book.

Belgium is a bilingual country and so many places have a Flemish as well as a French name – for example, Leuven/ Louvain. I have used English spellings for Ostend, Brussels and Antwerp but in other cases have kept to Flemish.

Flemish spelling was updated in the 1930s: in my grandmother’s day her hometown was spelt with a ‘C’ but I have used the modern version, Kontich.

Margriet’s family and friends spoke and wrote French and Flemish with equal ease and used both languages in everyday life: she used French and Flemish versions of her name and when she moved to England adopted the English, Margaret. I have kept to her Flemish name as this was how she was known at home, although her fiancé called her Marguerite.

Because they usually spoke French she always referred to her fiancé as Henri or Harry, rather than the Flemish Hendrik, so I have done the same. In other cases I have used the Flemish rather than French versions – for example, Frederik and Jozef.

Instead of using Mr and Mrs, I have used the French M. and Mme as this was how Margriet referred to her friends in Brussels.

Introduction

Margriet Ballegeer was my grandmother. I have known her story all my life: as a child I spent many afternoons in her kitchen in Eastbourne with the cat on my lap, listening as she told me over and over the memories of her own childhood and her experiences spying for the British in German-occupied Belgium during the Great War.

Through her stories I learned what it was like to be the eldest of four sisters growing up in the small town of Kontich at the turn of the century, in a family dominated by a powerful father. She used to weep as she described the pain of being refused permission to marry the man she loved and was full of praise for her sister Germaine, who eloped to England with her fiancé after he was banned from the house.

Even as an old woman she remembered the shock of the German invasion of Belgium in 1914 and her decision to become a spy. It was thrilling to hear how she helped to keep the British Intelligence services supplied with information smuggled out of the country under the noses of the occupying soldiers. Her codename was ‘Rayon de Soleil’, or ‘Sunbeam’.

Her description of Henri Van Bergen, the charismatic leader of the network with whom she fell in love, was so romantic, but the character I loved best was Father Felix Moons, the cheerful priest who was so daring and courageous throughout the war. The tales of betrayal and execution and Margriet’s narrow escape from a similar fate gave me nightmares.

Nan and I would go through her box of photographs and mementoes, which prompted more detailed memories of her experiences and helped her explain how she came to settle in England on her release from prison after the Armistice.

I was always proud of being related to a war hero, but it was only when she died in 1980 at the age of 89 that I decided that one day I would write about her life. It took me until 2005, with two children grown up and retirement on the horizon, to realize that if I did not do so then, probably no one else would, and she would be forgotten.

I contacted BBC Radio 4’s Making History team who carried out some research and included an item in their programme about my grandmother’s involvement in the spy network and the dates of her imprisonment. It was clear to them that there was very little published material about this subject so I started my own research, finding references in French and Flemish publications to some of the individuals involved but hardly anything about Margriet herself. Through the radio programme I was able to find my cousin Michael Joyner, with whom I had lost contact and who helped enormously by sending me a tape recording of our grandmother narrating her wartime experiences in her own words. This had been made in the 1970s by my uncle and aunt, and until then I did not know such a thing existed.

It was months before I could face listening to the tapes, but when I recovered from the shock of hearing her voice I was amazed at how clearly she could describe people; how she could recall exact dates and conversations and explain how she felt even after half a century. Her account confirmed that my memories had survived from childhood and I set about verifying the facts through research.

My cousin also sent me a number of photographs that I had never seen before: these I have included here along with images from my own collection. I have made many visits to Belgium where my family’s help has been invaluable: not only have they translated many documents but also have tracked down photographs and information that I would never have found by myself.

I am not a historian and could not begin to write a history book: instead this is an account of Margriet Ballegeer’s life, based on what she told me herself. I have tried to fill in the gaps from contemporary accounts and modern historical research but much of the story is in her own words. This book has taken me years to write; it was a very emotional process which I am glad is over at last. I did not want the contribution of a courageous woman to be forgotten, particularly as we approach the centenary of the Great War.

Prologue

Margriet Ballegeer woke early on 15 March 1918 realizing that it could be the last day of her life. The stale air and cold grey walls of the isolation cell were particularly depressing as she tried to summon what courage she had left to face yet another agonizing day of waiting. Her heart lurched at every distant sound: those approaching footsteps might bring news of her fate; raised voices and doors slamming downstairs might mean that a decision had been made. This could not go on for much longer; surely by now the German military commanders must have decided whether her death sentence would stand or whether she had been spared the firing squad.

In another wing of the Begijnenstraat prison in Antwerp, Margriet’s fiancé, Henri Van Bergen, was experiencing the same anguish. However, unlike Margriet, he was without hope. Although many influential Belgians and foreign diplomats had protested against his death sentence – some even petitioning the Kaiser himself to show clemency – he knew that as the unrepentant leader of a ring of secret agents determined to sabotage the occupation of Belgium, he would be lucky to live out the week. All Henri could hope for was that his fellow spies, 24 of whom were incarcerated alongside him, might be shown mercy.

The last time Margriet had seen Henri was briefly in the distance as the prisoners were making their way along the corridor to mass in the chapel. Although it was only a glimpse, she could see by his demeanour how the months of interrogation and starvation had broken him physically. She thought of her other friends who had undergone the same treatment including the priest, Father Felix Moons, an old friend of the family, who had joined the cause as soon as the First World War started in August 1914. He, too, had barely survived the harsh prison regime. She fervently hoped that the fact that her close colleagues Arthur Wattiez, Jozef Jespers, August Naelaerts and Jozef Leroy had wives and children would save them.

As the sun rose and a little light crept through the high, barred window she thought about her experiences: how she had first become involved in espionage nearly three years before and the events leading up to her inevitable arrest. She did not regret her actions for one moment. Although her life had been one of constant fear and danger there was also excitement and camaraderie, and of course her great love for Henri Van Bergen.

Today might bring news of their fate. She was prepared to die for her country, convinced she had done the right thing and would be rewarded in heaven.

CHAPTER 1

Growing Up

Margriet Marie Philomene Ballegeer was born at home in 1890 in St Laureins, a small town in Belgium near the border with Holland. Her parents, Frederik Ballegeer and Marie Sluyts had married two years before and were hoping that their first-born would be a boy but they were happy enough with their healthy daughter. As they intended to raise a large family they believed there was plenty of time to produce a son.

Frederik had been born in Oostkamp in 1860 to ordinary working parents and knew from an early age that it would be difficult for him to better himself without money and parental influence. He was an intelligent, ambitious and determined young man so when he joined the Gendarmerie (the national police force) when he left school, it was not long before he was promoted. He rose quickly through the ranks and by the time of his marriage he was a well-respected brigadier, expected by his colleagues to achieve a more senior post before long.

After their second daughter, Germaine, was born in 1892, Frederik applied for promotion and was sent to Kontich, near Antwerp, to take up the post of Commissioner (or Commissaris) of the local police. It was normal for senior officers to move outside their familiar region; it was felt that police chiefs needed to avoid too-close relationships where it could be all too easy to slip into a culture of doing favours and accepting them from family and friends. This policy could not have included policemen’s wives, as Marie had grown up in Kontich and the couple had been married at St Martin’s church in the main square. She was happy to move back to the place of her birth.

At the time Kontich had a population of around 6,000. The town was surrounded by fertile farmland which provided a good living for the local landowners, large and small, from vegetables, fruit, animal feed, cereal crops, hops, cattle and pigs, with much of the produce being sold in nearby Antwerp. Working men were employed as labourers, stockmen, wheelwrights, blacksmiths, millers and other country trades, and there were many small shops within the town, as well as the weekly market which sold a variety of local produce. Many people grew their own vegetables and kept chickens in their back gardens. It was common for wives to brew beer, which they sold in their front parlours to thirsty workmen; at the turn of the century there were over 50 small enterprises in Kontich making a little extra money in this way. There was no division between town and country as each had to support the other. Life followed the rhythms of the agricultural year, seed-time and harvest, as it had for centuries.

Although it was small the town supported a number of manufacturing industries including a brick factory, a textile mill where skilled workers made coats similar to those originating from nearby Duffel, and a hat maker’s. Antwerp was the diamond centre of Europe and in Kontich at least 30 small enterprises employed people to polish the rough stones. In 1910 the first steam-driven engine was installed near the town centre which powered a series of belts to spin the polishing surfaces at high speed. The finished diamonds were returned to Antwerp for setting and sale in the smart jewellers’ shops near the station.

Divisions between the social classes were very pronounced in Belgium in the early years of the twentieth century just as they were in Edwardian Britain. The growing population of the country included an increasingly prosperous middle class who were keen to point out the differences between themselves and ordinary working people. Businessmen formed the better-off section of society along with the priests, teachers, police and a few civil servants. There were many small entrepreneurs and tradesmen who in turn employed their assistants and delivery staff from the male population of the town. Very few had motor vehicles, a great status symbol for the rich, but horse-drawn transport and bicycles were the norm. It was not uncommon to see Belgian Mastiffs pulling small carts; these strong, docile dogs were used all over the country as draught animals in towns as well as on the farms. The people of Kontich travelled further afield on the efficient network of trains and once in Brussels or Antwerp took the tram.

Middle-class women were expected to stay at home, run the household and raise the family; all professions were closed to women and it was not thought respectable to carry out paid work. Housewives in more affluent families relied on washerwomen and cleaners to help them with heavy chores. These women from the lower strata of society had little choice; they needed to earn money in order to supplement their husbands’ wages, which were often seasonal.

The Ballegeers moved to the Magdalenastraat close to the town centre. Number 17 was a larger than average house, with a room either side of the front door. On the right