War Memorial Nimy

War memorial at Nimy to commemorate the military and the civilian victims of the First World War. The monument also commemorates the veterans of this war.

An information table near the memorial contains the following text:

Between August and October 1914, 6.000 civilians were killed by German soldiers in Belgium and Northern France. Whereas the Germans considered these actions as legitimate reprisals, the people and governments of Belgium, France and the United Kingdom called them atrocities.
On 23 August 1914, German troops massacred civilians in several villages near Mons. These massacres were directly linked to the fighting at the Battle of Mons and were opportunity for the troops, exhausted by forced marches and surprised by the resistance put up by the forts of Liège, to take their revenge against the Belgians. Fire from British troops and some "friendly fire" led to bloody reprisals. Twenty-two civilians were killed in the village of Nimy alone. Quaregnon, Mons, , Ville- Pommerœul, Flénu and Jemappes were not spared either; a total of around a hundred victims was recorded in the region. The German troops also set fire to hundreds of houses. Investigations after the war produced no evidence of any organised civilian resistance during the first two months of the conflict.

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