Belgian War Graves Vottem

Vottem

Belgium Liège Vottem

In the municipal cemetery of Vottem (Herstal) near Liège, the war memorial has 11 soldiers buried from the First and Second World Wars. Also buried at the monument are a number of veterans.

Buried are;

DEFAUWES Guillaume , age 26, soldier with the Regiment Fortresse de Liège (R.F.L.) of Fort Barchon, killed at Trembleur on May 11, 1940.

-under construction 19-1-2025-

*Suicide among soldiers was not uncommon during the 1st World War. The desperate situation at the front, deprivation from cold, hunger, thirst, lack of sleep, disease, constant presence of stench from decomposing soldiers and horses, noise from bombing and gunfire, screaming wounded comrades and horses, the sight of badly wounded soldiers (friends) the fear of being wounded or being mutilated, the fear of poison gases and flamethrowers, inadequate medical facilities, strict military discipline and last but not least the fear of never seeing loved ones again, however strange in suicide, could drive soldiers to the limit. Even nervedamage now known as PTSD, then as shellshock, kriegsneurose or Choque de geure, could turn soldiers into mental wrecks in just weeks at the front.

If, after some rest or treatment, they were found fit for duty at the front again, they preferred suicide to the conditions that had led to their overload. Indicating how badly they had suffered.

Incidentally, shellshock was initially a diagnosis of damage to the small capillaries in the brain. If soldiers were in the vicinity of a heavy explosion of a shell, the pressurewave could damage the small capillaries in the brain was the notion of medics at the time. Hence the term shellshock was linked to this. Later the term was used more to diagnose the mental decline of soldiers who became completely exhausted from the frontier experiences described above. To reduce the number of shellshock diagnoses, the diagnosis itself was banned from use at some point because it could “ instigate” other soldiers to abandon combat for this reason. The term “not yet diagnosed illness of the heart” was introduced.

Soldiers and officers with shellshock were treated completely differently. Soldiers with shellshock were, because of their descent from the lower social class. With soldiers, it was labeled as character weakness. And thus logical that they were not up to life at the front. They were treated near the front including electrocution where wires were attached to the tongue (if they no longer wanted or could talk) or genitals to “cure” soldiers so that they preferred the front to this treatment. At the time, a logical consequence of class in which one was in whatever was not considered inhumane. On the other hand, it was also partly experimental. One actually did not knew how to treat soldiers who were completely apathetic, mute, capable of nothing more. Was it a way to escape the front? Now, of course, we look at it completely differently.

Among officers, the elite from well-to-do circles, it was seen as a real affliction for which rest in rest homes located far behind the front was often prescribed. They could return to the front after months of rest, whether or not up to the horrors that awaited them again.