The Birtley Belgians

The Birtley Belgians are heroes of World War I. Their story was, until comparatively recently, known to a fairly small number of people in and around the village of Birtley, County Durham, England as well as a dwindling number of Belgians – and even then only imperfectly.

The Great War

The Birtley Belgians are the heroes of a tale known only to a fairly small number of people in the Northeast and to a rapidly dwindling number of Belgians, and even then only imperfectly. The primary reason for this is that so little has been written about them, in print or on line, until fairly recently. Moreover, as the website dedicated to Birtley-Elisabethville points out, ‘the 79 boxes of official documents returned to Brussels from Britain seem to have totally disappeared in the course of time’. (The shelling of Brussels during World War Two seems an obvious culprit.) The story starts in the early stages of World War One, when Britain at last realised that its armaments were no match in either effectiveness or numbers for those being put to horribly efficient use by a fully modernised German Army. Indeed, so bad were things as far as ammunition was concerned that the Commander in Chief of the British Army, Lord French, had apparently had to order at least some of the big guns at the front to fire no more than ten shells per day, in order to conserve ammunition! When the news of this, the great Shell Scandal , was leaked, in March 1915, the Asquith government had no option but to resign immediately. The new Government of National Unity at once appointed David Lloyd George as their new Minister of Munitions, and his department set about building munitions factories all over the country, including one next to the little village of Birtley in County Durham, just south of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, commissioning Armstrong-Whitworth of Tyneside to construct and run it, along with a neighbouring cartridge factory. One large problem arose, however – finding people to work in them, seeing that most British munitions workers were by now at the front (and probably cursing the fact that there was no ammo for the guns!), while most of the female workforce was already in employment in other factories.

Approach to Belgium

Prior to the war, Belgium had been regarded as the foremost European country for the manufacture of armaments. A suggestion was made by Graham Spicer , an official in the Ministry of Munitions who had worked in Belgium before the war and knew its armaments manufacturing capabilities, that perhaps its Government might be able to help. An approach was made, and the result was that 1000 volunteers – skilled Belgian armaments workers – were withdrawn from the front (albeit with great reluctance on the Belgian Government’s part, since they were badly need there) to help train other volunteers. As the result of another suggestion (possibly from Spicer as well) most of these volunteers were drawn from the pool of soldiers who had been badly wounded at the front and declared unfit to return there … but not deemed unfit to do a job of work, and who were still keen to serve their country in some way rather than lie around a rehabilitation centre doing nothing but basket-making, for example – quite a common feature of hospitals for war-wounded soldiers in those days. It was quickly realised that these men could not just be dumped into any old armaments factory because of two problems – the obvious one of language (most Belgian soldiers had little or no English) and totally different working practices. Thus it was decided to man one or two of the factories with only Belgians and put purely Belgian management teams in charge, with a British supervisory team alongside to check on the financial aspects of the job. After all, it was the British government who was paying for everything, even if the Belgian government was finding the workers. Birtley was chosen as one of these sites. Overall day-to-day control passed from Armstrong-Whitworth to the Belgian management team, led by M Hubert Debauche , Director-General until the outbreak of war of a large and well-known iron and steel manufacturing firm in Gilly, near Charleroi, Belgium. (The British firm was not at all pleased by this about-face – it was allowed to keep the cartridge factory, however – and seems to have done all it could to be unhelpful from then on, as an report (again unpublished, here taken from the private archives of Hubert Debauche) sent to the British Government in February 1916 by the Belgian management team at the time forcefully points out.)

New munitions factory

So, late in 1915, several hundred Belgians started making their way from military hospitals in France, Belgium and England to the factory at Birtley, County Durham , to begin their all-important job of making shells to help regain their own country from the enemy. Over the next few months their numbers steadily grew until there were about 3500 of them. After many delays due mainly to the usual administrative ‘oversights’ (and Armstrong-Whitworth’s intransigence) – including not having either the factory or the accommodation anywhere near ready when the first men arrived to start work – limited production began at the end of the year but only got into full swing in the spring of 1916, well over a year after the contract had been handed to Armstrong-Whitworth, producing 5”, 6” and 8” shells of several types for the British Government. Yet throughout 1916 morale in the factory went slowly downhill. It should have been fairly obvious to most that this could not go on for much longer, but nothing was done to alleviate the problem, though consultations were going on between Whitehall and Birtley on how best to deal with any unrest that night occur in the factory. (After all, this was the era when trades-unionism was very much on the increase.) Another problem was that in practice the Colony was policed by Belgian gendarmes but in theory they were working under British rule of law, very different from their own. As just one example, back home the gendarmes were allowed to carry pistols at all times: here they were not allowed to be armed except under special circumstances and only then with the approval of the British police. Finally, on December 20th 1916, it all came to a head. One of the workers went to see Captain Algrain, Military Head of Security, in order to obtain four days leave, to which he was entitled. Suddenly the captain noticed that the man, though wearing his regulation uniform, was sporting a civilian cap. Enraged at this ‘breach of discipline’, he had the man sent directly to the cells for four days, to join two others who had attempted to leave the camp in civvies. The rest of the workforce quickly got to hear about this act. Next morning a hand-written note was found pinned up in one of the workshops. It read: ‘This evening at 6.30, everyone to the Gendarmerie to free our two comrades punished by six days in clink for going out in civvies. BE THERE! Tell your friends, as well as the day shift.’ That evening the alerted gendarmes suddenly saw a large crowd of about 2000 men making its angry way towards the gendarmerie. The fence around it was torn up and a hail of palings and stones crashed through the windows, causing a few minor casualties and creating panic among the gendarmes. A full-scale riot was only just averted by the arrival of local British police chiefs and representatives of the British management team, who managed to calm the workers down. It was agreed to set up a commission of enquiry into all complaints, common sense prevailed and peace was restored. No blame was apportioned, but Captain Algrain was replaced as Head of Security by a Captain Commandant Noterman. (Hubert Debauche wrote later that he thought Algrain too young to hold such a responsible position.) From then on the workers devoted themselves much more readily to the task they had volunteered for. For almost three years these ‘war-wounded’ worked day and night shifts – one week days, next week nights – in conditions of extreme heat and noise. (There was no Factories Act in those days.) Fabry again: ‘A visit to the workshops always makes a deep impression. ‘At the forges hirsute men, stripped to the waist, move rapidly and methodically in front of the ovens. The bars of iron, heated to an exact temperature, are swallowed by the presses and moulded into the desired shape in a second. The rough form of a shell, glowing bright red, and carrying on its flank the first identification marks, is then rolled towards the yard, like a beautiful but terrible toy, a friend of the graves. As soon as the shell has cooled enough, skilful hands take it, smooth and polish it, and finish it to perfection.’ But it was dangerous work, and the hospital had a steady stream of ‘work-wounded’ to deal with, some minor, some much more serious. As an example, here is part of the story of one man. Franciscus Peeters was employed in the ammunition factory to help maintain the machinery. One day he went to inspect the interior of one of the machines on the shell-shop. The current was supposed to be switched off at his request, but for some reason his colleague failed to do so. The machine suddenly started up and ripped his left arm off in an instant. It is amazing he survived, but he did. Because of his handicap he was given the choice between a lump sum (unknown amount) or a monthly payment. Seen the difficult circumstances he chooses the first solution. (He also became the projectionist for the camp cinema.) Still, it was on the whole better than at the Front.

New village

It was obvious from the start that all these men could not be billeted on Birtley, so it was agreed to build a village alongside the factory. The Colony (as the Belgians called it) was laid out d somewhat on the lines of a Garden City with broad streets and open spaces and was provided with a foodstore and butcher’s; several other shops based in people’s homes; a Roman Catholic church; a 100-bed hospital; plus a laundry and bathhouse, not to mention a school for about 600 pupils (which was planned to last for about ten years but in actual fact closed after sixty-three). There was a sovereign British Sub-Post Office, on sovereign Belgian soil, selling British stamps and postal orders, etc. but staffed by Belgian postal workers! They even had their own football pitch. For live entertainment of various sorts, they had the use of the nearby Birtley Hall, normally the local cinema and theatre. There was little need for the Belgians to go into Birtley, though of course curiosity about how ‘those British’ lived soon got the better of them. At the same time, the British and Belgian governments set about re-uniting the married men with their families (many of them having been forced to flee Belgium in the face of the German onslaught) through a variety of relief agencies established by all sorts of philanthropic groups. So, in the course of time, a Belgian ‘colony’ of well over 6000 people was established alongside the British village of Birtley. The rented accommodation provided consisted of sturdy prefabricated wooden buildings, either barrack blocks for the single men or terraced houses for families. These were surprisingly well built and furnished, with all mod. cons – hot and cold running water, electric lighting, even indoor toilets … unlike most of Birtley at that time! And almost certainly an improvement on the homes they had been forced to abandon back in Belgium. As for the soldiers’ views, as Camille Fabry, who worked in the factory from January 1917 until the Armistice, wrote in his book ‘Nos Hors-combat à Elisabethville-Birtley’ says: ‘Life isn't bad in the blocks. Our soldiers, well acquainted with the pleasures of barrack-room floors and the soothing mud of the trenches, hardly ever complain about the conditions here. It's not perfect, but at least it's comfortable.’ The canteen for the single workers provided good nourishing meals – with a choice of starter, main course and sweet, apparently, all at a modest cost, two teams of cooks working tirelessly to keep the men satisfied. (Married men were expected to return home to be fed.) Conditions in the factory were not so agreeable, however. The main problem was that several foremen and departmental heads regarded everyone as still being in the army – which they were, but only in theory, since most had been officially ‘discharged’ as unfit for active service at the front – and ruled the workshops under the full might of military law. One of the main clauses of that military law was that the men should wear military uniform at all times. ‘At all times’ meant everywhere except in the home – on the streets of the village, going out into Birtley itself (with appropriate military pass) and above all at work … even if that necessitated working for hours on end next to one of the furnaces operating at several hundred degrees. As both day and night shifts ran for twelve hours, with one hour off in the middle for a meal, one can imagine the hell the furnace workers or those moving the hot shells about the factory had to undergo. Another section of the law laid that whenever men left the camp, they had to wear full uniform – even if they were just going along the road to have a drink and meet English friends in one of the pubs in Birtley. The catch was that, apart from most of the pubs in Birtley being out of bounds in any case (as agreed jointly by the British and Belgian authorities – to prevent over-indulgence or too much ‘hob-knobbing’ with the natives were the ‘reasons’), the Belgian soldier was not supposed to enter a British pub in uniform! On top of that, the British police seem to have been extremely worried about violent confrontations between the locals and the Belgians, ignoring the fact that violent confrontation had long been a normal feature of life in Birtley, especially at weekends. (On the other hand it has to be said that there was not always an atmosphere of sweetness and light within the Colony or the factory due to the constant antipathy between the Flemish and the French halves of the community, especially as the management was almost exclusively Walloon and the shop-floor workers all Flemish.)

Charitable activities

The men had a limited amount of spare time, but it is amazing how many societies they formed – literary, musical, dramatic and sporting, etc. It is even more amazing however that all these societies had but one main aim – to raise money for British and Belgian wartime charities. The total amount raised probably equates to hundreds of thousands of pounds today, if not millions. For well over two years these ‘war-wounded’ worked day and night shifts – one week days, next week nights – of 12 hours, with an hour off in the middle for a meal, in conditions of extreme heat and noise. (There was no Factories Act in those days!) Still, it was better than at the Front.

The Armistice

But with the Armistice the whole enterprise came to a sudden end as the Belgians were quickly repatriated. The village became a ghost town, taken over (for free) by the local poor and homeless, the factory was partly sold off, and in the 1930s the work of demolition began. Now all that is left are two blocks that were once the food-store and the butcher’s.

Epilogue

The Birtley Belgians, 85% ‘war-wounded’, made their mark, however: they produced the shells they were asked to make at a rate far better than that of any National Projectile Factory in the land. A magnificent epitaph indeed! They are gone but not forgotten. Almost – but not quite.

References

Unfortunately, articles containing any details relating to the Birtley Belgians that are readily available, certainly via the internet, are few and far between. The author of 'Arms and The Heroes' obtained much of his information from private sources initially, though a fair amount of material was obtained from the archives of the creator of the Belgian website mentioned below.

• The Birtley Belgians by McMurtrie & Schlesinger: first pub. 1987 History of Education Project (o.o.p.); 5th edition pub.2003 History of Education Project, Miners Hall, Red Hill, Durham DH1 4BB (GB)
• Arms & the Heroes by John G Bygate, first pub. 2006, also by HEP.

External links

• http://www.birtley-elisabethville.be (in French)