
1914 : Going to war
Wireless Telegraphy
On 19 August 1939, the most contradictory rumours were circulating in Brussels. Some asserted that the German soldiers, already in Leuven, were storming on the capital. Others, more optimistic, claimed that the city was protected by a belt of Belgian troops. Around one o’clock in the afternoon, a thunderous explosion was heard through Laeken Park, next to the Van Praet Bridge. The Germans? No, the Belgians. The engineers had just blasted the telegraph office. The enemy, at the gates of Brussels, could not be permitted to seize this exceptional means of information transmission.
© In Flanders Fields