There should be no link with football and the Red Devils. No, the Belgian Union is, in this case, today, a mutual society which owns a retirement home which served as a military hospital for Belgian soldiers during the First World War.
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Black-yellow-red solidarity
In 1886, there were nearly 500,000 Belgians in France. Ten percent of them live in Paris and its immediate suburbs. “They formed the largest foreign community in France for a long time, until the Italians overtook it in the 1910s”explains Paul de Gerlache. “In Paris, Belgians then worked on construction sites in the Haussmann neighborhoods or on the line 1 metro site. It was the Empain group which obtained the concession. It brought in its Belgian workers who had already been able to participate in similar work, over time, families begin to settle permanently in Paris and around the capital. But they cannot benefit from Public Assistance in France since it is reserved for French people.
To help these immigrant families, their compatriots, Belgian patrons, founded the Belgian Union in 1888, a mutual aid society, which received the support of the royal family and the Belgian government. “Then quickly came the question of the retirement home. The Belgian Union then bought land in Courbevoie in 1909 to build its own establishment. It achieved this with the financial help of Ferdinand Bischoffsheim and his sister Clara de Hirsch. She called on a renowned architect, Ernest Sanson, who only worked for large families and bourgeoisie. We owe him the private mansion of the Bischoffsheim family in Paris, which is today the headquarters of the Baccarat company. The retirement home opened its doors in 1912. Then came the start of the Great War. The invasion of Belgium began on August 4, 1914.
While Paul de Gerlache, a passionate memory-bearer, recounts the history of the place, families who have come to visit their loved ones settle down in the reception room. While they are talking, the president of the Belgian Union then takes us around the owner, to the large park at the back of the site.
For convalescing soldiers
“The first days of the war were extremely bloody and the wounded were repatriated to the Paris region. Refugees flocked in. They were in complete destitution, having been unable to take anything with them. From the start, and at the request of the Belgian legation in Paris, that is to say the embassy, the Belgian Union takes care of Belgian refugees as well as Belgian militiamen wanting to join their units. It distributes, for example, food vouchers, milk vouchers and water. ‘money. In November 1914, the French government decided to grant a daily allowance to Belgian and French refugees.”
Care of the wounded was organized in France and the Courbevoie retirement home, then managed by the Belgian Amélie Beruard, also became a military hospital, number 118. At the start of the war, thirty residents occupied the premises, which had 75 beds. Accommodation capacity then increases to accommodate more injured people. The council room is transformed into a pharmacy.
The site mainly houses convalescing soldiers. “Many of them come from the Albert I hospital in Paris, a wing assigned to the Belgian army of the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, where the seriously injured are treated.”
Soldiers generally spend several months in military hospital No. 118. Once recovered, they went to a reformation camp near Le Mans (Sarthe), before being reassigned to a unit and returning to the front.
At the same time, the Belgian Union continues its relief, charitable and retirement home missions. Patrons and organizations, including the press union, fund the coffers. Times are tough, inflation is rampant. At the military hospital, part of the park is transformed into a vegetable garden.
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Visit of Albert I
Celebrities go to the bedside of convalescents. Among them: Baron François Empain, very involved in organizing relief for Belgian families. In March 1915, the visit of President Raymond Poincaré to military hospital No. 118 was broadcast in Parisian cinemas.
Shortly after the signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918, on December 5, King Albert I goes to Paris. Very popular in France, it is acclaimed by the locals. The next day, the Knight King went to Courbevoie with his son, Léopold III. A few months later, Amélie Beruard received the medal from Queen Elisabeth, the Queen Nurse.
In total, military hospital No. 118 welcomed 4,897 soldiers during the First World War: 4,046 Belgians and 851 French. The site then fully became a retirement home again, until today.
Belgians living in France now have access to social security, the Belgian Union no longer necessarily welcomes Belgian retirees. However, she is keen to bring this part of her history to life, that of her little-known action during the First World War.
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