The Postcard
A postally unused card postale that was published by E.G. The card has an undivided back.
Tournai
Tournai is a city of Wallonia located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. It lies 85 km (53 mi) southwest of Brussels on the river Scheldt. Its population in 2018 was 69,554 individuals.
Tournai is one of the oldest cities in Belgium, and has played an important role in the country's cultural history. It was the first capital of the Frankish Empire, with Clovis I being born here.
During the 15th century, the city's textile trade boomed and it became an important supplier of tapestries. The art of painting flourished too: Jacques Daret, Robert Campin and Rogier van der Weyden all came from Tournai.
Tournai was captured in 1513 by Henry VIII of England, making it the only Belgian city ever to have been ruled by England. It was also represented in the 1515 Parliament of England. The city was handed back to French rule in 1519, following the 1518 Treaty of London.
In 1521, Emperor Charles V added the city to his possessions in the Low Countries, leading to a period of religious strife and economic decline. During the 16th. century, Tournai was a bulwark of Calvinism, but eventually it was conquered by the Spanish governor of the Low Countries, the Duke of Parma, following a prolonged siege in 1581.
After the fall of the city, its Protestant inhabitants were given one year to sell their possessions and emigrate, a policy that was at the time considered relatively humane, since very often religious opponents were simply massacred.
One century later, in 1668, the city briefly returned to France under Louis XIV in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. After the end of the War of Spanish Succession in 1713, the former Spanish Netherlands, including Tournai, came into possession of the Austrian Habsburgs.
In 1794, France annexed the Austrian Netherlands during the French Revolutionary Wars and Tournai became part of the department of Jemmape. From 1815 on, following the Napoleonic Wars, Tournai formed part of the United Netherlands, and after 1830, of newly independent Belgium. Badly damaged in 1940, Tournai has since been carefully restored.
The Monument des Français
The monument in the photograph is dedicated to the French soldiers killed fighting in Antwerp in 1832. The tall column is surmounted by a female figure who holds aloft a palm, the symbol of peace and reconciliation.
Around the base are bas-reliefs by the French sculptor Camille Debert (1866-1935) which show scenes from Antwerp's siege, including soldiers preparing to fire cannons and French officers in discussion with Maréchal Gerard.
The monument bears the Coat of Arms of Tournai. The inauguration ceremony took place on the 19th. September 1897.
Gabrielle Petit
Gabrielle Petit was born in Tournai on the 20th. February 1893.
Gabrielle Alina Eugenia Maria Petit was a Belgian woman who spied for the British Secret Service during the Great War. She was executed in 1916, and became a Belgian national heroine after the war's end.
The Life of Gabrielle Petit
Gabrielle was born to working-class parents. She was raised in a Catholic boarding school in Brugelette following her mother's early death. At the outbreak of the Great War, she was living in Brussels as a saleswoman. She immediately volunteered to serve with the Belgian Red Cross.
Petit's espionage activities began in 1914, when she helped her wounded soldier fiancé, Maurice Gobert, cross the border to the Netherlands to reunite with his regiment. She passed along to British Intelligence information about the Imperial German army acquired during the trip.
The British soon hired her, gave her brief training, and sent her to spy on the enemy. She proceeded to collect information about enemy troop movements using a number of false identities.
Gabrielle was also an active distributor of the clandestine newspaper La Libre Belgique, and she also assisted the underground mail service "Mot du Soldat". She helped several more young men across the Dutch border.
Arrest and Execution
Petit was betrayed by a German who represented himself as Dutch. She was arrested by the German military in February 1916. She was imprisoned at the Prison de Sint-Gillis, tried, and convicted of espionage, with the death sentence imposed on the following 1st. March.
During her trial, Petit refused to reveal the identities of her fellow agents, despite offers of amnesty.
Among such agents, Germaine Gabrielle Anna Scaron, aged 23, daughter of a local magistrate, and a close friend of Gabrielle Petit, was arrested with her on similar charges. She was also imprisoned but spared and, despite the opposition of the German military, released later for lack of sufficient evidence, which Petit had refused to divulge.
On the 1st. April 1916, Gabrielle Petit was, at the insistence of German military, shot by a firing squad at the Tir national execution field in Schaerbeek. Gabrielle was 23 years of age when she died. Her body was buried in the grounds there.
The Legacy of Gabrielle Petit
Petit's name appears on the war memorial at the Enclosure of the Executed, Schaerbeek.
Petit's story remained unknown until after the war, when she began to be seen as a martyr for the nation. In May 1919 a state funeral was held for her, attended by Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, Cardinal Mercier of Brussels and Prime Minister Léon Delacroix, after which her remains (and those of fellow agents A. Bodson and A. Smekens) were laid to rest with full military honors at Schaerbeek Cemetery.
A statue of Petit was erected in Brussels, and this was said to be the first of a working-class woman. In her native Tournai, a square was named after her. After the war several books were written and films were made about her life.