POTTER United Families

Jean de Potter, by prof. Laurence van Ypersele,
Commissionner General of “End of WW1 Memorial”
Some patriots engage from the beginning of the occupation in hiding
to harm the enemy, galvanize patriotism in occupied countries,
participate in the victory.
It was at the request of the Allied and Belgian staffs that the first
intelligence networks were organized at the end of 1914.
These resistants came from all horizons and from all over the
country. The observation of enemy forces, transport of equipment
and troops to be done 24 hours a day, it is often entire families who
commit themselves.
The repression was not slow to organize. From the spring of 1915,
the first networks are dismantled. To raise terror, until 1916, the
occupant displays the names of executed patriots. The networks of
men smugglers, from the spontaneous help of Belgian and French
citizens to soldiers cut off from their lines during the war of
movement, are another form of engagement against the occupier.
These networks perpetuate themselves to feed the front with war
volunteers. Indeed, the duration of the war raises new vocations,
especially among those who, like Jean de Potter in 1914, were too
young to engage and who, two or three years later, wish to join their
elders on the front of the Yser for fight the weapons in the hand.
To do this, we must thwart the surveillance of the occupant and cross
the Dutch border (electrified since 1915). In total, over the entire
duration of the war, the Belgian army welcomed some 32,000
volunteers.
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