Dinant

To understand the city of Dinant, just like most other things, one must look towards the past to see how it shaped this charming town’s present state. The current town of Dinant’s history began in 1914. If that date sounds familiar for some reason it’s because it is the start of World War I. Germany, who was arguably the main instigator in this conflict, had a brilliant plan: invade and defeat France before the Soviet army can invade Germany. The only problem with this plan was the fact that to get into France the German’s decided to invade Belgium first. Now, Belgium, at this junction in their history, was a neutral state, meaning they had no army. England and France protected this little country. So as German troops marched towards France they were met by French troops in Dinant. Starting on August 6th a bloody battle broke out between the German’s and the French with the French finally having to retreat further into the west. Unfortunately, as the French retreated the citizens of Dinant were left unprotected. This wouldn’t have been a problem except the Germans were pissed for two reasons: there had been reports of civilian snipers (after further investigation this claim was found to be fruitless) and more importantly they did not expect resistance this early on in the war. These angered, most likely intoxicated, German soldiers took it out on the people of Dinant. Men, women, and even children were executed and beaten and the majority of the town was burnt to rubble.

After the war came to an end the residence of Dinant were given two options: rebuild in a modern way or replicate the old Dinant. The people in Dinant chose the latter. The town was replicated to its former glory and is that way to this day. Knowing the history of a town changes ones perspective of it as one walks down the streets. The knowledge that someone may have sacrificed their life for their country right where you are standing changes the meaning behind that stone, the viewpoint, that building. The knowledge of the past enables us to appreciate the present far more than we ever could without it. Walking down the river that passes through Dinant I was drawn to the water for some reason. Stopping and staring at the way this fluid mirror moved the image of the sky an extreme peace fell over me. For some unexplainable reason I doubt that this peace would have been achieved without the knowledge of the turmoil which occurred on the very shore I stood on more than a century prior. It’s an odd thing: turmoil bringing about peace. It seems paradoxical and yet when we look throughout our lives it is the truth. Extremes inflate each other. When you wake up in the middle of the night and someone turns on a light it’s blinding, even though it is the same level of brightness that it has always been. In this case it was the lack of turmoil that highlighted the peace.