At the time of the August invasion, after the
Battle of Charleroi, the French tried to halt the Germans at the
Somme. Not being in sufficient force, they retreated, crossing the
river and the canal. The enemy immediately pursued. Marcelle Semer,
who was following the French troops, had the presence of mind, after
the last soldier had crossed the Somme Canal, to open the drawbridge
in order to prevent the Germans from crossing it, and to hurl the key
to the bridge into the canal in order that they might not take it from
her when they came up. An entire enemy army corps was thus detained
for twenty-four hours by this young girl's presence of mind; and it
was only on the following day that the enemy, having found some boats
on the Somme, made a bridge of them and passed over the canal. But the
French soldiers were already far away.
The Germans were masters of the neighborhood for some days. They
seized the inhabitants as hostages and shut them up in a cave.
Marcelle Semer secretly carried them food. She also carried
sustenance to other inhabitants who had hidden in the woods or in
cellars. She succored and concealed the soldiers whom wounds or
fatigue had prevented from following the main body of troops. She
contrived that sixteen of them, dressed as civilians, escaped.
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