This war criminal is still a hero here

De Ruyter, for example, defended the interests of the VOC that grew up by the slave trade. And what about David Hendrik Chassé (1765-1849), the soldier who still enjoys hero status in Breda? Chassé is an ordinary war criminal, say our southern neighbors.

Those who walk through Breda cannot ignore him. The theater in the city, where there is also a bust of him, bears his name, just like the huge parking area diagonally opposite and the parking garage under the town hall.

There was also a barracks complex in the city center that has been transformed into a residential area called Chassépark. The most important building of that former army place contains the Breda’s Museum, the City Archives and the archaeological depot of the municipality of Breda.

As a ten -year -old into the army
David Hendrik Chassé is born in Tiel in 1765 and goes into the army as a ten -year -old (!). He soon grows into a real iron eater that fights many wars and battles. He quickly makes a career and is an officer six years later.

Eventually he ends up in a French military service, partly because he shoots someone during a duel, and he (now as a general) fights against the Spaniards. This during the horrible Spanish War of Independence (1807-1812) where executions, rapes and massacres are the order of the day.

Lodewijk Napoleon, who is then named King of the Netherlands by his older brother Napoleon, is very much in his mind with the heroic deeds of Chassé and gives him the title Baron. Not only the commanders walk away with our soldier, his men also love him and call him affectionately ‘Dad Chassé’.

Napoleon even gives him the nickname Général Baïonette, because Chassé prefers to fight a bayonet, a large knife that was stabbed on the course of a gun.

In 1814 the professional soldier switched to the Dutch army and a year later he is directly opposed to his French admirers. And Chassé cannot resist distinguishes itself and plays an important role in the French defeat during the Battle of Waterloo.

King William I, the very first King of the Netherlands of Oranje-Nassau, has an eye for his exceptional acts of war and appoints him as commander in the Willems Order. A military award that the King has recently created himself. Another, to say the least, not entirely undisputed Brabant hero Marco Kroon received it in 2009.

It doesn’t stop for Chassé with that first pin. In 1832 he even received the grand cross in this military knighthood, although he only really gets it a year later. He is trapped. The French fascinated him after he defends the citadel of Antwerp with his troops for almost a month against a ten times as large French army before he still has to capitulate.

Do the Belgians therefore regard him as a war criminal? No, that is because of what he did shortly before. In 1830 the Belgian rebellion against Dutch rule begins. Belgian insurgents break a newly closed ceasefire and make many victims in Antwerp.

Chassé does not leave that in itself and decides to shoot the Scheldtad for no less than 7.5 hours with cannons. Hundreds of Antwerp residents are killed and the destruction in the city is great. The promotion works, because a new file is closed. But since then, for the Belgians, the name Chassé has been sticking to this bloody act forever, which according to current standards can be regarded as a war crime.

In 1834, Chassé became commander of the Vesting Breda, he will stay until 1839. He dies ten years later and is buried in the cemetery in Ginneken. His remains are eventually transferred to the tomb at the citadel monument, a little further on the church. There are also bodies of his men who died in the defense of the Citadel of Antwerp.