On February 7th, the 5th Brigade moved by rail to the outskirts of Charleroi where it disentrained. The snow still covered the ground and as the 20th marched to billets at Montigny-le-Tilleuil, a suburb of Charleroi, it was soundly snowballed by the population as it marched along.

Here again all ranks were comfortably billeted in houses, the Battalion Officers Mess being installed in an estaminet next to the Church. There was no work of any kind to do and everyone was allowed leave into Charleroi every day after morning parade, the main idea being to amuse oneself until such time as it was time to return to Australia. I had given up my occupation as Sports Officer since by this time the strength of the battalions had dwindled down so much that it was nearly impossible to arrange inter-battalion matches, etc. there being a dearth of players in the various branches of sport. Football had not been entirely abandoned, however, but it was carried on on a larger scale. Instead of Brigade competitions, there was a Divisional Rugby, Soccer and Australian Rules football competition and some splendid games were witnessed. As a result the 2nd Div won the Soccer and Rugby competitions.

In Charleroi, the various Brigade concert troupes had taken over public halls and gave frequent concerts of a vaudeville nature. Also there were three picture theatres in going order, dancing classes and educational lectures were also held on suitable occasions and were largely patronised, some of the lectures especially being very interesting. All ranks were encouraged to see as much as possible and a special kind of tourist and information bureau was inaugurated for the convenience of anyone wishing to visit historical places and its services were largely availed of. Special educational tours were arranged for parties as coal mines, glass works, the Technical School and many other similar places of interest. On one occasion an Army boxing tournament was organised between the Australians and the Belgians, which was held in a hall of the University du Travail or Technical College, whilst privately conducted boxing contests frequently took place at night time in the various public halls.

So that there were many ways of filling in the time, both during the day time and at night. Charleroi was really a collection of separate towns in the region known in Belgium as the “Black Country” each place having grown to such an extent that they had all merged into one city of some 270,000 people, which for brevity’s sake was called Charleroi. The main industries were glass working, coal mining, engineering etc. The Germans however, during their occupation of the area, had as usual systematically removed machinery, destroyed the mines by flooding and had done other damage to the extent of over 2 million francs. Running through the main portion of Charleroi was the canal which on account of the fall of the country was locked at intervals and was crowded with barges per medium of which great quantities of coal and other goods were moved about the country at a very cheap rate.

The snow was still with us and as the ponds and ground was frozen to a great depth, skating and sliding was a Common pastime, especially amongst the men and civilian youths. Near Charleroi at its southern end, was situated the ruined Abbey D’Aulne of ancient construction and destroyed during the occupation of the Spaniards, to which I paid a visit. Also near by in another direction there was a large German military cemetery containing over 5,000 soldiers graves, all of which were marked by a uniform stone headstone giving details of the person interred. These men had for the most part been killed in the fighting during the early months of the war when German troops rushed across Belgium in 1914.