Gemert ontsnapt aan een ramp

Gemert escapes disaster.

1603

With this encounter we have struck

It is already the thirty-fifth year of the war that began in 1568 and of which no one knows how long the battle will continue. Now it has come to the attention of the governor of Bossche, Grobbendonck, two weeks ago that a group of six hundred Dutch horsemen, including a division of Prince Maurice, is passing through the Kempen. Dutch troops, those are enemies! Grobbendonck came to Gemert without delay with two hundred horsemen and four hundred foot soldiers to lay an ambush here. He demanded quartering of all his horsemen and their lancers, and those six hundred warriors were all given a bedstead or a straw sack and a roof over their heads.

'The plan is to close in on the Dutch the moment all six hundred of them are in the village. And we, we will lie in buscades and strike at the right time.'

Of course, you're not going to say things disagreeable to him to a governor who has six hundred men walking around here in the village, but we in Gemert are not happy.

'Six hundred from Grobbendonck and soon also six hundred Dutchmen. And they are going to fight here. Not much will remain of the village!'

Fortunately, the Bossche governor's cunning plan largely failed because, on the approach of the opponents, his infantry, a little too enthusiastically, immediately attacked the Dutch vanguard, consisting of only twenty-five horsemen. Although a few horsemen were killed, most managed to retreat to their own main force.

'That lying in buscades no longer made sense then, Grobbendonck realized as well. He attacked the entire enemy group with his own horsemen, not in the village, but in the open field. As many as sixty or seventy Dutchmen remained dead.'

Furthermore, during this encounter at Gemert, two lieutenants, two standard-bearers and over one hundred soldiers were captured. And, not unimportantly, Grobbendonck was able to take sixty-one captured horses to Den Bosch.

He would not say anything about his own losses, but in Gemert everyone breathes a sigh of relief. The houses are still there, the church has not been destroyed, nothing has been burned down, nor has there been looting. So it ended well, but it was close.