Jacques Davignon

Jacques-Henri-Charles-François Davignon (born February 15, 1887 in Brussels , † October 10, 1965 in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre / Sint-Pieters-Woluwe ) was a Belgian diplomat .

Life

After studying law at the Catholic University of Leuven , he joined the foreign service in 1911 and was accredited in Berlin from December 11, 1913 . On July 26, 1914, the Belgian ambassador in Berlin, Eugène Beyens , sent him as a courier, with a situation report, to his father Julien Davignon , the Belgian foreign minister. On August 2, 1914, the government of Wilhelm II called on the Belgian government to allow German troops to move through Belgium, and on August 4, 1914, the army of the German Empire marched into Belgium. During this time Davignon returned to the embassy in Berlin to receive a pass ( Laissez passer ) to the Dutch border with Beyens and the other members of the Belgian embassy on August 5, 1914 . The Belgian government sent him to London , where Davignon arrived on August 19, 1914. In 1915 Paul Hymans became his supervisor. From January to July 1919 Davignon was secretary of the Belgian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and at conferences on German reparations after the First World War .

In the run-up to the occupation of the Ruhr , the French government occupied the Hauptwache in Frankfurt in April 1920 and asked the Belgian government to also send troops. The British government refused to do this. The Belgian government did not want to spoil itself with either of the two powerful allies. Hymans commissioned Davignon to convey to the British government the participation of Belgian troops in the occupation .

In November 1938, at the suggestion of the Hitler government, the embassies of the German Reich in Brussels and Belgium in Berlin were upgraded to embassies. On September 4, 1939, Davignon presented the State Secretary of the Foreign Office with a declaration of Belgian neutrality. On October 9, 1939, Bert Sas first informed the Belgian attaché George Goethals in Berlin, then the government in The Hague, of a date for an attack on Belgium and the Netherlands. On January 10, 1940, Helmut Reinberger made an emergency landing with a Messerschmitt Bf 108 at Maasmechelen near Mechelen in Belgium with plans for the case of Gelb .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Vicomte Jacques DAVIGNON , ars-moriendi.be.

predecessor	Office	successor
	Belgian Chargé d'Affaires in Budapest 1926–1933	Hervé de pits
Bernard de L'Escaille de Lier	Belgian Chargé d'Affaires in Warsaw 1933–1935	Alexandre Paternotte de la Vaillée, the father
André de Kerchove de Denterghem	Belgian ambassador in Berlin 1935–1940	Fernand Muûls