protection of historical buildings in Belgium

The Convention of Den Haag in 1907 said that "in sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes. "

(Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907
Art. 27)

After a visit to the beautiful town of Bruges-Belgium where the entire centre of the city was undamaged in spite of heavy allied bombardments during WOI, I wonder if their was an agreement between the belgian and british government concerning the bombing of historical cities like Bruges.

Thanks.

[Regulus]

Hi,

Tintin Hey ? That smells very Belgian !
As far as I'm aware off no such agreement existed. Let's indeed not forget that about 6000 bombs were dropped on Brugge, killing 123 civilians, wounding 243 and destroying about 700 houses and homes. But there was not much of military value as a target in the historic center of the city...
Most important target was the Brugge harbour and the installations for the U-boats, torpedoboats and destroyers. Of course there were a number of other interesting targets such as the station, some factories and ammo dumps, but all were outside the city as you probably know.
In the center only the HQ of the Marinekorps Flandern, an important Lazarett, some workshops, carparcs etc.
On certain moments the harbour was almost bombed daily. Never was a success however and only minor damage was made. Bombing was after all not very accurate and some aerial photo's show bombs exploding hundreds of meters away from the harbour.

Best from Regulus

I was just wondering if there existed an agreement as the one in France concerning the city of Metz. In the book of Paul Bewsher, “Green Balls” The adventures of a Night-Bomber published by Greenhill Books Hertfordshire, Aeolus Publishing California in 1986, we can read the following passage :

The Germans in those days had an agreement with the French that Metz should not be bombed, and therefore they realised that it would be safer if its lights were kept on, so that it might not be mistaken for any other place".

A similar agreement in Bruges maybe ?

Tintin.