| Pieter Dox | |||||||||||
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| Birth Name: | Petrus Joannes Maria Dox | ||||||||||
| Birth Date: | 7 May 1898 | ||||||||||
| Birth Place: | Lier, Antwerp, Belgium | ||||||||||
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Petrus Joannes Maria Dox (7 May 1898 – 26 November 1964) was a Belgian Flemish soldier during the First World War known for his opposition to the Belgian Army's French-speaking officers' discriminatory treatment of Flemish-speaking soldiers. His vocal criticism led to his dismissal from front line service and his reassignment to the Special Forestry Platoon, a penal military unit.
After the war, Dox moved to the Belgian Congo where he served as a Christian missionary for the next few decades. He was killed during the Simba rebellion in November 1964.
Around 1914, Dox joined the Dominican Order as a novice. In 1916, despite a Belgian royal decree that only men born before 1897 could be conscripted, he was drafted to fight in the First World War. As a member of the seminary, Dox had to serve in the medical corps, and after only a single month of training he was sent to the Western Front.
He was critical of the French-speaking officers' attitude towards Flemish-speaking soldiers, and wrote letters on the subject. This led to his demotion to a penal military unit, the Special Forestry Platoon, on 30 March 1918, where he worked as a woodchopper as a form of penal labour in Orne, Normandy, France.[1] The military's official conclusion read: "Doubts regarding his patriotism. Has expressed hostility toward national institutes in a letter sent from neutral territory." Dox was released eight months after the Armistice of 11 November 1918, on 10 July 1919.
One of his brothers, Ludovicus Gommarus, died in a German prisoner-of-war camp.[2] His parents were also held captive by the German occupiers due to his father's participation in the resistance movement.
Dox took his religious vows in Ghent on 7 November 1924,[3] and moved to the Belgian Congo on 18 December 1928, to work as a missionary for the next 36 years under his priest name, Valentinus.
He and his brother Frans, who was also a missionary, were killed in Watsa during the Simba rebellion on 26 November 1964.[4] In total, 15 Belgian missionaries were killed.[5] A square in their hometown of Lier was named after him and his brother.[6] [7]