1 Franc

During the German occupation of Belgium in World War One, the normal banking infrastructure collapsed entirely in many towns. Local communes, charitable committees, and emergency bodies began issuing their own fractional notes — bons de nécessité — to keep small transactions functioning when coin disappeared from circulation entirely. Dendermonde, a town that suffered catastrophic destruction in August 1914 when German forces burned much of it, was among the communities that eventually organized such a committee.

Printed locally by Du Caju-Beeckman rather than by one of the major Belgian printers, this note reflects the improvised, hyperlocal nature of occupation-era necessity currency. Production quality varied significantly across the series.