The Vinkt massacre () was a war crime committed by German soldiers in the villages of Vinkt and Meighem in East Flanders on 26–28 May 1940 during the Battle of the Lys. Between 86 and 140 civilians were deliberately killed by Wehrmacht troops from the 377th Infantry Regiment of the 225th Infantry Division, supposedly in retaliation for the Belgian Army's resistance in the village. Background As the German Army continued to advance west and pushed back both the British Expeditionary Force (trying to escape to Dunkirk) and the Belgian army, the village of Vinkt became an important target, as it lay both on the road south from Ghent to Lille and astride the Schipdonk Canal, which blocked the German advance to the west. However, on May 25, both sides already knew the outcome of the Battle of France in which the French Army had collapsed, and the Belgian Army had been reduced to prolonging the war for the sole purpose of protecting the British retreat. The bridge over the Schipdonk Canal was being guarded by the 1st Belgian Division of Chasseurs Ardennais, which in the Belgian Army of the day then meant one regiment of tanks out of five regiments in a division, the rest being motor riders and cyclists. Coincidentally, this division turned out to be one of the most motivated in the Belgian Army. The Belgian command decided not to destroy but to guard the bridge to help as many British stragglers as possible on their way west and as many Belgian refugees as possible on their way south. More than one million Belgians, most of them on foot, as cars and horses had been requisitioned by the different armies, had become refugees. News of what happened at Vinkt would cause an additional one million to flee south or even west. By the middle of June, according to Red Cross figures, 30% of the Belgian population had left the country. Massacres 25 May Arriving near the bridge on May 25, the German 225th Infantry Division, consisting mostly of badly-trained soldiers from Itzehoe in the North of the Hamburg area, found it impossible to cross. They took 140 civilians hostage and used them as human shields. As the Chasseurs ardennais continued to harass the German positions, and crossing remained impossible, a grenade exploded among the hostages and killed 27. 26 May On Sunday, the Germans took hostages at the