Liége on the Line of March, or An American Girl's Experience When the
Germans Came Through Belgium, is a unique story. No other American
probably was in the exact position of Miss Bigelow who was at the
Château d'Angleur, Liége, Belgium, with the family of Monsieur X. at the
outbreak of the war and experienced with them and the people of their
country those tragic events which, up to the present, have hardly even
been sketched for the world.
What the public already knows of armies, guns, trenches, etc., has
little to do with the suffering that the people of an invaded country
endures, when the white-hot flame of the enemy invasion sweeps over the
land scorching every flower and leaving in its wake only desolation and
pain and despair. This narrative describes in detail just what might
come to any one of its readers if the Germans were victorious in Europe.
Let him picture to himself his line of action or even his line of
thought if an insolent officer came into his home, took his paintings
from the wall, his rugs from the floor, his private papers from his
desk and, finally, his sons to--what fate? The most pacific of pacifists
would draw a tight breath at such proceedings. And these are the least
of things that have happened in Belgium.
But the journal was not written with exhortative design. It is the
simple and truthful story of daily events as they occurred; if, at
times, the words seem brutal, the circumstances were brutal. Why should
one not know them?
The Château d'Angleur was respected as far as real pillaging and
destroying were concerned for the fact that a cousin of Monsieur X., a
Belgian by birth, is the wife of the Count von M. of Germany, at one
time Grand Chancellor of the Imperial Court and a trusted friend of
Emperor William the Second. As was proven afterwards this relationship,
surprisingly enough, had some influence on the side of clemency.
Monsieur X. was one of that family of famous Belgian bankers which has
existed for four generations. He was also President of the International
Sleeping Car Company of Europe to which honor he was appointed at the
death of his brother Monsieur Georges X., the originator and founder of
the Company.
Madame X. is a Russian by birth, the great-granddaughter of Prince ----,
who was at one time Grand Chancellor of the Court of Russia, and a
cousin of Princess ----, a lady in waiting to Her Former Majesty the
Czarina of Russia. The daughter of Madame X., Baronne de H., wife of a
Belgian nobleman of Brussels, is a personal friend of Their Majesties,
the King and Queen of Belgium.
Miss Bigelow, though a neutral subject, was nevertheless a virtual
prisoner of the Germans from August to November, 1914, owing to the lack
of facility in getting away from Belgium. The railroad was taken over
entirely by the German Army; automobiles, horses, carriages, etc., being
long since confiscated and appropriated by the Germans. Considerable
anxiety was felt as to her safety as no communication with the outside
world was possible during those three months of internment. Therefore,
her journal was faithfully kept for the benefit of her family and
depicts the comfortable luxurious life of the days preceding August,
1914, the shock of the Declaration of War, the terrific battle of
Sartilmont, three kilometres from the château, which entailed indirectly
the death of Monsieur X. in the early morning of the following day while
the guns were still booming. It also includes the bombardment of Liége
which lasted twelve days, the care of soldiers burned in the forts, the
capture of the city by the Prussians, their brutal shooting of
civilians, the burning of parts of the town and the taking of citizens
as hostages.
The passing of the German army with all its accompanying paraphernalia
that went to the front in the first days is described as it was
photographed on the brain of the writer, looking down from her window,
day after day, onto the highroad.
The journal ends with the attempted withdrawal to Brussels, the final
escape to Holland by the aid of the Dutch Consul of Maestricht, the
journey from Flushing, Holland, to Folkestone, England, to Calais and to
Paris. The last part of this journal will appeal to those who have known
and loved Paris in the old days, and portrays her to the world as the
flower she is, revealing her truth and her worth tho' stripped of that
individual worldliness which was yet a charm.
_Note.--All except German names in the Journal are fictitious._