Liége on the line of march : $b an American girl's experiences when the Germans came through BelgiumBigelow, Glenna Lindsley
History
Liége on the line of march : $b an American girl's experiences when the Germans came through Belgium
Bigelow, Glenna Lindsley
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
The officers left at four A. M. Fort Lançin fell today and
Général Léman, commander-in-chief of the army here, was taken prisoner.
Thousands of soldiers have passed as usual. In the afternoon a company
of Prussians arrived, whose captain had mistaken the route, which put
him in an abominable humor, having made his men march fifty miles out of
their way and also risking a court-martial on his own account. He
ordered Monsieur S. to open the garage door, in the hope of lodging his
men there for the night. Unluckily the chauffeur, being absent, had the
key, which plunged his Military Highness into a towering rage and he
placed Monsieur S. at once under arrest between two soldiers,
_baionnette-au-canon_, while the others battered in the door with the
butt of their guns. Not finding sufficient quarters for two hundred men,
he marched Monsieur S. away, as guide, half a mile down the road to a
neighbor's.
That excitement had hardly quieted down when another batch of officers
arrived at dusk, demanding lodgings for the night. These men were a
rough type, altogether different from the preceding ones. About eight
o'clock as we, the women, were waiting in the library for dinner to be
announced, we heard a tremendous stamping of heavy boots and spurs and a
snarl of angry voices just over our heads. Baronne de H., brave little
woman as she always proved herself to be, flew up the stairs in a flash
and found her brothers at the end of the hall between two orderlies with
fixed bayonets, trying to pacify seven officers who were disputing
angrily and were just about to enter one of the private apartments--in
fact their father's room. She addressed them in a few vehement words--"I
forbid you to enter the room of my father, who has been dead only a
week." Then she added that the other soldiers who had been here were
gentlemen and that she expected them to be. They were cowed at once and
all humility, begging pardon properly. They pleaded fatigue for their
rudeness and said "certainly they expected to be gentlemen, too." Wasn't
that comical? They were ill at ease and rather sullen at dinner: and
such a dinner as we had!--glacial does not express it. The captain of
the band spoke English, French, Russian and German, but he could not
coax anybody into conversation, for we clung to "_Oui_," or "_Non_," and
stopped there. More than that, a kind of rigid fascination fixed our
attention on one of their number--the tallest and lankiest, who sat down
at least two feet from the table and endeavored to serve himself like
that. Every mouthful was fraught with tense anxiety (for us). Happily
they went to bed early, the captain kissing our hands and asking Madame
X. if she were used to that, it being the custom in Germany.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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