Contents by Date

FOREWORD[7]
July 30th, Thursday.[13]
July 31st, Friday.[15]
August 1st, Saturday.[16]
August 2nd, Sunday.[17]
August 3rd, Monday.[18]
August 4th, Tuesday.[21]
August 5th, Wednesday.[24]
August 6th, Thursday.[30]
August 7th, Friday.[32]
August 8th, Saturday.[33]
August 9th, Sunday.[34]
August 10th, Monday.[38]
August 11th, Tuesday.[41]
August 13th, Thursday.[44]
August 14th, Friday.[46]
August 15th, Saturday.[50]
August 16th, Sunday.[53]
August 17th, Monday.[55]
August 18th, Tuesday.[58]
August 19th, Wednesday.[61]
August 22nd, Saturday.[63]
August 24th, Monday.[65]
August 26th, Wednesday.[70]
August 27th, Thursday.[73]
August 28th, Friday.[74]
August 29th, Saturday.[77]
August 30th, Sunday.[80]
August 31st, Monday.[81]
September 2nd, Wednesday.[84]
September 3rd, Thursday.[86]
September 4th, Friday.[89]
September 5th, Saturday. (At the ambulance.)[90]
September 6th, Sunday.[92]
September 8th, Tuesday.[95]
September 9th, Wednesday.[97]
September 10th, Thursday.[98]
September 12th, Saturday.[101]
September 14th, Monday.[103]
September 16th, Wednesday.[104]
September 18th, Friday.[106]
September 22nd, Tuesday.[110]
September 24th, Thursday.[111]
September 28th, Monday.[112]
September 30th, Wednesday.[112]
October 1st, Thursday.[113]
September 29th, Tuesday.[113]
October 3rd, Saturday.[115]
October 5th, Monday.[117]
October 8th, Thursday.[117]
October 9th, Friday.[119]
October 10th, Saturday.[120]
October 11th, Sunday.[121]
October 13th, Tuesday.[122]
October 14th, Wednesday.[123]
October 16th, Friday.[125]
October 17th, Saturday.[128]
October 19th, Monday.[130]
October 22nd, Thursday.[131]
November 5th, Thursday.[132]
November 6th, Friday.[134]
November 7th, Saturday.[140]
November 8th, Sunday.[143]
November 9th, Monday.[144]
November 10th, Tuesday.[149]
November 12th, Thursday.[154]

FOREWORD

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.