The bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1916-05-19
DUTCH FRONTIER
GUARDED BY $50
MILES OF FENCE
Charged With Electricity, Wire
Barrier Is Studded With
Dead Animals.
SENTlNELS on BOTH SIDES
Holland Can Flood Great Area at
First Signs Of nvasion-Diffeult
to Cross the Border-Writer
Describes Some Scenes
Of the War.

Maastricht, Holland.-They tell you
in this town that they have almost for
gotten that there is war Perhaps
they have, for it has swept past them
and nobody expects it to come back
The potteries and breweries, which
are the principal factors in the
towns prosperity, are running full
time and making money; business is
good enough to all appearances. and
the walls are plastered with the adj
vertisements of innumerable moving
picture houses where French war
movies are listed side by side with
detective dramas filmed in Los An.
geles.
But Maastricht saw and heard
enough Of the war in those first few
days. Little more than mile to the
west is the Belgian frontier; 20 miles
on the other side is the German from
tier: 20 miles to the southwest Is
Liege The town lies almost at the
extremity Of South Limburg-the bot
tle-shaped southwark projection Of
Holland that runs down for some 80
miles before joining to the rest of
the country by a neck that at one
point is hardly two miles wide. And
while its people may have forgotten
that there Is war now, 1t will be a
long time before they forget those first
days Of August, 1914.
The Germans were coming west
through Relgium-everybody knew
that. Nobody felt sure that they
might not find it more convenient to
overrun South Limburg on the way;
and the Dutch army. hastily modified
the last day of July, was digging in
along the frontier, while few miles
up the Meuse, on that range of hills
which borders the river at Liege as it
does at Maastricht, General Leman and
his Belgians were sitting behind forts
that everybody thought were impreg-
nable and waiting for the Germans.
During those days while the people
In Maastricht, as in Liege, were wait
ing to see whether the war was COM
ing their way, there passed through
the town 5000 German civilians ex.
PEELED from their homes in Belgium at
the beginning of the war, and already
Belgians who thought that Dutch ter.
ritory would be safer than their own
were beginning to move into the town
and district of Maastricht.
Rumors That Germans Crossed.
Limburg, of course, was not invaded.
A legend persists that some German
troops did cross the narrow neck of
the bottle, but nobody has ever found
any proofs. From Aachen, where the
advance troops had been hurriedly
gathered together, General Won Ell
mich's army started wsst toward tho
Liege forts. At Verviers and else
where they skirmished with the Bel
gian outposts. Then they came to
Wise, village less than four miles
from the Dutch frontier and little
more than ten from Maastricht.
The people of this town, who tell
you that they hardly know now that
there is a war, could see the smoke
when Wise was burned-burned so
thoroughly that the people who live
along the border will tell you there is
not house left standing That day
there poured across the border a
swarm of refugees of different sort,
the precursors Of many others in the
day that followed-what was left of
women and children of Wise, who had
seen 200 of their men shot down in
the streets, and scores of others made
prisoner and started on their way to
Germany.
Maastricht heard the roar of the
battle at Liege, when the Germans,
trying to rush the hills without ade-
quate artillery support, were driven
back with the loss of 10000 or 10000
men, according to local estimates, and
when for two or three days an excited
world thought that the terrible Ger
man army had been stopped just over
the threshold. And then one morn.
ing every window in the Dutch border
city ratified with the deep roar of a
new kind Of gun, firing at Liege from
Just south of the frontier line. The
new howitzers had arrived, and the
Liege forts were blown to pieces one
by one.
10000 Refugees In City.
Ten thousand refugees were In
kaastricht before Liege fell-10. 900
strangers in q town of less than 49,
900. Most of them had money and,
q hotels and pensions were over.
flowed. the natives drove a thriving
business for while taking in board.
ers. But eventually most Of the Bel.
CLANS moved on to Rotterdam, or Am
sterdam, or The Hague, or England,
and those few who remained, running
out Of money. went to work In the fac.
tories that were Just coming back to
life and were absorbed I'm the routine
Of the town. They left behind them
stories of German atrocities that have
affected sentiment In Maastricht to 4
degree that may be indicated by the
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