Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1916-05-24
Charged With Electricity, Wire
Barrier Is Studded With
Dead Animals.
sENTIKELs ON BOTH SIDES
Holland Can Flood Great Area at
First Signs of Observation-Disclosures
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 a 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 ad-
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 frog
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 @ neck that at one
point is hardly two miles wide. And
while it's people may have forgotten
that there is war now, it will be a
long time before they forget those first
days of August, 1914.
| The Germans were coming west
through Belgium-everybody knew
that Nobody felt sure that they
might not find it more convenient to
overrun South Limburg on the way;
the last day of July, was digging in
along the frontier, while few miles
up the Mouse, 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-
|
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 ;
michs army started west toward the
Liege forts At Verviers and else
where they skirmished with the Bel
gian outposts. Then they came to
Wise, a 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 a 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-
| uuate artillery support, were driven
back with the loss of 10000 or $4,000
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
lust 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
Maastricht before Liege feii 10000
strangers in a town Of less than 49,
600. Most of them had money, and,
! as hotels and pensions were over
flowed, the natives drove thriving
business for a while taking in board
ers. But eventually most of the Bel
gians 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 In the routine
of the town. They left behind them