16. The Tragic Wire of Death
Early in 1915, the Germans erected an electric fence along a stretch of the Swiss border in order to isolate some Alsatian villages from Switzerland, and it proved effective. So they decided to replicate it on a grander scale, along the border between German-occupied Belgium, and the neutral Netherlands. Construction commenced in the spring of 1915 of an electric fence that stood five to ten feet high and covered over 125 miles of the Belgian-Dutch border from the Scheldt River to Aix-la-Chappelle. It was charged with 2,000 to 6,000 volt wires that ran through it.
Those caught within 100 to 550 yards of the fence who could not explain their presence were summarily shot. By war’s end, about 3,000 people had been killed along what came to be known as “The Wire of Death”, and newspapers in the southern Netherlands carried almost daily reports of unfortunates who had been “lightninged to death“. Nonetheless, while the fence reduced border crossings, it did not eliminate them. Many managed to cross the border with creative methods such as tunnels beneath the fence, the use of extra high ladders, pole vaulting over it, or tying porcelain plates to their shoes in order to insulate them.