Louise de Bettignies

World War I
Before August was over, Louise left Wissant and returned to Saint-Omer. From there, she took the
pretext of joining her sister Germaine, whose husband, Maurice Houzet was mobilized, to go to Lille.
Context in Lille
On 1 August 1914, Adolphe Messimy, Minister of War, suppressed, with the approval of René Viviani,
President of the Council, the position of governor of Lille. He had exceeded his rights, as the
decommissioning should have been enacted by law. Lille was then declared an "open city" (its
fortifications were decommissioned in 1910) and the staff was evacuated on 24 August. On 22 August,
after German patrols were seen in the vicinity of Lille, General Percin installed a 75 mm gun in front of
each drawbridge of the Citadel. This initiative provoked the wrath of Charles Delesalle, the mayor, and
of advocates of non-defense. Faced with this, Pervin retreated. Behind the back of the prefect, the
supporters of non-defense created new initiatives to disarm the city. On August 24, the Staff evacuated
Lille.
During this turbulent period, the government yielded to fear. The prefect Felix Trepont was ordered to
retreat with the administrative and postal services to Dunkirk. Then a few days later, he was given a
counter-order. Upon his return, the prefect found the offices of military buildings open to all the winds
and the equipment abandoned. On 27 August Trepont asked John Vandenbosch, an industrialist, to
move all military equipment to Dunkirk. Transport lasted for 21 days, and 278 trains were needed. On 2
September, the Germans entered the city, then departed after extorting ransom. They returned several
times. On 4 October, a detachment of Wahnschaffe stumbled on a battalion of Chasseurs on foot,
resting in the city. Taken aback, they retreated, burning some houses in the suburb of Fives.
Lille was invaded by a crowd of refugees. Until October 9, there was confusion in both prefecture and in
the city.
On October 9, the commander Felix de Pardieu and his territorials were ordered to retreat in the region
of Neuve-Chapelle, leaving Lille without defender. General Ferdinand Foch, who arrived on the night of
4 to 5 October, warned by the prefect, sent commander Pardieu back towards Lille under the protection
of the 20th Regiment of mounted chasseurs. Delayed by the crowd, the ammunition convoy was
attacked by a detachment of General Georg von der Marwitz. Tired of waiting for the start of the British
offensive, Foch dispatched the cavalry corps of commander Conneau to Lille. On the stroke of noon on
12 October, Lille heard the gunfire coming closer. The corps of Conneau engaged in a famous battle, but
did not persist, believing that Lille had succumbed. Surrounding the city, the Germans had between
50,000 and 80,000 men, facing a motley band of 2,795 men composed of chasseurs, goumiers and
especially territorials, armed with a battery of artillery, with three 75mm guns and little ammunition.
Under fire
Louise and Germaine lived together at 166 rue d'Isly.
From 4 to 13 October 1914, by turning the only cannon that the Lille troops had, the defenders
succeeded in deceiving the enemy and holding them for several days under an intense battle that
destroyed more than 2,200 buildings and houses, particularly in the area of the station. Louise de
Bettignies, aged 28, spoke four languages including German and English. Through the ruins of Lille, she
ensured the supply of ammunition and food to the soldiers who were still firing on the attackers. In
makeshift hospitals, she wrote letters in German dictated by dying Germans to their families.
Espionage service
Cover of the book "The queen of spies" by Major Thomas Coulson
De Bettignies had been a citizen of Lille since 1903, and when the German army invaded the city in
October 1914, she decided to engage in resistance and espionage. Due in part to her ability to speak
French, English, German, and Italian, she ran a vast intelligence network from her home in the North of
France on behalf of the British army and the MI6 intelligence service under the pseudonym Alice Dubois.
This network provided important information to the British through occupied Belgium and the
Netherlands.
The network is estimated to have saved the lives of more than a thousand British soldiers during the 9
months of full operation from January to September 1915.[citation needed]
The "Alice" network[12] of a hundred people, mostly in forty kilometers of the front to the west and
east of Lille, was so effective that she was nicknamed by her English superiors "the queen of spies". She
smuggled men to England, provided valuable information to the Intelligence Service, and prepared for
her superiors in London a grid map of the region around Lille. When the German army installed a new
battery of artillery, even camouflaged, this position was bombed by the Royal Flying Corps within eight
days.
Another opportunity allowed her to report the date and time of passage of the imperial train carrying
the Kaiser on a secret visit to the front at Lille. During the approach to Lille, two British aircraft bombed
the train and emerged, but missed their target. The German command did not understand the unique
situation of these forty kilometers of "cursed" front (held by the British) out of nearly seven hundred
miles of front. One of her last messages announced the preparation of a massive German attack on
Verdun in early 1916. The information was relayed to the French commander who refused to believe it.
Arrested by the Germans on 20 October 1915 near Tournai, she was sentenced to forced labor for life on
16 March 1916 in Brussels. After being held for three years, she died on 27 September 1918 as a result
of pleural abscesses poorly operated upon at St. Mary's Hospital in Cologne.
Her body was repatriated on 21 February 1920. On 16 March 1920 a funeral was held in Lille in which
she was posthumously awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor, the Croix de guerre 1914-1918 with
palm, and the British Military Medal, and she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Her body is buried in the cemetery of Saint-Amand-les-Eaux.
Tributes
Monument of Louise de Bettignies in Lille
A small museum is located in the birthplace of Louise de Bettignies, rue Louise Bettignies (formerly Rue
de Conde) in Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, since 2008. Several French towns have given her name to streets,
schools and other structures. Among others, the school where Françoise Sagan studied (and was
expelled from) was named for Louise de Bettignies.
Louise the Bettignies in literature
De Bettignies is a secondary character in Kate Quinn's book "The Alice Network", published in 2017.

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World War I

Louise and Germaine lived together at 166 rue d'Isly.

Cover of the book "The queen of spies" by Major Thomas Coulson

Monument of Louise de Bettignies in Lille

Louise the Bettignies in literature

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