WHEN WAR CAME, THE 'WHITE LADY' SPY NETWORK HELPED WIN... TWICE!

They were ordinary Belgians whose bravery in the face of untold danger helped the Allies liberate their country from the Germans in two world wars. Yet they remain virtually unknown. Now their story, every bit as thrilling as fiction, has finally been told in a gripping new account

- By Dr Helen Fry

THE last words by Dieudonné Lambrecht in a final letter to his wife and family on April 17, 1916, from a prison cell in Belgium were impossibly moving: “In heaven, I will watch over you... Think of my life as having been given up for my country — it will make my death seem less painful to you... I am only doing what so many have done before me and will do again.” The following day he was shot by the Germans for spying for the British secret service. No amount of torture during his long interrogations could break him and he gave up not a single name of his agents.

He ended his last letter: “For our darling little daughter, for my parents and for you, receive on this letter, the last affectionate kisses of he, who was. Your Donné.”

More than 20 years after I first read these words, they still have the power to move me to tears. Today, the desolate, Godforsaken fortress of Chartreuse in Liège is derelict but it was the scene of many deaths by firing squad of courageous Belgians who helped the Allies.

The Germans lost no time in placing posters about Lambrecht’s death on the walls of public buildings to discourage others from espionage.

But instead of deterring Lambrecht’s agents, who were lying low across Belgium, his execution served as a catalyst for defiance. In death, he became a powerful figure. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the remnants of his espionage service emerged as one of the greatest spy organisations of the First World War.

German forces had invaded Belgium in August 1914 and occupied the country.

The British Expeditionary Force had landed in France and headed for Belgium to repel any advance but they were no match for the million-strong German forces. For the next four years, both sides engaged in bloody battles and trench warfare along a frontline of hundreds of miles that resulted in millions of casualties and deaths of young men.