Max Pelgrims was just 24 when he died on 19 August 1914. The German army had invaded Belgium just two weeks earlier. Max was one of thousands who rushed to defend the country. He died outside the town of Aarschot covering the retreating army.
His parents, Eugène and Léonie, were devastated by the loss. They decided to put up a monument in memory of their son. It was created by the sculptor Ernest Salu in his workshop at the entrance to Laeken Cemetery in Brussels.
It shows the soldier lying on the stone monument, one leg hanging over the edge. The bronze figure is wearing his army coat, laced boots and shoulder bag. He could almost be asleep.
The Belgian soldiers who died in the war would eventually be buried in identical graves. But there are a small number of individual tombs, mainly from the early months of the war, before people realised the massive scale of the conflict.
The parents, when they died, were buried under the same monument they had made for their son. Eugène in 1927. Léonie twenty years later. It is one of the most beautiful monuments in Laeken Cemetery.
Derek Blyth’s hidden secret of the day: Derek Blyth is the author of the bestselling “The 500 Hidden Secrets of Belgium”. He picks out one of his favourite hidden secrets for The Brussels Times every day.
