CENTRES OF INTEREST.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 158, 5 June 1940, Page 8

CENTRES OF INTEREST.

HISTORIC NAMES. Nieuport, where fighting has occurred, is situated in Western Flanders, was a flying base in the Great War, and was the scene of wholesale destruction. It has a population'of about 5000, was the port of Ypres and is situated on the Yser about 10 miles south of Ostend. At Nieuport are situated the locks of Palinburg, which were the instrument of the famous flooding of the front on the Yser in October, 1914, similar to the present plan. AH that was necessary to submerge a large part of the district was to reverse the process, letting the tide flow in over the land at high water and retaining it there at low tide. Poperinghe, which lias been the scene of violent conflict, is 12 miles west of Ypres and is about half the size of Palmerston North. In the world war it was a railhead and served for rest billets for troops in Ypres. Incidentally, the Toe H movement originated there. Doullens, where the Royal Air Force has bombed motorised columns, is a town in Northern France 27 miles north of Amiens. Its population is about 5000. Doullens was an important stronghold in the Middle Ages. In 1475 it was burnt by Louis Si for openly siding with the House of Burgundy. It was besieged in 1595 and occupied by the Spaniards, but was restored to France by the Treaty of Vervins (1598). It was an important British centre in the war of 1914-18. It has a citadel of the 15th and 16th Centuries, now a. girls’ school. The town has a trade in phosphates, of which there are works in the vicinity, and carries on cotton-spinning and the manufacture of leather and paper. Lyons, a famous city in Eastern France, and Marseilles, the principal port of France, are reported to have been bombed by the Germans. Marseilles, on the Mediterranean, is 219 miles south-east of Lyons, which is 315 miles from Paris. Marseilles has a population of about 700,000 and Lyons of about 550,000. Lo Havre, which has been raided by German bombers, is a large seaport (second only in France to Marseilles) on the north side of the Seine’s estuary, 143 miles north-west of Paris. The population is 158,000 and in addition to shipbuilding there are manufactures of ropes, wire, machinery, chemicals and cotton goods.' Le Havre i was held for some months in 1562 by 1 the English, who were expelled by Charles IX after a hot siege. Louis XIV made it a strong citadel, and it was several times bombarded by the English in the 17tli and 18th centuries. In the Great War Le Havre was a base for the British Expeditionary Force.

Soes’t, an important Westphalian railway junction 37 miles south-east of Munster, which lias been bombed by the R.A.F., has a population of 21,000. Its principal products are machinery,. soap, hats, cigars, sugar and bricks. The Gothic ‘‘Meadow Church” was built in 1314, and there is also a Roman Catholic Cathedral.