Belgium

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 72, 14 August 1914, Page 6

Belgium

THE INVADED DISTRICT. IMPRESSIONS OF LLEGE. (By Edith Sarle Urossmaim in tin; Auckland Star, j The heart of the neutral territory through which the Germans are trying is Liege, is the north-eastern corner 01 Belgium, so close to Holland that a good pedestrian might go all tin- way there and back in a day, merely taking the ferry across the river Meuse. Liege is the capital o, die Walloon provinces, for it [must he remembered that Belgium is I divided between two distinct races, the ■Flemings, a low Dutch race, who inhabit tue north and cast, and the Warloons, the descendants oi the warlike Bclgae of Caesar's Commentaries, a Gaelic tribe, of the same origin as the Gauls) of France. In the .Middle Ages and down to the seventeenth century, Walloons were some of the most famous soldiers of Europe, .and from their number came "I'apponheimers," who iormed the backbone of Wallenstein's array dur- ! ing the Thirty Years' War. The Licgcois have shown themselves in their own home a bold, independent and turbulent people, but they have in the past offered less resistance to temporary invasion by foreign armies than to any continued domination over their civic rights and liberties. They have not been friendly with any of their neighbors except the French," not even the Flemings, who are their fellow-countrymen. A most lively idea of Liege and its people in the Middle Ages can be got from the pages of "■Quentin Durward," though some of the details of that romance are inaccurate. Two factors have helped to suppress their natural independence and turbulence, ecclestiastieism and commercialism. The first beginning of Ix'igc was a very little chapel founded by a neighboring bishop in the fair, pleasant valley of the Meuse, A few peasants gathered round the chapel. Then in the seventh century Saint Lambert was assassinated near the chapel. A vast church was built in his honor, pilgrims flocked to it, and a town sprang up. The neighborhood was the cradle of Charlemagne's family, and' he gave to the new city those rights and privileges which thciy, jealously regarded so long by their Tribunal of T'renty-two. Down "to the French Revolution the town and neighboring country formed a separate principality under Prince Bishops, who greatly embellished it with line churches, and 'palaces, but who ccntinually tried to make themselves its despots. Time after time the citizen.; revolted and asserted their libertics. Unco they set on fire the Cluu-'h of St. Martin 'and burnt to death 2(10 of l he nobiiitv, who had taken refuse there. Louis XL for his own purposes, ;..,.< d them against their Bishop. Louis de Bouihon. lie called to his aid Charles i the Bold, whose army niassed 411,0(1!) of the inhabitants and reduced the city to ruins except the churches. Thereupon the "Wild Boar of the Ardennes," William de la Marck. assassinated the Bishop, and was in turn executed on the scaffold. A later Bishop abolish! d the ancient trade corporations in:-'. "iv.-l-ified the electoral system, bu. ;u the time of the French Revolution the Lien.ois revolted on their own account. The Austrians took up the quarrel of the Bishop, and the Licgois then a, pi-ab'd to the French. The city war: annexed by the French Republic, and alter nearly a thousand years the reign of the bishops came finally to an end. Alter Waterloo, the great Powers ratilicially joined all Belgium with Holland under the Prince of Orange, but the; Dutch treated the Belgians as subordinate to themselves, and in 1830, the Belgians revolted, the Hegeois taking an active part in the rebellion. Since then, they have chiefly turned their bellicose energies in the direction of labor agitation. jThe doctrines of aggressive Continental l.socialism and syndicalism spread rapidly aViong them. The first attempt at a general strike was made by the Liegeois, and there have been strikes of a serious and threatening nature. Not only in the city itself, but in the neighboring villages one of the chief industries is the making of' guns, pistols and revolvers. Different parts of these weapons an; made by different workers, often in their own homes. You may see a load being taken away from village houses. Not only men, 'but women and even girls anil bovs help in this work. It is .the custom for Walloon men to wear a I revolver or pistol in the country and | (I believe) also in the town, and murder by shooting is much more common j than elsewhere. The city of Liege is I built partly on a strip of Hat ground taken up by the quays, and the busiest commercial quarters, partly on the steep hilly banks of the Mouse, ft is a great manufacturing city, the beginning of Belgium's "Black Country," its hills disfigured by coal mines, heaps of coal and barren patches of clay, big chimneys and works, and its atmosphere and buildings blackened by heavy smoke drifts. Yet still some of its ancient beauty clings to it. Th«' broad and noble stream of the Meuse flows in a smooth curve tranquilly through the midst of it: the lesser stream of the Ourtlie joins it at the end, and the regularly .cut symmetrical canal intersects the level ground on the farther side of the ancient city, so that streams of water shining ; n the sunlight 'below the smoke wind in and out in all directions through the quays and squares, and the streets of hotels, cafes, shops and factories and university buildings and churches. Numerous bridges span the rivers and canals, the finest being the Pons des Arches, and there are pleasant little river steamers pi'-.: to Maestricht in the north and to Scraiug in ihe south. The best view of Leige inn be got from the citadel, for which you climb up a steep cscalicr'. a series of steps up to tile plateau where stood - the two ancient forts of the city, the Karthaus and the ('Raddle, now dismantled and replaced by two other forts guarding the river. From this citadel you can see the whole panolaniii of til 11- town and it- neighborhood, the noble M"Use flowing through. On some of the nearer hills are the home-;

of prosperous citizens, standing in ■their gardens of trees and (Unvcjrs, bin farther I oIT the slopes are scarred by mines and factories. In amongst the modern building a medieval note in tlie modern manuscorcs of licautifiil old churches, striking a medieval note in the modem manufacturing town. Clericalism is still \erv strong here, and the faithful are as 'devout'as in the age of Philip of *|.ain. Von will not lie long in Liege I witlioiu -rein., on a religious feast day one of the processions through the streets, and the fragrance of incense now and again c es on the somewhat malodoi-oii-. air. There is no space here to dwell upon the remains of medieval ait iu Liege, the Cathedral with its columns and gallery and arch vault overhead. St. Jacques and its ''lacowork in stone." the antii|Ue-look'mg clmrcli of hi. Martin. St. -lohu the evangelist, and its liothic towei- and steeple. The most interesting liuilding in Liege is the Paris de -lustice. forming the Palace of Hie Prince l!i>hops. There are here two spacious courts communicating h}' a portal: the outer one surrounded by an arcade resting upon richly and quaintly decorated columns, the inner one with a "allery round a formal garden.

From Liege the Mieuse flows sonriwest, but it is not usual to go by a / sort of a boat between Sealing and t e historic city of Namur. From Naie.-.r down to Givet, across the French border is a favorite river excursion. This Has the termination'of my own waiidcrh.es in Belgium. In part of its course, tun river Hows through a precipitous gor,-/. and it is dillicult to understand bow a great army could march that way, yet one rumor said that the Germans were coming through Givet. For part of its course, however, there is level ground round the immediate bed of file live.'. Beyond that, south of Liege, lies the country of the Ardennes, a lavorite resort of the artists and tourists of Belgium itself, of Holland, Germany, Northern Franco, and Britain. The word is used loosely for all hilly country of Belgium, the north-cast being extraordinarily Hat. Part of the Ardennes is wooded, and, though the hills are of no great size, they are in several places steep -and unmanageable. It is a land of plenty, famous for the excellence of its provisions, but the people seemed, on the whole, inhospitable. Of the other towns said to have been reached by the Germans, Arlon is a small town of 7000 people, capital of that pari; of Luxemburg that was joined to the kingdom of Belgium, Malmedy, the inhabitants of which are Walloon by origin, was, like Liege., once under ecclesiastical sway, and still has a large Renaissance abbey with a famous peal of bells. The people are engaged chiefly in the manufacture of paper and of leather. It is an interesting neighborhood, with wild valleys and ruins, at the junction of two rivers, the War-clip and the Warchenne, a distance of nine miles from Spa. Its population of 10,000 now includes a number o,f Flemings. It was annexed at the close of the Napoleonic war by' Prussia. "It is embowered in verdure," says one of the guide books, contrasting with the red soil, the "fcrrugineous eon- i glomerate" of Malmedy. Vcrviers is one of the most important centres of cloth manufacture in Europe. Its local martyr to freedom is Chapuis. whose monument stands in the Place dii Martyr. He was executed by the Bishop of Liege. There are now numerous trains from Liege, which is only, 25 kilometres away. The annual value of cloths and stuffs here produced is .id millions of francs; and it lias also two well-known factories of chocolate and the spiced breads or cakes of the Ardennes. Its -population is 50,000. The most eminent man it ha 3 given the world is the violinist Vieuxtemps, whose j statue adorns the city. All of these ! towns are reckoned as forming part o! ' the Ardennes.