Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/182

 144 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vm. FEB. 19, 1921. "Friday, information reached the Mayor that the authorities must be ready to receive 15.000 German troops by 10 o'clock the following morning (Saturday, Oct. 10), and during the same day the French cavalry retired. On Saturday at the appointed hour the Mayor, Abbe Lemire, waited at the Hotel-de-Ville to receive the enemy, but the clay drew to a close without incident. Believing Hazebrouck to be occupied by French troops the Germans had avoided the town, which remained undefended the whcle of that and the following day. It was, however, on the evening of Sunday, Oct. 11, that the British Third Corps com- pleted its detrainment at St. Omer and was being moved to Hazebrouck, where it remained throughout Oct. 12. From that time onward, until the close of the war, Hazebrouck was a "British town." When the enemy was pushed back to the other side of Armentieres, and the line became more or less stabilized, Hasebrouck experienced a period of comparative quiet. The German lines were some 25 kilometers to the east and the inhabitants began to feel that their worst days were over. Work? of charity multiplied. Danger was apprehended only from the air. Then, after two-and-a-half years of this comparatively uneventful life, began a period more difficult and more full of anguish than that of 1914. The first bombardment by long-range guns took place on July 3l, 1917. But the shelling was intermittent and long intervals elapsed between the bombardments. The worst of these occurred on Dec. 13-14, when 120 shells (380 m., or 15 in. diam.) fell into the town doing great damage to property and killing fifteen civilians, among whom were the cure and two assistant priests of the Church of St. Eloi. After this, except for a serious air attack in January, Hazebrouck was left alone till Mar. 16, 1918, when the long-range guns began their work again, and from that time forward the bombard- ment was more or less continuous, though the number of shells that fell in any one day was sometimes small. Then in April came the burst through at Armentieres, and the Battle of the Lys, which in one of its aspects was known in France as the Battle for Hazebrouck.* On the night of Friday, date Apr. 14. 1918 : " Robertson sends me up his views.... He says that if the Boche gets Hazebrouck, or the Kemmel-Mont des Cats heights, the Ypres salient lot will fee! very un- co mf or table . ' ' Apr. 12, the order was given in Hazebrouck for the total and immediate evacuation of the town, and the next day saw everything abandoned under the saddest and most ! lamentable conditions. The inhabitants were dispersed to the four corners of France. The Mayor, Abbe Lemire, was the last to leave the town, and eventually installed the mairie in the village of St. Martin d'Ecublei, in the Department of the Orne, at which place the children of the Wareiii Orphanage at Hazebrouck had previously found a refuge. From April to September, 1918, Hazebrouck was left to the mercy of the German guns, but the enemy, though at one time within a distance of 6 kilometers, never was able to reach the town. Imme- diately prior to the renewal of the bombard- ment in March, 1918, the civilian population of Hazebrouck had been reduced to about 3,000, and of these 61 were killed and 150 wounded. On Oct. 1, 1918, the Mayor once more took possession of the Hotel- de-Ville, and during the autumn the in- habitants- began to return. Out of 3,334 houses, 229 were wholly destroyed, and nearly 2,000 were more or less damaged. Once again, after an interval of over three hundred years and as the result of acts of war, Hazebrouck stands at the beginning of a new period in its history. On Januavv 30, 1921, a local census showed the population to be 16,468. The plans for reconstruction comprise much more than a mere rebuilding of destroyed property and include a scheme for the extension and industrial development of the town. In modern times two events stand out in Haze- brouck's history. At the end of the eight- eenth century the Revolution raised the town to its present position of chef-lieu, or capital of an arrondissement, and half-a- ceritury later the coming of the railway made it not only a centre of administration but also to some extent of commerce and industry. A third period is now looked forward to when Hazebrouck shall become the veritable industrial capital of middle Flanders, linked up with Dunkerque, the capital of maritime Flanders, on the one hand, and Lille, capital of the Department, on the other. Hazebrouck has been for long an important railway centre, lying as it does on the main line between Calais and Lille and at the junction of five other lines, which connect it with Dunkerque, Bethune, and the towns on the Lys, as well as with Belgium. Yet, notwithstanding these ad- vantages the town, so far, has scarcely
 * Col. Eepington wrote in his Diary under