MONTREUIL AND THE MONTREUILLOIS.
How the Montreuillois once learned to hate the English--Early history of
the famous town--Its link with the early Roman-British Empire--A border
town in the Anglo-French Wars--When G.H.Q. was bombed.
Military convenience alone dictated the choice of Montreuil as the site
of the General Headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force in France
as soon as that Force reached to such a strength as to take its full
share in the campaign. But the choice might well have been influenced by
a sentimental desire to make this town, which was so intimately
associated with the old enmity between England and France, the centre of
the Great Reconciliation. Montreuil and the Montreuillois for many
centuries cordially hated England, and not without good reason. In
April, 1369, they chased the English from the town with hoots of "_A la
queue, à la queue les Anglais._" After 550 years, in April, 1919, they
saw the British G.H.Q. leave Montreuil with what different feelings!
Very curious is the way in which Montreuil has been linked up with
Anglo-French history. In the days of the Roman occupation of Gaul the
Roman Empire had a naval station close to, or actually on, the great
fortress rock which guarded the mouth of the Canche and which was then a
peninsula jutting out into the sea. This station, no doubt, Julius Cæsar
used in his expedition against Britain. Later Carausius, a Roman Briton,
revolted against the Roman Empire and, by winning the command of the
Channel with his Fleet, maintained for a time an independent Britain. He
assumed the state of Cæsar and founded a Roman-British Empire. The
_Classis Britannica_ of the Roman Empire had had its chief station at or
near Montreuil. With the revolt of Carausius there was no longer a
"British Fleet" of the Roman Empire, and the _Classis Samarica_ (the
Fleet of the Somme) was organised to hold the coasts of Gaul for the
Roman Power against the British rebel, Carausius. This Fleet of the
Somme had a station on the Canche, at or near Montreuil. Doubtless in
those very early years of the Christian era there was many a naval
action between the British sea forces and those of the Romans stationed
on the Canche.
Of any actual Roman buildings on the hill of Montreuil there exists
to-day no trace. But it may be accepted as certain that the Gauls had
fortified this great hill at the mouth of the Canche and that the Roman
Conquerors did not neglect its strategical advantages. It is well within
the bounds of the historic imagination to picture Carausius, the man who
first taught England that her fate depended on the holding of the Narrow
Seas, looking with vain hostility on a well-fortified Roman naval
station at Montreuil which often sent harassing expeditions against his
coast. In later years of Anglo-French enmity Montreuil was
Montreuil-sur-mer only in name, for the sea had retreated ten miles, and
Etaples was the port at the mouth of the Canche; but in the Roman days
and for some centuries after, Montreuil was a good harbour for trade or
for war.
When the barbarian invasions overwhelmed the Roman Empire, Montreuil
disappeared from history until the Seventh Century, when the monk St.
Saulve (subsequently Bishop of Amiens) built a monastery on the great
hill. From this monastery, without much doubt, the name of Montreuil
comes; for in all old French manuscripts it is spelt "Monstereul," which
is an easy step from "Monasteriolum," "the place of the monastery." In
St. Saulve's day Montreuil appears to have been a bold promontory at the
edge of the sea, with the River Canche running close to its base and a
thriving village at its foot. According to some accounts, St. Saulve's
first monastery was built on the ruins of an earlier castle; if so it
would probably have been a castle of Roman origin.
Montreuil became a famous shrine, and reports came from it of many
miracles. The Saints Omer, Riquier, Bertin and Josse, whose names are
kept on record in St. Omer and other neighbouring towns and villages,
were monks of the Montreuil monastery. There is a Forest of Josse just
near Montreuil, and I regret to say that some American officers were
persuaded to believe that it got its name from being the site of a
Chinese Labour Joss-house, to the lessening of the glory of St. Josse.
With the ravages of the pirate Northmen another period of darkness falls
upon the town of Montreuil until the 9th century, when the famous Count
Hildgood (that is to say "hold-good," a stubborn man in the fight)
resolved to make head against the Northmen, and in defence of his county
of Ponthieu built on Montreuil Hill a strong fortress. Traces of this
fortress still exist in the town. The Hotel de France (which was a
meeting place for officers of G.H.Q. when a dinner away from Mess
formalities was desired) stands on part of the site of "Hold-good's"
fortress.
Count Hildgood was something of a statesman as well as a soldier, and
encouraged a civilian population to collect at the foot of his fortress,
and used the glory of St. Saulve's monastery to attract to the place
other religious communities from Brittany and elsewhere. Montreuil
became thus a famous strong-point. It developed on the familiar lines of
a mediæval city with its well-established local rights, those of "the
peers of the peerage of Montreuil." The ravages of the Northmen in the
surrounding country continued, but Montreuil was too strong for them and
grew into a city of refuge, giving hospitality to many religious refugee
communities even from as far away as Brittany.
It remained without dispute a part of the county of Ponthieu until 939,
when, as related by the monkish historian Richer, it was coveted by the
Count of Flanders and captured through the treachery of the governor,
Robert le Chepier. (One of the towers of the existing fortifications
still bears his name). The children of the Count of Ponthieu were taken
captives and sent to the English Court to be held as prisoners--giving
rise to one of the first of the many grudges that the good Montreuillois
had against England. The Count of Ponthieu appealed for help to the then
Duke of Normandy (William of the Long Sword). The help was given,
Montreuil was wrested from the Flemings, and handed back to the Count of
Ponthieu according to some accounts, held by the Normans according to
other accounts, which have a greater air of reasonableness, for the
Normans were good at taking and slow at giving back.
[Illustration: OUTSIDE THE RAMPARTS]
But all disputes as to the possession of Montreuil between the Counts
of Ponthieu and Flanders and the Duke of Normandy were settled by the
King of France, Hugo Capet, who made the town part of the Royal Domain
of France and built a great fortified château by the side of the old
citadel. A part of this château still remains, "the Tower of Queen
Bertha," so-called from the unhappy fate of Bertha, Queen of Philip I.
of France. She was the daughter of the Count Florent I. of Holland, and
had borne Philip three children when he became enamoured of the wife of
the Count of Anjou and shut his own wife up to die in Montreuil. To
quote the old chronicle: "Il la mist en prison en un fort chastel qui a
nom Monstereul-sur-la-mer." The poor lady seems to have been most
harshly treated, and was left dependent on the charity of the townsfolk
for her food. The children of Montreuil recall the story to this day
when begging for money for the churches with the cry "Give, give, to
your Queen."
By this time the Norman Conquest had given England a place in European
politics. The 13th Century brought Montreuil under the English Crown.
Jeanne, Countess of Ponthieu and Montreuil, had married the King of
Castille and Leon. Their daughter Eleonora of Castille married Edward
I., King of England, and part of her dowry was Montreuil. Edward I. came
over in 1279 to take over his new possession, and promised the
Montreuillois to safeguard all their local rights and privileges. But
the good folk of the town did not like the English of that day, and
disputes were constant. They rejoiced when war broke out between France
and England (a war in which the French had the Scots as allies and the
English the Flemings); for the King of France exempted Montreuil from
her feudal duty to the English King.
That war was stopped by the intervention of Pope Boniface, and a Peace
Conference assembled at Montreuil. One of the peace conditions was that
the Prince of Wales should marry the daughter of the King of France, and
this marriage was celebrated with great magnificence at Boulogne, the
young princess passing through Montreuil to the wedding. She received as
her pin-money from her husband the revenues of Ponthieu and Montreuil.
But that marriage did not make for peace. On the contrary its fruits
were a new series of wars interrupted by an occasional truce or brief
peace. Crécy and Agincourt were both fought almost in sight of
Montreuil. The district round was ravaged again and again by the English
forces, and several times the town itself was besieged in vain. After
Crécy, Edward tried to take it and failed. An incident of one of the
peace treaties was the visit of Chaucer, the poet, to Montreuil as an
English plenipotentiary. An incident of one of the wars was the passage
through Montreuil of the funeral procession of King Henry V.
So through the years Montreuil was in the very heart of the struggle
between English and French. It was in a manner the border town between
the territory in France which was admitted to be English, and the
disputed territory. Thus it learned a deep hatred of the English. Often
as a condition of peace it was handed over to English domination; never
was it content with that destiny. Finally, the ambition of the English
Kings to add France to their realms--an ambition which was as bad for
England as it was for France--was definitely frustrated. Montreuil,
passionately French in spirit, "the most faithful town in all Picardy,"
as Henry of Navarre called it, was no more to be vexed either by English
governors or English marauders.
But Montreuil cherished its dislike of the English, and probably had
never been so happy for centuries as when in 1804 it was the
headquarters of the left wing of Napoleon's Army for the invasion of
England. General Ney was the officer in command at Montreuil, and his
brilliant receptions brought back to the town some of its Middle Ages
pomp. It was from Montreuil that in 1804 General Ney addressed to
Napoleon a memorial begging him to take the Imperial Crown for the sake
of France. Napoleon himself visited Montreuil more than once, and a
house in which he slept is still shown in the Place Verte.
Little or nothing of this was in the minds of our Staff in deciding upon
Montreuil as a site for G.H.Q. It was convenient (as its choice in old
times for Peace Conferences between England and France clearly shows) to
London and to Paris. It was off any main traffic route, and promised
quiet for telephone services. The feelings of the inhabitants were
presumed to be friendly, and the presumption was justified, though
curiously enough there was in 1918 a slight revival of the old
anti-English feelings, and I even heard whispered again "_à la queue les
Anglais_." It all arose from what must be admitted to have been rather
an undignified incident.
There used to be a fable--no one was fonder of giving it circulation
than the Red Tabs--that there was a mutual agreement between the Germans
and ourselves that G.H.Q. on both sides was to be spared from air raids.
"The arrangement is a classic instance of our stupidity," the Red Tab
humorist would remark, "for the German scores both ways."
"How is that?"
"Well, his Staff is spared, which is valuable to him. And our Staff is
spared, which is also valuable to him."
Staff officers, B.E.F., could afford to pass on gibes like that in
1917-18 when British Staff work was the model which the new American
armies set themselves to imitate.
But as a matter of fact in the summer of 1918 G.H.Q. was bombed pretty
regularly by the enemy. Those who lived there had unhappy proof of that.
There were several deaths from bombs in and near the town. After the
first bombing attacks orders were issued that no soldier, except
sentries and officers on night duty, was to be allowed to sleep in
Montreuil. The whole garrison was to go into the woods at night, or to
take refuge in the deep dug-outs which were tunnelled under the city.
Hardly a night passed without a bombing raid, until the tide of battle
turned and the German bomber had neither heart nor means for nocturnal
wanderings.
There was no doubt that a good motive inspired the orders for the
nightly evacuation of the town by officers and soldiers except those
actually on duty. It was thought that the Germans had discovered G.H.Q.
and had resolved one night to "wipe it out." A really determined raid
concentrated on a small walled town might have effected that. But the
nightly march out of the troops did not impress favourably the
inhabitants, who mostly had to stay. Some of them openly jeered; others
made less parade of their feelings, but had them all the same.
"Where are the English?"
"The English are in the woods of Wailly."
That was a favourite street-corner gibe.
Most officers who did not get direct orders to leave the town of nights
kept to their billets, but all the rank and file were marched out, or
rather driven out by motor lorries. The Officers' Club closed early of
evenings so that the Q.M.A.A.C.s might be evacuated to a camp outside
the town. At this camp they evidently did not have the same conveniences
as in the town for dressing their hair and so on; and they had to start
off very early in the morning to be in time to wait at breakfast.
Tempers as well as coiffures were a little ragged in consequence.
[Illustration: THE MARKET]
One advantage that we won from the bomb 'scare' (if that word is
justified) was that it gave a stimulus to archæological research in the
town. There was at G.H.Q. at the time, as a Major, R.E., that fine
"sport" Professor David of Sydney University. Professor David has a
great celebrity as a geologist. His birth year was 1858, so he is not
exactly a youngster except in heart. But the spirit of adventure and
patriotism which sent him out to the South Pole with the Shackleton
Expedition in 1907-1909 sent him from Australia to this war. He did
useful work with an Australian Tunnelling Company in connection with the
famous Messines mine, and his knowledge as a geologist was afterwards
of great use to G.H.Q. in matters of mines, of water supply, and the
like. Now he was asked to take in hand the task of providing good
under-ground dug-outs for the Montreuil garrison. His researches
disclosed some very interesting old galleries or quarries under the
citadel. Passages were cut through to these from points in the Ramparts,
and I believe that even the good citizens of Montreuil did not disdain
to take advantage of the English "dug-outs" when the German bombs began
to fall.
All the same, when that nightly march out of the town was dropped we
were all very glad; and our relations with the townspeople were restored
to their old serenity.
At the worst the hostile section was not a very large one. Many officers
who were at G.H.Q. have memories of warm personal friendships with some
of the French residents, who did all that was in their power to make
them feel that France was a second home. At one residence (where I was
billetted for a time, that of M. Laurent and his wife) the lady had
established a homely little _salon_, which was quite a student's centre
not only for officers but for other ranks. Mme. Laurent spoke English
well, and it was her hobby to teach French to any willing pupil of the
British Army and to interest soldiers in the history of the old town.
There were many others who took the same kindly interest in our mental
welfare.
The good Montreuillois of 1919 certainly did not hate the English as
their ancestors had done. They considered that the five years since 1914
had washed out all old injuries.[2]
[Footnote 2: See Appendix.]