ANTWERP AS IT WAS.
In the first half of the sixteenth century Antwerp was the commercial
capital of the world. The great historian of the Dutch Republic[156]
says, "Venice, Nuremberg,[157] Augsburg,[158] Bruges were sinking; but
Antwerp, with its deep and convenient river, stretched its arm to the
ocean, and caught the golden prize as it fell from its sister cities'
grasp. . . . No city except Paris surpassed it in population; none
approached it in commercial splendour."
[Illustration]
Close to the great and beautiful cathedral of Antwerp is the Grand'
Place, in the middle of which there is a monument representing a running
warrior flinging into the river a huge hand which he has just cut off
from a prostrate giant's arm. This monument is intended to explain the
fanciful origin of the city's name. Two centuries before the fall of
Troy--so runs the story--a savage giant, named Antigonus, held sway over
the river Scaldis--that is, the Scheldt. He built himself a castle on
the river bank, and levied tribute on every vessel that passed up and
down the broad stream. The tribute was very heavy--no less than half the
merchandise in the passing ships. If the mariners refused to pay the
tribute he seized them, cut off their hands, and flung them into the
river.
[Illustration: A Bird's-eye View of Antwerp.
_Photo, Topical Press._
This photograph was taken from one of the towers of Antwerp's
magnificent cathedral--the largest and most beautiful Gothic church in
the Netherlands. Its north tower rises to a height of more than four
hundred feet. On the south side of the cathedral is the Place Verte
(Green Place), with a statue of Rubens, whose famous picture, "The
Descent from the Cross," formerly hung in the south transept. In the
north transept was another of his great paintings, "The Elevation of the
Cross."]
At length a deliverer arose, one Salvius Brabo, a man of such valorous
renown that the province of Brabant received its name from him. Brabo
challenged the giant to single combat, slew him, cut off both his hands,
and flung them into the Scheldt. Thus _Hand-werpen_--that is,
"hand-throwing"--became the name of the great city. In the coat-of-arms
of Antwerp you still see two severed hands flying through the air over a
castle. Probably the real origin of the city's name is found in the old
Flemish words _'an t' werf_, which mean "on the wharf."
The city began to decline during the reign of Philip II., who was King
of Spain and master of the Netherlands. In 1576 Spanish soldiers whose
pay was in arrears broke into mutiny, and stormed and sacked several of
the richest towns of Flanders, including Antwerp. Early in November of
that year they entered the city, burnt more than a thousand houses, slew
more than eight thousand citizens, plundered right and left, and behaved
with the utmost cruelty. Such was the "Spanish Fury," which still forms
a landmark in Flemish history. With the help of William of Orange,[159]
the Spaniards were driven out of Antwerp.
In 1648 the city received another grievous set-back: it fell into the
hands of the Dutch, who closed the Scheldt against sea-going vessels.
Then for a hundred and fifty years it remained only a shadow of its
former self. In 1706 it surrendered to Marlborough after his victory at
Ramillies. The real restorer of its prosperity was Napoleon I., who, you
will remember, regarded Antwerp as "a pistol aimed at the heart of
England." He constructed a harbour and new quays, and opened the port to
the ships of the world. Almost at once the trade of the city revived in
an astonishing fashion. The French remained masters of Antwerp down to
the year before the Battle of Waterloo, when the British, Prussians, and
Belgians besieged and captured it.
In 1830 it once more fell into the hands of an enemy. During the civil
war of 1830-32, when the Belgians were striving to throw off the yoke of
Holland and make themselves independent, Antwerp was the scene of a very
curious kind of strife. A Dutch garrison held the citadel, and day by
day bombarded the city. For two years the Dutchmen defied all the
efforts of the Belgians to dislodge them. At last a British and French
force was sent to turn them out. The French bombarded the citadel for
twenty-four days, while a British fleet blockaded the river. In December
1832 the citadel surrendered, and when it fell Belgium had won her
independence.
Such, in brief, is the stormy history of Antwerp down to the autumn of
the year 1914. A visitor to the old city in the early days of July would
have imagined that its peace was secured for ever. No one could believe
that in less than three months this haven of peaceful trade was to be a
place of slaughter, destruction, and desolation. The "Spanish Fury" was
soon to be out-Heroded; the "German Fury" was already preparing.
In July 1914 Antwerp, with its population of 400,000 souls and its vast
trade--which exceeded in value £100,000,000 per year--was not only one
of the great business cities of the world, but was considered to be one
of the strongest of all fortified places in Europe. Before an enemy
could capture the city he would have to break through four distinct
lines of defence, each of which, prior to this war, was considered
strong enough to oppose any force which could be brought against it.
The outermost line of forts began at Lierre,[160] and swept round in a
great circle south through Fort Waelhem to the Scheldt, and north
through Fort Schooten to near the Dutch frontier. Two to three miles
within this outer line of forts was a second line of defence formed by
the rivers Nethe[161] and Rupel, which, along with the Scheldt, make a
great natural waterway defending three sides of the city. If need be,
the valleys of these rivers can be flooded, and thus form an additional
barrier to the approach of an enemy. Some six miles within the line of
the Nethe and Rupel, and about three miles from the centre of the city,
was another chain of forts girdling it from the Scheldt on the south to
the Scheldt on the north. Outside this inner line of defence, towards
the north and west, were two other areas, which could be flooded in
order to keep back the enemy. From the moment that the first German
soldier set foot on the soil of Belgium, the military authorities were
at work night and day strengthening the defences, and clearing away all
the trees and buildings that lay in the line of fire of the guns in the
forts.
[Illustration: The Entrenched Camp of Antwerp.]
Barbed-wire entanglements connected with the electric supply of the city
covered acres of ground; stakes were driven point upwards to form
obstacles; man-traps innumerable were constructed, and the fields all
around were sown with mines. Preparations were made to blow up the
bridges over the network of canals and rivers to the south of the city;
machine guns and quick-firers were mounted everywhere; and at night
searchlights swept over the zone of destruction, and made it bright as
day.
In this way Antwerp prepared to stand its latest siege.
[Footnote 156: John Lothrop Motley (1814-77), American historian, whose
most famous work, _The Rise of the Dutch Republic_, was published in
1856.]
[Footnote 157: Ancient city of Bavaria, 95 miles north-west of Munich,
the capital.]
[Footnote 158: City of Bavaria, on the Lech, tributary of the Danube. In
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was the great centre of trade
between Northern Europe, Venice, and the Levant.]
[Footnote 159: (1533-84.) Known as "the Silent." He headed the
opposition in the Netherlands to Philip of Spain, and became the founder
of the Dutch Republic. He was assassinated.]
[Footnote 160: _Le-air´_, town, 10 miles south-east of Antwerp, at the
confluence of the Great and Little Nethe.]
[Footnote 161: _Nā´teh._]