GERMANS AT GHENT

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 91, 14 October 1914, Page 7

GERMANS AT GHENT

FLAG HOISTED IN THE CITY. (Received October 14, 9.10 a.m.) AMSTERDAM, 13th October. German cavalry entered the city of I Gheftt and hoisted the German flag. [Ghent stands on the confluence of the Scheldt and its tributary, the Lys, and is 34 miles by rail from Brussels. Like Brussels, it is, with the exception of a citadel about a century old, not forti* iied, and the old wails, useless as a means of defence, have been converted into promenades. Owing to the flatness of the country, great use is made of waterways, and the city is divided up into about 30 islands, joined up by about ten times as many bridges; and other attributes help to give it a romantic appearance. Like many other Belgian cities, Ghent is the possessor of- numerons fine buildings and of art collections which contain iamous wOTks. The Cathedral of St. Bavon is considered one of the finest churches in the kingdom. The hotel-do-ville, or city hall, is one of the most florid specimens of flamboyaftj/ Gothic architecture in Belgium, and is about 300 years old. Industrially, Ghent occupies an important place as a manufacturer of woollenj, cotton, and hflen textiles ; and it is a great flower-grow-ing centre. It is connected with the sea by the Scheldt, and hag large shipping accommodation. Its population in 1846 was 103,000, and in 18d8 148,000. Ghent has had a fighting past. As the capital of Flanders, it prospered greatly in the tWelith and the two following centuries. In the fourteenth it put 80,000 men in the field to assert its independence of the Flanders rulers, backed up though they were by the King of France. It was in 1340 the birthplace of famous John of Gaunt (Ghent). In 1540, for rebellion against the Emperor, Charles V., it lost its privileges, and began to declinei It has suffered severely in many of the wars of which Belgium has been made the scene* and has" many times been taken by armed forces, especially in the eighteenth century. It was seized by the French during ' the revolution, and was made the capital of the Department of the Scheldt, till its incorporation with the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1814, in which year peace was signed, at Ghent, between Britain and America. In 1830, after being for about a century shared by France and Austria, Flanders was joined to the newly-formed Kingdom of Belgium.]