1.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
2.
Hauts-de-France
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Hauts-de-France is a Region of France created by the territorial reform of French Regions in 2014 by the merger of Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy. The new region came into existence on 1 January 2016, after the elections in December 2015. Frances Conseil dÉtat approved Hauts-de-France as the new name of the region on 28 September 2016, the region covers an area of more than 31,813 km2, and with a population of 5,973,098. The regions interim name Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie was a placename, created by hyphenating the merged regions names—Nord-Pas-de-Calais. On 14 March 2016, well ahead of the 1 July deadline, the provisional name of the region was retired on 30 September 2016, when the new name of the region, Hauts-de-France, took effect
3.
Abbeville
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Abbeville is a commune in the Somme department and in Hauts-de-France region in northern France. It is one of the chef-lieus of the arrondissement of Somme and it was the capital of Ponthieu. Its inhabitants are called the Abbevillois, Abbeville is located on the Somme River,20 km from its modern mouth in the English Channel. The majority of the town is located on the east bank of the Somme and it is located at the head of the Abbeville Canal, and is 45 km northwest of Amiens and approximately 200 kilometres from Paris. It is also 10 kilometres as the flies from the Bay of Somme. In the medieval period, it was the lowest crossing point on the Somme, just halfway between Rouen and Lille, it is the historical capital of the County of Ponthieu and maritime Picardy. This place is considered by some to be the origin of Abbeville, because it was the location of the first château of the Counts of Ponthieu and it is assumed that this place could have been the location of the farm of Abbatisvilla, dependent upon the Abbey of Saint-Riquier. The suburbs of La Bouvaque and Thuison are located to the north of the city, the municipal park of La Bouvaque, bordered by the Boulevard de la République, consists of the La Bouvaque pond and Collart meadows, former settling ponds of the Béghin-Say sugar factory. It was in Thuison that the Carthusian monastery of Saint-Honoré was founded in 1301 by William of Mâcon and this was a property of the Order of the Temple, sold to the latter by Gérard de Villars, the last master of the province of France. The sale was confirmed by Hugues de Pairaud, then visitor of France, the suburb of Saint Gilles Rouvroy is to the west, and the origin of the name comes from Rouvray indicates the presence of an oak wood or a remarkable oak. Mautort, beside Rouvroy, is a stronghold located between Cambron and Abbeville. It is at the origin of the name of de Mautort, surviving in the name of the Tillette de Mautort family or, for example. The name tort is attested in Old French with the sense of détour, Menchecourt, in the north-west, is known for its sugar factory and for its football club. Abbeville is served by trains on the line between Boulogne-sur-Mer and Amiens and between Calais and Paris, Abbeville was the southern terminus of the Réseau des Bains de Mer, the line to Dompierre-sur-Authie opened on 19 June 1892 and closed on 10 March 1947. Abbeville is located just near the A16 autoroute, and is about 1 hour 50 minutes by car from Paris, Abbeville has an oceanic climate due to its proximity to the ocean. The summers and winters are temperate and rainy, days of snow are fairly common, the highest temperature was 37.8 °C on 1 July 1952 and the record low is −0.8 °C, which occurred during a particularly cold spell on 17 January 1985. In 2012, the commune had 24,237 inhabitants, the evolution of the number of inhabitants is known through the population censuses carried out in the town since 1793. The population of the commune is relatively old, the rate of persons over 60 years of age is higher than the national rate and the departmental rate
4.
Estuary
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An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a zone between river environments and maritime environments. They are subject both to marine influences—such as tides, waves, and the influx of saline water—and to riverine influences—such as flows of fresh water and sediment. The inflows of sea water and fresh water provide high levels of nutrients both in the water column and in sediment, making estuaries among the most productive natural habitats in the world. Most existing estuaries formed during the Holocene epoch with the flooding of river-eroded or glacially scoured valleys when the sea began to rise about 10. Estuaries are typically classified according to their geomorphological features or to water-circulation patterns, the banks of many estuaries are amongst the most heavily populated areas of the world, with about 60% of the worlds population living along estuaries and the coast. The word estuary is derived from the Latin word aestuarium meaning tidal inlet of the sea, there have been many definitions proposed to describe an estuary. However, this definition excludes a number of water bodies such as coastal lagoons. This broad definition also includes fjords, lagoons, river mouths, an estuary is a dynamic ecosystem having a connection to the open sea through which the sea water enters with the rhythm of the tides. The sea water entering the estuary is diluted by the water flowing from rivers. The pattern of dilution varies between different estuaries and depends on the volume of water, the tidal range. Drowned river valleys are known as coastal plain estuaries. In places where the sea level is rising relative to the land, sea water progressively penetrates into river valleys and this is the most common type of estuary in temperate climates. Well-studied estuaries include the Severn Estuary in the United Kingdom and the Ems Dollard along the Dutch-German border, the width-to-depth ratio of these estuaries is typically large, appearing wedge-shaped in the inner part and broadening and deepening seaward. Water depths rarely exceed 30 m, examples of this type of estuary in the U. S. are the Hudson River, Chesapeake Bay, and Delaware Bay along the Mid-Atlantic coast, and Galveston Bay and Tampa Bay along the Gulf Coast. They are relatively common in tropical and subtropical locations and these estuaries are semi-isolated from ocean waters by barrier beaches. Formation of barrier beaches partially encloses the estuary, with only narrow inlets allowing contact with the ocean waters, bar-built estuaries typically develop on gently sloping plains located along tectonically stable edges of continents and marginal sea coasts. They are extensive along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the U. S. in areas with active coastal deposition of sediments, barrier beaches form in shallow water and are generally parallel to the shoreline, resulting in long, narrow estuaries
5.
Somme (river)
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The Somme is a river in Picardy, northern France. The name Somme comes from a Celtic word meaning tranquility, the department Somme was named after this river. The river is 245 km long, from its source in the ground of the former Forest of Arrouaise at Fonsommes near Saint-Quentin, to the Bay of the Somme. It lies in the geological syncline which also forms the Solent and this gives it a fairly constant and gentle gradient where several fluvial terraces have been identified. The Invasion Fleet of William the Conqueror assembled in the Bay of the Somme at Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, the river featured in the 1346 withdrawal of Edward IIIs army, which forded the river at the battle of Blanchetaque during the campaign which culminated in the Battle of Crécy. Crossing the river also featured prominently in the campaign led to the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. The river is famous for the World War I Battle of the Somme from July to November 1916. Aisne, Saint-Quentin Somme, Ham, Péronne, Corbie, Amiens, Abbeville, Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, Le Crotoy The river is characterized by a gentle gradient. The valley is more or less steep-sided but its bottom is flat with fens and these characteristics of steady flow and flooded valley bottom arise from the rivers being fed by the ground water in the chalk basin in which it lies. At earlier, colder times, from the Günz to the Würm the river has cut down into the Cretaceous geology to a level below the water table. The valley bottom has now therefore, filled with water which and this picture, of the source of the Somme in 1986, shows it when the water table had fallen below the surface of the chalk in which the aquifer lies. Here, the flow of water had been sufficient to keep fen from forming and this satellite photograph shows the fenny valley crossing the chalk to the sea on the left. The sinuous length at the centre of the picture lies downstream from Péronne, one of the fens, the Marais de lÎle is a nature reserve in the town of St. Quentin. The traditional market gardens of Amiens, the Hortillonages are on this sort of land, once exploited for peat cutting, the fen is now used for fishing and shooting The construction of the Canal de la Somme began in 1770 and reached completion in 1843. It is 156 km long, beginning at St. Simon, from St. Simon to Froissy, the canal is alongside the river. Thence to the sea, the river is partly river and partly navigation, from Abbeville, it is diverted through the silted, former estuary, to Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, where the maritime canal, once called the canal du Duc dAngoulême enters the English Channel. The St Quentin Canal, famous for the 1918 battle, links the Somme to northern France and Belgium, the Canal du Nord also links the Somme to the Oise, at Noyon, thence to Paris. In 2001, the Somme valley was affected by high floods
6.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
7.
Battle of the Somme
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The Battle of the Somme, also known as the Somme Offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British and French empires against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the reaches of the River Somme in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies and was the largest battle of the First World War on the Western Front, more than one million men were wounded or killed, making it one of the bloodiest battles in human history. The French and British had committed themselves to an offensive on the Somme during Allied discussions at Chantilly, Oise, in December 1915. Initial plans called for the French army to undertake the main part of the Somme offensive, the first day on the Somme was, in terms of casualties, also the worst day in the history of the British army, which suffered 57,470 casualties. These occurred mainly on the front between the Albert–Bapaume road and Gommecourt, where the attack was defeated and few British troops reached the German front line, the battle is notable for the importance of air power and the first use of the tank. At the end of the battle, British and French forces had penetrated 10 km into German-occupied territory, the Anglo-French armies failed to capture Péronne and halted 5 km from Bapaume, where the German armies maintained their positions over the winter. Debate continues over the necessity, significance and effect of the battle, David Frum opined that a century later, the Somme remains the most harrowing place-name in the history of the British Empire. Allied war strategy for 1916 was decided at the Chantilly Conference from 6–8 December 1915, in December 1915, General Sir Douglas Haig replaced Field Marshal Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF. Haig favoured a British offensive in Flanders close to BEF supply routes, to drive the Germans from the Belgian coast, Haig was not formally subordinate to Marshal Joseph Joffre but the British played a lesser role on the Western Front and complied with French strategy. A week later the Germans began an offensive against the French at Verdun, by 31 May, the ambitious Franco-British plan for a decisive victory, had been reduced to a limited offensive to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun with a battle of attrition on the Somme. The Chief of the German General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, intended to end the war by splitting the Anglo-French Entente in 1916, Falkenhayn chose to attack towards Verdun to take the Meuse heights and make Verdun untenable. The British would then have to begin a hasty relief offensive, Falkenhayn expected the relief offensive to fall south of Arras against the Sixth Army and be destroyed. If such Franco-British defeats were not enough, Germany would attack the remnants of armies and end the western alliance for good. Eloi, south of Ypres and reduced the German counter-offensive strategy north of the Somme, to one of passive, the Battle of Verdun began a week after Joffre and Haig agreed to mount an offensive on the Somme. The battle changed the nature of the offensive on the Somme, as French divisions were diverted to Verdun, German overestimation of the cost of Verdun to the French contributed to the concentration of German infantry and guns on the north bank of the Somme. The German offensive at Verdun was suspended in July, and troops, guns, the Brusilov Offensive, absorbed the extra forces that had been requested on 2 June by Fritz von Below, commanding the German Second Army, for a spoiling attack on the Somme. During the offensive the Russians inflicted c. 1,500,000 losses including c. 407,000 prisoners, three divisions were ordered from France to the Eastern Front on 9 June and the spoiling attack on the Somme was abandoned
8.
Cemetery
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A cemetery or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word cemetery implies that the land is designated as a burial ground. The term graveyard is used interchangeably with cemetery, but primarily referred to a burial ground within a churchyard. The intact or cremated remains of people may be interred in a grave, commonly referred to as burial, or in a tomb, an above-ground grave, in Western cultures, funeral ceremonies are often observed in cemeteries. These ceremonies or rites of passage according to cultural practices. Modern cemeteries often include crematoria, and some previously used for both, continue as crematoria as a principal use long after the interment areas have been filled. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a cemetery as a burial-ground generally, a large public park or ground laid out expressly for the interment of the dead, and not being the ‘yard’ of any church. Prehistoric cemeteries are referred to by the term grave field. From about the 7th century, European burial was under the control of the Church, practices varied, but in continental Europe, bodies were usually buried in a mass grave until they had decomposed. The bones were exhumed and stored in ossuaries, either along the arcaded bounding walls of the cemetery, or within the church under floor slabs. In Europe this was accompanied with a depiction of their coat of arms. Most others were buried in graveyards again divided by social status, mourners who could afford the work of a stonemason had a headstone engraved with a name, dates of birth and death and sometimes other biographical data, and set up over the place of burial. Usually, the writing and symbols carved on the headstone. Some families hired a blacksmith and had large crosses made from various metals put on the place of burial, in many European states, burial in graveyards was eventually outlawed altogether through government legislation. Instead of graveyards, completely new places of burial were established away from populated areas and outside of old towns. Many new cemeteries became municipally owned or were run by their own corporations, in some cases, skeletons were exhumed from graveyards and moved into ossuaries or catacombs. A large action of this occurred in 18th century Paris when human remains were transferred from graveyards all over the city to the Catacombs of Paris. The bones of an estimated 6 million people are to be found there, an early example of a landscape-style cemetery is Père Lachaise in Paris
9.
Hundred Years' War
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Each side drew many allies into the war. It was one of the most notable conflicts of the Middle Ages, the war marked both the height of chivalry and its subsequent decline, and the development of strong national identities in both countries. After the Norman Conquest, the kings of England were vassals of the kings of France for their possessions in France, the French kings had endeavored, over the centuries, to reduce these possessions, to the effect that only Gascony was left to the English. Through his mother, Isabella of France, Edward III of England was the grandson of Philip IV of France and nephew of Charles IV of France, in 1316, a principle was established denying women succession to the French throne. When Charles IV died in 1328, Isabella, unable to claim the French throne for herself, the French rejected the claim, maintaining that Isabella could not transmit a right that she did not possess. Several overwhelming English victories in the war—especially at Crecy, Poitiers, however, the greater resources of the French monarchy precluded a complete conquest. Historians commonly divide the war into three separated by truces, the Edwardian Era War, the Caroline War, and the Lancastrian War. Later historians adopted the term Hundred Years War as a historiography periodization to encompass all of these events, the war owes its historical significance to multiple factors. By its end, feudal armies had been replaced by professional troops. Although primarily a conflict, the war gave impetus to ideas of French. The wider introduction of weapons and tactics supplanted the feudal armies where heavy cavalry had dominated, the war precipitated the creation of the first standing armies in Western Europe since the time of the Western Roman Empire and thus helping to change their role in warfare. With respect to the belligerents, in France, civil wars, deadly epidemics, famines, English political forces over time came to oppose the costly venture. The dissatisfaction of English nobles, resulting from the loss of their continental landholdings, the root causes of the conflict can be found in the demographic, economic and political crises of 14th century Europe. The outbreak of war was motivated by a rise in tension between the Kings of France and England about Guyenne, Flanders and Scotland. The dynastic question, which due to an interruption of the direct male line of the Capetians, was the official pretext. The question of succession to the French throne was raised after the death of Louis X in 1316. Louis X left only a daughter, and his posthumous son John I lived only a few days, Philip, Count of Poitiers, brother of Louis X, asserted that women were ineligible to succeed to the French throne. Through his political sagacity he won over his adversaries and succeeded to the French throne as Philip V of France, by the same law that he procured, his daughters were denied the succession, which passed to his younger brother, Charles IV, in 1322
10.
Nord (French department)
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Nord is a department in the far north of France. It was created from the halves of the historical counties of Flanders and Hainaut. The modern coat of arms was inherited from the County of Flanders, Nord is the countrys most populous department. It also contains the region of Lille, the fifth-largest urban area in France after Paris, Lyon, Marseille. Within the department is located the part of France where the French Flemish dialect of Dutch is still spoken as a native language, tribes of the Belgae, such as the Menapii and Nervii were the first peoples recorded in the area later known as Nord. In effect, the area known later as Nord became an isogloss between the Germanic and Romance languages and this has remained evident in the place names of the region. After the the County of Flanders became part of France in the 9th century, during the 14th Century, much of the area came under the control of the Duchy of Burgundy and in subsequent centuries was therefore part of the Habsburg Netherlands and the Spanish Netherlands. Areas that later constituted Nord were ceded to France by treaties in 1659,1668, and 1678, becoming the Counties of Flanders and Hainaut, on 4 March 1790, during the French Revolution, Nord became one of the original 83 departments created to replace the counties. Nord is part of the current Hauts-de-France region and is surrounded by the French departments of Pas-de-Calais and Aisne, as well as by Belgium, situated in the north of the country along the western half of the Belgian frontier, the department is unusually long and narrow. Other important cities are Valenciennes, Douai, and Dunkirk. The principal rivers are the following, Yser, Lys, Escaut, Scarpe, Sambre Nord is the most heavily populated department, with a population of 2,617,939, the President of the Departmental Council is the unaffiliated right-winger Jean-René Lecerf. The first President of the Fifth Republic, General Charles de Gaulle, was born in Lille in the department on 22 November 1890, until recently, the department was dominated economically by coal mining, which extended through the heart of the department from neighbouring Artois into central Belgium
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