Congress of Vienna
The objective of the Congress was to provide a long-term peace plan for Europe by settling critical issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. The goal was not simply to restore old boundaries but to resize the main powers so they could balance each other off, the leaders were conservatives with little use for republicanism or revolution, both of which threatened to upset the status quo in Europe. France lost all its recent conquests, while Prussia and Russia made major territorial gains, Prussia added smaller German states in the west, Swedish Pomerania and 60% of the Kingdom of Saxony, Austria gained Venice and much of northern Italy. The new Kingdom of the Netherlands had been created just months before, the immediate background was Napoleonic Frances defeat and surrender in May 1814, which brought an end to twenty-five years of nearly continuous war. Negotiations continued despite the outbreak of fighting triggered by Napoleons dramatic return from exile, the Congresss Final Act was signed nine days before his final defeat at Waterloo on 18 June 1815.
However, others praise it for having created relatively long-term stable, the Congress of Vienna settlement, despite changes, formed the framework for European international politics until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. The Treaty of Chaumont in 1814 had reaffirmed decisions that had made already. The Treaty of Chaumont became the cornerstone of the European Alliance which formed the balance of power for decades, other partial settlements had already occurred at the Treaty of Paris between France and the Sixth Coalition, and the Treaty of Kiel which covered issues raised regarding Scandinavia. The Treaty of Paris had determined that a general congress should be held in Vienna, the opening was scheduled for July 1814. The Four Great Powers had previously formed the core of the Sixth Coalition, as the Congresss sessions were in Vienna, Emperor Francis was kept closely informed. Great Britain was represented first by its Foreign Secretary, Viscount Castlereagh, by the Duke of Wellington, in the last weeks it was headed by the Earl of Clancarty, after Wellington left to face Napoleon during the Hundred Days.
Tsar Alexander I controlled the Russian delegation which was led by the foreign minister. The tsar had two goals, to gain control of Poland and to promote the peaceful coexistence of European nations. He succeeded in forming the Holy Alliance, based on monarchism and anti-secularism, Prussia was represented by Prince Karl August von Hardenberg, the Chancellor, and the diplomat and scholar Wilhelm von Humboldt. King Frederick William III of Prussia was in Vienna, playing his role behind the scenes, the fifth power, was represented by its foreign minister, Talleyrand as well as the Minister Plenipotentiary the Duke of Dalberg. Talleyrand had already negotiated the Treaty of Paris for Louis XVIII of France, Sweden – Count Carl Löwenhielm Denmark – Count Niels Rosenkrantz, foreign minister. King Frederick VI was present in Vienna, the Netherlands – Earl of Clancarty, the British Ambassador at the Dutch court, and Baron Hans von Gagern Switzerland – Every canton had its own delegation. Charles Pictet de Rochemont from Geneva played a prominent role, mecklenburg-Schwerin – Leopold von Plessen Virtually every state in Europe had a delegation in Vienna – more than 200 states and princely houses were represented at the Congress
Municipality
It is to be distinguished from the county, which may encompass rural territory and/or numerous small communities such as towns and hamlets. The term municipality may mean the governing or ruling body of a given municipality, a municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district. The term is derived from French municipalité and Latin municipalis, a municipality can be any political jurisdiction from a sovereign state, such as the Principality of Monaco, or a small village, such as West Hampton Dunes, New York. The power of municipalities range from virtual autonomy to complete subordination to the state, municipalities may have the right to tax individuals and corporations with income tax, property tax, and corporate income tax, but may receive substantial funding from the state. Similar terms include Spanish ayuntamiento, called municipalidad, Polish gmina, Dutch/Flemish Gemeente, in Australia, the term local government area is used in place of the generic municipality.
Here, the LGA Structure covers only incorporated areas of Australia, incorporated areas are legally designated parts of states and territories over which incorporated local governing bodies have responsibility. In Canada, municipalities are local governments established through provincial and territorial legislation, the Province of Ontario has different tiers of municipalities, including lower and single tiers. Types of upper tier municipalities in Ontario include counties and regional municipalities, nova Scotia has regional municipalities, which include cities, districts, or towns as municipal units. In India, a Nagar Palika or Municipality is a local body that administers a city of population 100,000 or more. Under the Panchayati Raj system, it directly with the state government. Generally, smaller cities and bigger towns have a Nagar Palika. Nagar Palikas are a form of local self-government entrusted with duties and responsibilities. Such a corporation in Great Britain consists of a head as a mayor or provost, since local government reorganisation, the unit in England, Northern Ireland and Wales is known as a district, and in Scotland as a council area.
A district may be awarded borough or city status, or can retain its district title, in Jersey, a municipality refers to the honorary officials elected to run each of the 12 parishes into which it is subdivided. This is the highest level of government in this jurisdiction. In the United States, municipality is usually understood as a city, village, or other local government unit, in the Peoples Republic of China, a direct-controlled municipality is a city with equal status to a province, Tianjin and Chongqing. In Taiwan, a municipality is a city with equal status to a province, New Taipei, Tainan, Taipei. In Portuguese language usage, there are two words to distinguish the territory and the administrative organ, when referring to the territory, the word concelho is used, when referring to the organ of State, the word município is used
United Kingdom of the Netherlands
The House of Orange-Nassau came to be the monarchs of this new state. The United Kingdom of the Netherlands collapsed after the 1830 Belgian Revolution, William I, King of the Netherlands, would refuse to recognize a Belgian state until 1839, when he had to yield under pressure by the Treaty of London. Only at this time were exact borders agreed upon, the Benelux Union is in some ways a distant heir of the former United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Their respective political systems are similar and Dutch is the official. William returned to The Hague, where on 6 December he was offered the title of King and he refused, instead proclaiming himself Sovereign Prince of the Principality of the United Netherlands. During the Congress of Vienna in 1815 France had to give up its rule of the Southern Netherlands and these negotiations were not easy, because William tried to get as much out of it as he could. In 1789, after the Southern Netherlands declared themselves independent, Hendrik knew this was a fragile state, since William had never forgotten this and after the fall of Napoleon he saw a chance.
Three different scenarios were made, The Northern Netherlands restored within its old borders, if the Southern Netherlands would stay French, the Northern Netherlands should be extended to the Nete River or probably the whole of Flanders. In this scenario portions of Germany would become Dutch, the border would be the line Mechelen-Maastricht-Jülich-Cologne-Düsseldorf where it ends at the river Rhine. The first two came from Memorandum of Holland made in 1813 after the Battle of Leipzig. The last scenario came from William himself, the first scenario never made it because the Great Powers thought an independent Southern Netherlands/Belgium under an Austrian Prince was too weak and Austria was not interested in getting it back. The Dutch question became a problem, the Great Powers of Europe chose the last scenario, but didnt want to go as far in enlarging the Netherlands as William had wanted. It was incorporated into the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Duchy of Luxembourg was not fully granted to William, because it was a member of the German Confederation.
William however demanded that Luxembourg become a part of the Netherlands, historically it had been a part of the Seventeen Provinces or Burgundian Netherlands up to 1648, but Luxembourg was still a part of the discussions. On 1 March 1815, while the Congress of Vienna was still going on, Napoleon escaped from Elba and he was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo by Prussian, Belgian and Nassau troops. In response, on 16 March 1815, William proclaimed the Netherlands a kingdom, furthermore, on 31 May 1815, William concluded a treaty at the Congress of Vienna whereby he ceded the Principality of Orange-Nassau to the Kingdom of Prussia in exchange for the Duchy of Luxembourg. With the unification, William completed his familys three-century quest to unite the Low Countries under a single rule, Royaume uni des Pays-Bas never was the French official name of this short-lived kingdom. This French unofficial name stayed in the language to avoid any confusion with the rest of the Netherlands after the Belgian Revolution and secession
Bavay
Bavay is a French commune in the Nord department in the Hauts-de-France region of northern France. The city is the capital of the canton called Bavay, the inhabitants of the commune are known as Bavaisiens or Bavaisiennes Bavay is located some 20 km east by south-east of Valenciennes and 10 km west of Maubeuge. Main access is on the D649 highway between two towns which passes through the commune just north of the town. Many roads radiate from the town, the D305 north-west, the D84 north-east, the D932 east by north-east, the D961 south-east, the D932 south-west, the D942 west by south-west, and the D2649 west. A disused railway runs to the commune from Maubeuge and there is an abandoned railway station south-west of the town. Apart from the town the commune is entirely farmland, the Hogneau or Bavay river runs through the commune to the west joined by several streams in the commune. The Riez Raoult rises in the north of the commune and flows north while the Ruisseau du Louvion rises nearby, the Ruisseau dAviette rises in the east and flows east from the commune.
The Ruisseau des Pres comes from the south-east and forms part of the border before joining the Bavay river. The Ruisseau de Mecquignies comes from the south and flows to the Bavay river, according to Wauquelin, seven roads, dedicated to the planets Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, the Sun, and the Moon, left from seven temples in the city. The introduction of an elective monarchy signaled the decline of the city of Belges and this episode has been considered a fable by most historians since the 19th century and even more so the bloody infighting which opposed the reign of Belges Queen Ursa by the former King Ursus. The columnist and historian of Hainaut, Jacques de Guise was simply called Belgis, the birth of Bavay after the conquest was the result of the reorganization of the territory by Augustus. The parts of Gaul conquered by Caesar were divided into three provinces, the region between the Seine and the Rhine was Gallia Belgica and its capital was at Reims. It was divided into cities —administrative districts which were headed by a chief town, living in this district were some of the fiercest people of Northern Gaul and they occupied a vast area between the Scheldt, the Sambre, and the Meuse, the Nervii.
As the centre of the junction, Bavay was an obligatory passage between Germania and the naval port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, a bridgehead to Britain. Other routes, seven in total, connected the city of the Nervii to the capital cities of neighbouring peoples. Its position was strategic, but soon these military routes were used for commercial purposes. From the Claudian period and especially under the Flavians in the late 1st century the city grew, excavations in the Roman Forum resulted in the discovery of ceramics from the 9th and 10th centuries. The history of the town during this period is unclear and reference is necessary to the lines of history of the County of Hainaut
German Army (German Empire)
The Imperial German Army was the name given to the combined land and air forces of the German Empire. The term Deutsches Heer is used for the modern German Army, the German Army was formed after the unification of Germany under Prussian leadership in 1871 and dissolved in 1919, after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I. When operating together, the units were known as the Federal Army, Prussia formed the North German Confederation and the treaty provided for the maintenance of a Federal Army and a Federal Navy. Further laws on military duty used these terms, through these conventions and the 1871 Constitution of the German Empire, an Army of the Realm was created. The contingents of the Bavarian, Saxon and Württemberg kingdoms remained semi-autonomous, the Constitution of the German Empire, dated April 16,1871, changed references in the North German Constitution from Federal Army to either Army of the Realm or German Army. After 1871, the armies of the four kingdoms remained relatively distinct.
German Army was used in legal documents, such as the Military Penal Code. Württemberg and Saxon units were numbered according to the Prussian system, the commander of the Imperial German Army, less the Bavarian contingent, was the Kaiser. He was assisted by a Military Cabinet and exercised control through the Prussian Ministry of War, the Chief of the General Staff became the Kaisers main military advisor and the most powerful military figure in the Empire. Bavaria kept its own Ministry of War and General Staff, saxony maintained its own Ministry of War and the Ministry of War of Württemberg continued to exist. Command of the Prussian Army had been reformed in the wake of the defeats suffered by Prussia in the Napoleonic Wars, the General Staff system, that sought to institutionalize military excellence, was the main result. It provided planning and organizational work during peacetime and wartime, the Prussian General Staff, proven in battle in the Wars of Unification, became the German General Staff upon formation of the German Empire, given Prussias leading role in the German Army.
During wartime, the staff of the Army inspectorates formed field army commands, during World War I, a higher command level, the army group, was created. Each army group controlled several field armies, Germany was divided into army inspectorates, each of which oversaw three or four corps. There were five in 1871, with three more added between 1907 and 1913, the corps consisted of two or more divisions and various support troops, covering a geographical area. The corps was responsible for maintaining the reserves and Landwehr in the corps area. By 1914, there were 21 corps areas under Prussian jurisdiction, besides the regional corps, there was a Guard Corps, which controlled the elite Prussian Guard units. A corps usually included an infantry battalion, a heavy artillery battalion, an engineer battalion, a telegraph battalion
Flanders Campaign
The Flanders Campaign was conducted from 6 November 1792 to 7 June 1795 during the first years of the French Revolutionary Wars. A coalition of states mobilised military forces all the French frontiers, with the intention to invade Revolutionary France. The largest of these forces assembled on the Franco-Flemish border, the Allies enjoyed several early victories, but were unable to advance beyond the French border fortresses and were eventually forced to withdraw by a series of French counter-offensives. The Allies established a new front in the south of the Netherlands and Germany, the Austrians pulled back to the lower Rhine and the British to Hanover from where they were eventually evacuated. Austria and Prussia had been at war with France since 1792, although Britain, only after the execution of the French king Louis XVI on 21 January 1793 and the declaration of war by the Revolutionary Government did they finally mobilize. Allied armies mobilised along all of the French frontiers, the largest and most important in the Flanders Franco-Belgian border region.
In the north, the immediate aim was to eject the French from the Dutch Republic. Austria and Prussia broadly supported this aim, but both were short of money, just fifteen hundred troops landed with York in February 1793. The Duke of York was obliged to follow objectives set by Pitts Foreign Minister Henry Dundas, thus Allied military decisions in the campaign were tempered by political objectives from Vienna and London. The defences of the Dutch Republic were in condition, its States Army not having fought in a war for 45 years. Williams main concern therefore was the preservation of the House of Orange, many of the old officer class had emigrated, leaving the cavalry in particular in chaotic condition. Only the artillery arm, less affected by emigration, had survived intact, the problems would become even more acute following the introduction of mass conscription, the Levée en Masse, in 1793. The price of failure or disloyalty was the guillotine, as the Austrians retreated, Dumouriez saw an opportunity with the Patriot exiles to overthrow the weak Dutch Republic by making a bold move north.
A second French Division under Francisco de Miranda manoeuvred against the Austrians and Hanoverians in eastern Belgium, on 16 February Dumouriezs republican Armée du Nord advanced from Antwerp and invaded Dutch Brabant. Dutch forces fell back to the line of the Meuse abandoning the fortress of Breda after a siege. Within nine days an initial British guards brigade had assembled and dispatched across the English Channel, landing at Hellevoetsluis under the command of general Lake. Meanwhile, while Dumouriez moved north into Brabant, a army under Francisco de Miranda laid siege to Maastricht on 23 February. However the Austrians had been reinforced to 39,000 and, now commanded by Saxe-Coburg, crossed the Ruhr River on 1 March, the next day the Austrians took Aachen before reaching Maastricht on the Meuse and forcing Miranda to lift the siege
Bretons
The Bretons are an ethnic group located in the region of Brittany in France. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Brittonic speakers who emigrated from southwestern Great Britain including Cornwall to avoid the invading Germanic peoples and they descend from the Gauls and in some parts from Vikings. They migrated in waves from the third to ninth century into Armorica, the main traditional language of Brittany is Breton, spoken in Lower Brittany. Today, Breton is spoken by less than 200,000 people, the other principal minority language of Brittany is Gallo, Gallo is spoken only in Upper Brittany, where Breton is less dominant. As one of the Brittonic languages, Breton is related closely to Cornish and more distantly to Welsh, most Bretons native language is standard French. Brittany and its people are counted as one of the six Celtic nations, along with the Cornish and Welsh, the Bretons are Celtic Britons. The actual number of ethnic Bretons in Brittany and France as a whole is difficult to assess as the government of France does not collect statistics on ethnicity, the population of Brittany, as of a January 2007 estimate, was 4,365,500.
It is said that, in 1914, over 1 million people spoke Breton west of the boundary between Breton and Gallo-speaking regions – roughly 90% of the population of the half of Brittany. In 1945, it was about 75%, and today, in all of Brittany, Brittany has a population of roughly 4 million, including the department of Loire-Atlantique, which the Vichy government separated from historical Brittany in 1941. Three-quarters of the estimated 200,000 to 250,000 Breton speakers using Breton as an everyday language today are over the age of 65, many Breton families have emigrated to the Americas, predominantly to Canada and the United States. In the late century, large numbers of British auxiliary troops in the Roman army may have been stationed in Armorica. The ninth-century Historia Brittonum states that the emperor Magnus Maximus, who withdrew Roman forces from Britain and Gildas mention a second wave of Britons settling in Armorica in the following century to escape the invading Anglo-Saxons and Scoti.
Modern archaeology supports a two-wave migration and it is generally accepted that the Brittonic speakers who arrived gave the region its current name as well as the Breton language, Brezhoneg, a sister language to Welsh and Cornish. The Bretons are known for their participation in the Hunt of the Apple of Eden and this took place between 400 and 600 AD. These legends were discovered in Poullia in Italy but have unfortunately been marked as improvable history, as in Cornwall, many Breton towns are named after these early saints. The Irish saint Columbanus was active in Brittany and is commemorated accordingly at Saint-Columban in Carnac, in the Early Middle Ages, Brittany was divided into three kingdoms — Domnonia and Bro Waroch — which eventually were incorporated into the Duchy of Brittany. The first two kingdoms seem to derive their names from the homelands of the tribes in Britain. Neither language has official status under French law, some still use Breton as an everyday language, in modern times, a number of schools and colleges have emerged with the aim of providing Breton-medium education or bilingual Breton/French education
Gendarmerie
A gendarmerie or gendarmery is a military component with jurisdiction in civil law enforcement. The term gendarmerie is derived from the medieval French expression gens darmes, in France and most Francophone nations, the gendarmerie is the branch of the armed forces responsible for internal security during wartime. This concept was introduced to several other Western European countries during the Napoleonic conquests, in the mid twentieth century, a number of former French mandates or colonial possessions such as Syria and the Republic of the Congo adopted a gendarmerie after independence. A somewhat related phenomenon has been the formation of units which fall under the authority of civilian police agencies. Since these are not strictly military forces, they are not considered gendarmerie, some of the more prominent modern gendarmerie organizations include the French National Gendarmerie, Italian Carabinieri, and Spanish Civil Guard. The word gendarme comes from the Old French gens darmes, meaning men-at-arms, during the Late Medieval to the Early Modern period, the term referred to a heavily armoured cavalryman of noble birth, primarily serving in the French army.
The word gained policing connotations only after the French Revolution when the Maréchaussée of the Ancien Régime was renamed the Gendarmerie, the spelling in English was gendarmery, but now the French spelling gendarmerie is more common. The Oxford English Dictionary uses gendarmery as the spelling, Merriam-Webster uses gendarmerie as the principal spelling. Gendarmes are often deployed in situations, sometimes in their own country. A gendarmerie may come under the authority of a ministry of defence, generally there is some coordination between a ministry of defence and a ministry of the interior over the use of gendarmes. A few forces which are no longer considered military retain the title gendarmerie for reasons of tradition, since different countries may make different use of institutional terms such as gendarmerie, there are cases in which the term may become confusing. For instance, in the French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland the gendarmeries are the civil police. In Chile, the word gendarmerie refers for historic reasons to the prison service, in some cases, a police services military links are ambiguous and it can be unclear whether a force should be defined as a gendarmerie.
Some historical military units, such as South-West Africas Koevoet, were defined as police for political reasons. In 2014 the Mexican Federal Police, an armed force which has many attributes of a gendarmerie. The new force would initially number 5,000 personnel and was created with the assistance of the French gendarmerie, in countries where the gendarmerie and civilian police co-exist there may be rivalries and tensions between the forces. This was one of the reasons cited for the decision to disband the Belgian Gendarmerie, since the year 2000 four European countries—Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria—have replaced long-established gendarmeries with civilian police forces having no military links or functions. The GNA often take part in UN peace keeping missions, the use of military organisations to police civilian populations is common to many time periods and cultures
Mars (mythology)
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Mars was the god of war and an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in only to Jupiter and he was the most prominent of the military gods in the religion of the Roman army. Most of his festivals were held in March, the named for him, and in October. Under the influence of Greek culture, Mars was identified with the Greek god Ares, whose myths were reinterpreted in Roman literature and art under the name of Mars. But the character and dignity of Mars differed in fundamental ways from that of his Greek counterpart, Mars was a part of the Archaic Triad along with Jupiter and Quirinus, the latter of whom as a guardian of the Roman people had no Greek equivalent. Mars altar in the Campus Martius, the area of Rome that took its name from him, was supposed to have been dedicated by Numa, the peace-loving semi-legendary second king of Rome. Although Ares was viewed primarily as a destructive and destabilizing force, Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace, in the mythic genealogy and founding myths of Rome, Mars was the father of Romulus and Remus with Rhea Silvia.
Like Ares who was the son of Zeus and Hera, Mars is usually considered to be the son of Jupiter, however, in a version of his birth given by Ovid, he was the son of Juno alone. Jupiter had usurped the mothers function when he gave birth to Minerva directly from his forehead, to restore the balance, Flora obtained a magic flower and tested it on a heifer who became fecund at once. She plucked a flower ritually using her thumb, touched Junos belly, Juno withdrew to Thrace and the shore of Marmara for the birth. Ovid tells this story in the Fasti, his poetic work on the Roman calendar. In the earliest Roman calendar, March was the first month, Ovid is the only source for the story. The consort of Mars was Nerio or Nerine and she represents the vital force and majesty of Mars. Her name was regarded as Sabine in origin and is equivalent to Latin virtus, in the early 3rd century BC, the comic playwright Plautus has a reference to Mars greeting Nerio, his wife. A source from late antiquity says that Mars and Nerine were celebrated together at a festival held on March 23, in the Roman Empire, Nerine came to be identified with Minerva.
Nerio probably originates as a personification of Mars power, as such abstractions in Latin are generally feminine. Her name appears with that of Mars in an archaic prayer invoking a series of abstract qualities, the influence of Greek mythology and its anthropomorphic gods may have caused Roman writers to treat these pairs as marriages. The union of Venus and Mars held greater appeal for poets and philosophers, in Greek myth, the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite had been exposed to ridicule when her husband Hephaestus caught them in the act by means of a magical snare
France
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 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, Lille, 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 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 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 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
Western Front (World War I)
The Western Front or Western Theater was the main theatre of war during World War I. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by invading Luxembourg and Belgium, the tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne. Following the Race to the Sea, both sides dug in along a line of fortified trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France. This line remained unchanged for most of the war. Between 1915 and 1917 there were several major offensives along this front, the attacks employed massive artillery bombardments and massed infantry advances. However, a combination of entrenchments, machine gun emplacements, barbed wire, as a result, no significant advances were made. In an effort to break the deadlock, this front saw the introduction of new technology, including poison gas, aircraft. But it was only after the adoption of improved tactics that some degree of mobility was restored, the German Armys Spring Offensive of 1918 was made possible by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that marked the end of the conflict on the Eastern Front.
In spite of the stagnant nature of this front, this theatre would prove decisive. The terms of peace were agreed upon with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, belgiums neutrality was guaranteed by Britain under the 1839 Treaty of London, this caused Britain to join the war at the expiration of its ultimatum at 11 pm GMT on 4 August. Armies under German generals Alexander von Kluck and Karl von Bülow attacked Belgium on 4 August 1914, Luxembourg had been occupied without opposition on 2 August. The first battle in Belgium was the Siege of Liège, which lasted from 5–16 August, Liège was well fortified and surprised the German Army under von Bülow with its level of resistance. German heavy artillery was able to demolish the main forts within a few days. Following the fall of Liège, most of the Belgian field army retreated to Antwerp, leaving the garrison of Namur isolated, with the Belgian capital, although the German army bypassed Antwerp, it remained a threat to their flank. Another siege followed at Namur, lasting from about 20–23 August, for their part, the French had five armies deployed on their borders.
The pre-war French offensive plan, Plan XVII, was intended to capture Alsace-Lorraine following the outbreak of hostilities, on 7 August the VII Corps attacked Alsace with its objectives being to capture Mulhouse and Colmar. The main offensive was launched on 14 August with 1st and 2nd Armies attacking toward Sarrebourg-Morhange in Lorraine, in keeping with the Schlieffen Plan, the Germans withdrew slowly while inflicting severe losses upon the French. The French advanced the 3rd and 4th Armies toward the Saar River and attempted to capture Saarburg, attacking Briey and Neufchateau, before being driven back
Treaties of Nijmegen
The Treaties of Peace of Nijmegen were a series of treaties signed in the Dutch city of Nijmegen between August 1678 and December 1679. The treaties ended various interconnected wars among France, the Dutch Republic, Brandenburg, Denmark, the Prince-Bishopric of Münster, and the Holy Roman Empire. The most significant of the treaties was the first, which established peace between France and the Dutch Republic, and placed the border of France in very nearly its modern position. The Franco-Dutch War of 1672–78 was the source of all the wars that were ended formally at Nijmegen. Separate peace treaties were arranged for conflicts like the Third Anglo-Dutch War and the Scanian War, but all of them had directly caused by, and form part of. England initially participated in the war on the French side, Peace negotiations had begun as early as 1676, but nothing was agreed to and signed before 1678. These treaties did not result in a lasting peace, some of the countries involved signed peace deals elsewhere, such as the Treaty of Celle, Treaty of Saint-Germain and Treaty of Fontainebleau.
10 August 1678 – France and the Dutch Republic made peace, Sweden was not part of the treaty, but a paragraph in the treaty forced the Dutch Republic to take a neutral approach toward Sweden, with whom they had been at war since 1675. 19 September 1678 – France and Spain made peace,26 January 1679 – France made peace with the Holy Roman Empire. 26 January 1679 – Sweden made peace with the Holy Roman Empire,19 March 1679 – Sweden made peace with the Prince-Bishopric of Münster. The treaty called for all of Münsters soldiers in Danish war-service to be withdrawn,2 October 1679 – Sweden made peace with the Dutch Republic. The Franco–Dutch War ended with a treaty which gave France control over the region of the Franche-Comté, France gained further territories of the Spanish Netherlands, adding to those it had annexed under the 1659 Peace of the Pyrenees and 1668 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. In turn, the French king ceded the town of Maastricht. The French forces withdrew from occupied territories in northern Flanders.
Emperor Leopold I had to accept the French occupation of the towns of Freiburg, marc-Antoine Charpentier wrote a Te Deum for this occasion. The prelude of the Te Deum is known as the Eurovision Song Contest theme
Wervik
