Norwich bulletin., 1915-10-12
THE WAR PRIMER By National Geographic Society

''The Artois, the region mentioned where the heaviest fighting in North ern France is taking place, includes the territory of an ancient province of France and corresponds to the present department of Pas de Calais, minus the arondissements of Montre- primer issued today by the National Geographic Society. Reports of att tacks by the Allies in the Artois mean attacks against the north-and- -south German trench line. on its section ex- tending from Armentieres, on the Bel gian frontier south of Ypres. to the neighborhood of Bapaume, which is about Is miles southeast of Arras. This line is a little more than 40 miles long. country dotted with industrial towns. but chiefly known as a pasture and farm land. Its larger farms produce an abundance of grain and hops, while the smaller holdings grow great quan- titles of the fancy vegetables for which France is famed above every every other land with the exception of Belgium. The capital of the old province was Arras, the name being a corruption of 'Artois'. Among the im- portant towns in the region are Beth une, Aire, Bapaume. Lillers, Saint-Pol anu E1eSQIn. 4nS STCdI DdIIl0 OL AS1n- court, between the French and Eng fish. was fought here on October 25, | 14l5.
 "The Counts of Flanders ruled the Artois from the 9th to the 12th cen tury. In 1150. the land was bestowed I tus, as the dowry of his bride. Isa- bella of Hainaut. In the 14th cen tury. Artois passed to the house o1 Burgundy, and a marriage of a daugh- ter of this house to the archduke Max
 millian brought it under the banner tested the claims of the Austrians, and | finally conquered the province from | Spain. to which it had fallen in 1884 l in 1859. The province has since re-
 mained in the possession of the l French"
 l Westende, the little Belgian coas town where the long German line fl the west Hanks upon the North Set and which has frequently been undel
 bombardment by English gunboatl during the last several weeks, form
 the subject of the war primer issuet today by the National Geographic So ciety. The small resort, figuring s'
 often in the press dispatches, is des cribed as follows:
 While the first-line German trench
 es run through Nieuport, a couple o |
 town has been subjected to innum
 erabie attacks from the sea, as a bas
 immediately behind the trenches. Tw
 lines of coastal railway from Ostent
 one built along the seashore and tn other paralleling it less than a mil they bend away from the sea, to tn south of Nieuport, crossing the Y5e ] River into the Allies country as
 ftrunkitne. During the bathing seaso in peace times, electric cars were ru Ion short-time schedules over thes , lines, carrying happy vacation crowd from sOstend to Nieuport, Cost Duin
 kerlxe and back again. The German
 have endeavored under a hail of shell
 to keep the lines open as ways for tn transport of supplies to the front .-The stretch of North Sea coas } from Ostend to French Dunkirk, dotted thinck with summer resort
 which have enjoyed a wide interna : tional popularity. Along the electri railway from Ostend, are Marialkerk t Baths, Westende Baths. LombartzyS
 Baths and Nieuport Baths, and tf
 way to Westende Is little more the
 seven miles. The baths at Westent
 vied with Ostend in the matters , r wealth and importance of their guest n for this little knot of modern villa : back from the seashore was one of u Q most fashionable resorts along Il
 coast.
 aThe broad field of hfll-high sax :. dunes begins just below Westend and sweeps down the coast far b' 9 bind the lines of the Allies. The e Belgian sand piles have become know n everywhere for the frightful carnal h which has taken place among the1
 In this same field of dunes, which 6,
 Itends southwest to the French frol n tier, was fought in 1900, the Battle \ the Dunes, when each sand hillock b ' tween Westende and Lombartzyde VI ' crimsoned with the blood of dead al r dying. The bitter, merciless fghtil '- along this strip today is but a fe