The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1916-07-15
OF EngIishmen in Their SHug'
gle with the Germans ON
French Territory.

WASHINGTON, July l5.-'If his
torical associations inspire to brave
deeds, the British forces in their Of
fensive against the Germans along
the Somme river should be heartened
to extraordinary acts of valor by the
thought that they are lighting in Pr
cardy," says today's war geography
bulletin of the National Geographic
Society, issued in Washington.
This ancient province of France,
now divided into four departments
the Somme, Disc, Pas-de-Calais,
and Aisne-has two battlehelds
whose very names quicken the pulse
of Englishmen, for it was at Crecy
that the Black Prince won his spurs,
and at Agincourt that Henry v, com
handing his yeomen with their cloth
yard bows, utterly overthrow the
flower of French chivalry.
Treasured Name.
"Picardy is treasured name in
romantic literature and in French
history. 1t had a literature of its
soldiers were among the most valiant
in France, being known as the Gas
cons of the north.
THE province was a natural bat
tleground for the French and Eng
lish during the Hundred Years war,
for its shores extend along the North
Sea and the English Channel, from
tho River IA. above Calais, to a
point below Dieppe Fifteen miles
north of Abbeville, one Of the prtnci-
pal cities of Picardy, is Crecy where
until late in the nineteenth century
there still stood the old windmill
from which Edward II of England in
1916 watched his beloved son, the
first prince of Wales, at that time
only sixteen years of age, triumph
over Philip of Valois. On this oc-
casion the English were outnumber-
ed four to one, and they wrought
terrible havoc among the enemy, the
losses of the vanquished being var
iously estimated at from 10000 to
10000. One Of those who fell IN
this fight was the Chiyalrous John,
king of Bohemia, who although blind
led heroic charge for his French
ally. Some historians trace the
Prince of Wales crest of three os-
trich feathers and the motto len
diem q serve) to this battle, the
Black Prince adopting them from the
fallen John in memory of the event.
Less than twenty miles northeast
of Crecy is Agincourt, where the
English archers, nearly seventy years
later. after letting fly their clouds
of arrows against the heavily armor-
ed MOBILES, ATTACKED them with
hatchets as they foundered helpless
" in mud. Five thousand Frenchmen
Of noble birth, including their com
mander d'Albret, constable of France
fell in this battle while the estimate
of English losses was astontshingly
low, some chroniclers giving only
thirteen men at arms and hundred
foot soldiers.
Named for Tribes.
"several towns of Picardy-Am-
lens. scissors, and Beauvais-owe
their names to the ancient tribes
which inhabited this section, known
as BelgIca Secunda, when the Ro-
mans maintained armed camps along
the valley of the somme. In the
third century Christianity was intro
duced. and st. Quentin, from whom
the important town twenty miles east
of Peronne gets its name, was mar
tyred at that time.
"Picardy was the heart of Merovin-
gian France in the fifth century, Tor
clovis named scissors as his capital,
while Charlemagne designated Noyon
as his principal city, and the lesser
Carolingians in turn similarly honor
ed Loan.
by the treaty of Arras in 1885
the royal towns of the Somme val
lev were ceded to Burgundy, but
forty-two years later, after the death
Of Charles the Bold, Louis X1 re-
gained them. During its brief eras
of peace the province thrived as
center Of the weaving industry, Elem
ish immigrants having introduced the
art"