The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-03-14


 V V ing considered as the base for evacuation of the American army of occupation in Germany. is described in the following bulletin issued by the National Geographic society:
 Antwerp, Europe's Hamburg of the sixteenth century and Athens Of the seventeenth, compels American adml- ration by it's phenomenal power to come back Crushed by wars, inquisi- tions, economic bans and perceptions of it's people. Antwerp always has risen again.
 "Figures tell the story. Population in 156S, 125,O00; 20 years later, only 5000. From 1900 to 1850 the popula- ton almost doubled. To it's 2s0,Oo0 ln 1904, 100000 more were added before the Germans came in October, 1914. The 12,16O vessels that passed in an1 ont of it's fine harbor in 1905 marked an increase of more than 50 per cent since 1888. -
 'Not that Antwerp is a perennial boom town. It is at least 15 centuries old. And during that time it's story IS one of struggle against repeated trage- dies. When the Germans invaded the city it's noble cathedral tower looked down on just one more, though infln- itely more cruel, blow of the sort 1t had been receiving since the middle ages. Napoleon (some say Charles VI com pared this tower to Mechlin lace. It's delicate chiselling forms network of stone embroidery against the sky that {! can be seen from the surrounding flat ! country. and from the winding ScheldF' 1 long before any other building in 1 Antwerp is visible.
 By 1900, 500 ships often came and went from Antwerp's harbor in day and 2000 wagon loads of merchandise | usually entered it's gates thousand l foreign business houses were repre- ! sented there. Its own merchant princes dwelt in almost regal splender. Amid this materiaN wealth nobis | works of art were created. In tn. 1 city's name were specimens of it's glor' ious school paintings by Van Dyck, the Teniers, Memling, Massys, Jordaens
 Jan van Eyck. though the list names
 was better represented in the cathedra by his masterpiece, "1'he Descent iron
 the Cross,' and two other noted works ] Tn the Museo Plantin were relics
 of that Ebert Hubbard of the middle ages, Christophe Plantin, whose press 1 product was no less distinctive wher heretic\ pamphlets were struck off thar when devout religious works were 1 printed and embossed.
 1 During the religious disturbances of tho id-sixteenth century the ca thedral. then considered second only l to St. Peters at Rome, was pillaged bS the Iconoclasts. It's images and pic lures, its magnificent vases; Its 66 al 1 tars and it's great organ. considered l the finest of it's time, were burned b, /, the torch bearing vandals. White. washed walls reminded twentieth cen
 tury tourists of these depredations. | "Other churches were ravaged al | that time. But what Antwerp suffered 1 then was mild compared with the hor TOTS of the Spanish fury in 1876, wher | that latter day Nero, the Duke of Alva and his Council of Blood, began a reigr
 of terror which savagery scarcel,
 could surpass Tieing wealthy citizens
 to horses tails he would drag then
 miles on trial
 Antwerp suffered grievously iron his debauch of hangings. quarterinEs heheadings and butcheries- In thre' i days 5000 of her men. women an. children were slain. burned or drown e1: hundreds of fine marble homes de
 stroved and the equivalent of million
 of dollars worth of property wrecked
 "Tt was seven years later that tn,
 foughty citizens of Antwerp mad'
 short shrift of the Duke of Anjou'
 plottinrs against Flemish liberty When the duke and his men overcam'
 the Flemish guard of a drawbridge and 5000 of the dukes troops rushe,
 in to take the city. workmen tough
 furiously with their tools. baker
 cracked soldiers pates with their over
 shovels and citizens grabbed arque
 buses and chewed coins into shape t;
 load them.
 Not so successful was their resist
 ance of the resourceful and patien \ Prince of Parma whose prolonged sieg
 included the reduction of the Schsid