Mons, Belgium
Mons is a city and municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the province of Hainaut, Belgium.
Mons was made into a fortified city by Count Baldwin IV of Hainaut in the 12th century. The population grew quickly, trade flourished, and several commercial buildings were erected near the Grand-Place. In 1814, King William I of the Netherlands increased the fortifications, following the fall of the First French Empire. The Industrial Revolution and coal mining made Mons a centre of heavy industry. In 1830, Belgium gained its independence and the decision was made to dismantle the fortifications, allowing the creation of large boulevards and other urban projects. In 1914, Mons was the location of the Battle of Mons. The British were forced to retreat by a numerically superior German force and the town remained occupied by the Germans until its liberation by the Canadian Corps during the final days of the war. There are several memorial placards related to the World War I battles.
Today, the city is an important university town and commercial centre. The main square is the centre of the old city. It is paved in the manner of old cities and is home to many cafes and restaurants, as well as the Town Hall and Belfry. It is forbidden to park in or drive through the centre. Together with the Czech city of Plzeň, Mons was the European Capital of Culture in 2015.
History
Early settlements
The first signs of activity in the region of Mons are found at Spiennes, where some of the best flint tools in Europe were found dating from the Neolithic period. When Julius Caesar arrived in the region in the 1st century BC, the region was settled by the Nervii, a Belgian tribe. A castrum was built in Roman times, giving the settlement its Latin name Castrilocus. The name was later changed into Montes for the mountain on which the castrum was built.Middle Ages
In the 7th century, Saint Ghislain and two of his disciples built an oratory or chapel dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul near the Mons hill, at a place called Ursidongus, now known as Saint-Ghislain. Soon after, Saint Waltrude, daughter of one of Chlothar II's intendants, came to the oratory and was proclaimed a saint upon her death in 688. She was canonized in 1039.Like Ath, its neighbour to the north-west, Mons was made a fortified city by Count Baldwin IV of Hainaut in the 12th century. The population grew quickly, trade flourished, and several commercial buildings were erected near the Grand-Place. The 12th century also saw the appearance of the first town halls. The city had 4,700 inhabitants by the end of the 13th century. Mons succeeded Valenciennes as the capital of the county of Hainaut in 1295 and grew to 8,900 inhabitants by the end of the 15th century. In the 1450s, Matheus de Layens took over the construction of the Saint Waltrude church from Jan Spijkens and restored the Town Hall.
From 1500 to 1800
In 1515, Charles V took an oath in Mons as Count of Hainaut. In this period of its history, the city became the target of various occupations, starting in May 1572 with the Protestant takeover by Louis of Nassau, who had hoped to clear the way for the French Protestant leader Gaspard de Coligny to oppose Spanish rule. After the murder of de Coligny during the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, the Duke of Alba took control of Mons in September 1572 in the name of the Catholic King of Spain. This spelled the ruin of the city and the arrest of many of its inhabitants; from 1580 to 1584, Mons became the capital of the Southern Netherlands.On 8 April 1691, after a nine-month siege, Louis XIV's army stormed the city, which again suffered heavy casualties. From 1697 to 1701, Mons was alternately French or Austrian. After being under French control from 1701 to 1709, the Dutch and British armies gained the upper hand in the Battle of Malplaquet and the Siege of Mons in 1709. In 1715, Mons returned to Austria under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht. But the French did not give up easily; Louis XV besieged the city again in 1746. After the Battle of Jemappes, the Hainaut area was annexed to France and Mons became the capital of Jemappes.
From 1800 to the present
Following the fall of the First French Empire in 1814, King William I of the Netherlands fortified the city heavily. In 1830, however, Belgium gained its independence and the decision was made to dismantle fortified cities such as Mons, Charleroi, and Namur. The actual removal of fortifications only happened in the 1860s, allowing the creation of large boulevards and other urban projects. The Industrial Revolution and coal mining made Mons a center of heavy industry, which strongly influenced the culture and image of the Borinage region as a whole. It was to become an integral part of the sillon industriel, the industrial backbone of Wallonia.Riots of Mons
On 17 April 1893, between Mons and Jemappes, seven strikers were killed by the civic guard at the end of the Belgian general strike of 1893. This general strike was one of the first general strikes in an industrial country. The proposed law on universal suffrage was approved the day after by the Belgian Parliament.Battle of Mons
On 2324 August 1914, Mons was the location of the Battle of Mons—the first battle fought by the British Army in World War I. The British were forced to retreat with just over 1,600 casualties, and the town remained occupied by the Germans until its liberation in the Second Battle of Mons by the Canadian Corps during the final days of the war.Within the front entrance to the City Hall, there are several memorial placards related to the First World War battles and in particular, one has the inscription:
Second World War
During the Second World War, as an important industrial centre, the city was heavily bombed. During the Battle of the Mons Pocket US Army forces encircled and took 25,000 Germans prisoner in early September 1944.After 1945
After the war, most industries went into decline.NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe was relocated in Casteau, a village near Mons, from Rocquencourt on the outskirts of Paris after France's withdrawal from the military structure of the alliance in 1967. The relocation of SHAPE to this particular region of Belgium was largely a political decision, based in large part on the depressed economic conditions of the area at the time with the view to bolstering the economy of the region. A riot in the prison of Mons took place in April 2006 after prisoner complaints concerning living conditions and treatment; no deaths were reported as a result of the riot, but the event focused attention on prisons throughout Belgium. Today, the city is an important university town and commercial centre.
Geography
The municipality consists of the following sub-municipalities: Ciply, Cuesmes, Flénu, Ghlin, Harmignies, Harveng, Havré, Hyon, Jemappes, Maisières, Mesvin, Mons proper, Nimy, Nouvelles, Obourg, Saint-Denis, Saint-Symphorien, Spiennes, and Villers-Saint-Ghislain.Demographics
Festivities
- The Ducasse de Mons or Doudou is the name of a week-long series of festivities, which originates from the 14th century and takes place every year on Trinity Sunday. Highlights include:
- * The entrusting of the reliquary of Saint Waltrude to the mayor of the city on the eve of the procession.
- * The placement of the reliquary on the Car d'Or, before it is carried in the city streets in a colourful procession that counts more than a thousand costumed participants.
- * The lifting of the Car d'Or on a paved area near the Collegiate Church of St. Waudru; tradition holds that this operation must be successful for the city to prosper.
- * The Lumeçon fight, where Saint George confronts the dragon. The fight lasts for about half an hour, accompanied by the rhythmic Doudou music. The tradition of the processional dragon is listed among the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Education
There are several public educational facilities in Mons:- , CRM
- UCLouvain FUCaM Mons, a campus of the University of Louvain located in Mons since 1899.
- University of Mons, UMons, founded in 2009 by a merger between the Faculté polytechnique de Mons and the University of Mons-Hainaut.
- Institut Reine Astrid Mons
- Collège Saint-Stanislas, founded in 1851.
Transportation
Mons railway station opened on 19 December 1841.
A small, general aviation airfield Saint-Ghislain Airport is located nearby for private aircraft. The nearest passenger airports are Charleroi Airport, located east and Brussels Airport, located north east of Mons.
Climate
Mons has a typical Belgian oceanic climate with relatively narrow temperature differences between seasons for its inland 50° latitude, as a result of Gulf Stream influence.Sports
The town hosts a professional basketball team called Belfius Mons-Hainaut and a tennis tournament called the Ethias Trophy. It previously hosted the football club R.A.E.C. Mons, though the team has since disbanded. There is also a horse racing venue at Hippodrome de Wallonie in Mons.Planning and architectural heritage
The centre consists largely of red brick houses. Although there are few old buildings and rarely new blue stone buildings, its use is generally limited to parts of the decorative walls. Much of the centre is made up of houses which are two or three storeys high.In commercial areas, the ground floor is used as commercial space, while other floors are used for housing. Generally behind the houses there is a small garden.
The outskirts of the city are also generally made of brick terraced houses. They nevertheless have the largest green spaces in the front or rear. In more remote areas of the centre, there are four façades of the villas.
After the Second World War the city experienced rather limited construction of buildings. Some public housing have been built in Ghlin, Hyon Jemappes and in the suburbs of the city. Since the late 1990s and especially since the arson which took place in one of these buildings, the city undertook a policy of deconstruction of these houses which is still in progress at the moment. A whole series of social buildings are evenly dispersed in the downtown and surrounding suburbs.
16,5% of the city's population lives in apartments and 82.7% in single-family homes. Of the 82.7% who live in single family homes, only 26% are separate houses, while 55.7% are detached or terraced houses. That's pretty much a small town in Belgium. Large municipalities have in fact fewer single family homes, but many more apartments whereas the smallest towns have few apartments and a lot of single family homes. The figures show very clearly the strong presence of terraced houses rather than separate houses: it exemplifies the urbanization of downtown, but also urban cores such as Jemappes et Cuesmes.