Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 8, 2025
The great oil tanks burning fiercely on the opposite bank of the River Scheldt were fired upon by some well-directed shots to check the blaze, a huge black volume of thick smoke now rising from the flames.
It was, therefore, requisite not only to carry all the outworks, which the people of Antwerp had built on both shores of the Scheldt for the protection of their shipping; but also, wherever feasible, to throw up new batteries which should command the whole course of the river; and to prevent the place from drawing supplies from the land side, while efforts were being made to intercept their transmission by sea, all the adjacent towns of Brabant and Flanders were comprehended in the plan of the siege, and the fall of Antwerp was based on the destruction of all those places.
Great Britain now entered the fray, threatening to send a fleet of warships to occupy the Scheldt unless King William recalled his army from Belgium. This settled the matter, and the Dutch withdrew. The French likewise returned to their own territory.
When it is remembered; however; that the Roman work was performed in summer, across a river only half as broad as the Scheldt, free from the disturbing, action of the tides; and flowing through an unresisting country; while the whole character of the structure; intended only to, serve for the single passage of an army, was far inferior to the massive solidity of Parma's bridge; it seems not unreasonable to assign the superiority to the general who had surmounted all the obstacles of a northern winter, vehement ebb and flow from the sea, and enterprising and desperate enemies at every point.
It was one of the large boats built for traffic on the greater canals and the open waters of the Scheldt estuary. It was laden from end to end with little square boxes bearing only a number and a port mark in black stencil. A pleasant odor of sealing-wax dominated the weedy smell of the canal. "Wherever you turn you meet the stuff," was Cornish's greeting to the two Englishmen.
The Vosmeer, a branch of the Scheldt, separated the island from the main, and there was a path along the bed of that estuary, which, at dead low-water, was practicable for wading.
It was midnight when the work was completed, and the report sent to Captain Kendall. Martyn, Pelham, and a crew of ten, to be assisted by Cleats and Gage, were detailed to take the galiot into the Scheldt. During the first part of the night it had been a dead calm, which had greatly assisted the labors of the working party.
The country round Antwerp is quite flat, and appears, with the exception of 2 or 3 miles round the town, a perfect wood; fancy such a wood with the Scheldt winding through it, several roads radiating in lines straight as arrows, with here and there a steeple breaking the horizontal line, and you may suppose yourself at the top of the Cathedral.
The protection of the Flemish bank of the Scheldt was entrusted to the Margrave of Rysburg, general of cavalry; the Brabant bank to the Count Peter Ernest Von Mansfeld, who was joined by another Spanish leader, Mondragone.
The dams had been cut through at Saftingen, and the water of the West Scheldt let out over nearly the whole country of Waes. In the adjacent Marquisate of Bergen troops had been enlisted by the Count of Hohenlohe, and a Scotch regiment, under the command of Colonel Morgan, was already in the pay of the republic, while fresh reinforcements were daily expected from England and France.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking