Discover

'Calais' (; in English often , traditional English pronunciation ; ) is a town in northern France, located at 50°57'N 1°52'E. It is in the ''département'' of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a ''sous-préfecture''. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's ''préfecture'' (capital) resides in its third-largest city of Arras.
The population of the city (commune) at the 1999 census was 77,333 inhabitants (74,800 as of February 2004 estimates). The population of the whole metropolitan area (''aire urbaine'') at the 1999 census was 125,584.
Calais overlooks the Strait of Dover, the narrowest point in the English Channel, which is only 34 km (21 miles) wide here, and is the closest French town to England. The white cliffs of Dover can easily be seen on a clear day.
The old part of the town, Calais proper (or Calais-Nord), is situated on an artificial island surrounded by canals and harbours. The modern part of the town, St-Pierre, lies to the south and southeast.

Contents

History

Economy

Transport

Sights

In Fiction

References

External links

History

The origins of Calais are obscure though its site might be expected to be have been inhabited from early times. It stands on the foreshore of the last piece of solid geology on the south and east coast of the North Sea between France and the UK. It is also at the western edge of the early medieval estuary of the River Aa. As the pebble and sand ridge extended eastwards from Calais, the haven behind it developed into fen so that the estuary progressively filled with silt and peat. Subsequently, canals were cut between Saint-Omer, the trading centre formerly at the head of the estuary and three places respectively to the west, centre and east on the newly formed coast. These are Calais, Gravelines and Dunkirk. (The pre-siltation counterpart of Dunkirk was Bergues.) In this way, what will at some time prior to the 10th century, have been a fishing village on a sandy beach backed by pebbles and a creek,^[1] has developed into a moderately significant port. In 997, it was improved by the Count of Flanders and fortified by the Count of Boulogne in 1224.
Its speciality in the ferry trade with Dover gave it a strategic position which made it of key interest for the growing power of the kingdom of England and the town was besieged and captured by King Edward III of England in 1347, after a siege of eleven months following the Battle of Crécy. Following the death of his uncle, Charles IV of France in 1328, Edward saw himself as the Capetian heir to the kingdom of France but the French chose to follow an all male line of descent from his great grandfather. This introduced the House of Valois to the French throne. Since England was Edward's power base, the English and Welsh were involved in his military sweep through northern France.
The angry king demanded reprisals against the town's citizens for holding out for so long and ordered that the town's population be killed ''en masse''. He agreed to spare them on the condition that six of the principal citizens would come to him, bareheaded and barefooted and with ropes around their necks, and give themselves up to die. When they came, he ordered that they should be executed, but he pardoned them when his queen, Philippa of Hainault, begged him to spare their lives. This event is commemorated in The Burghers of Calais (''Les Bourgeois de Calais'') one of the most famous sculptures by Auguste Rodin, erected in the city in 1888.
Though sparing the lives of the delegation members, King Edward drove out most of the French inhabitants , and settled the town with people from England, so that it might serve as a gateway to France. The municipal charter of Calais, previously granted by the Countess of Artois, was reconfirmed that year by Edward.

In 1360 the Treaty of Brétigny assigned Guînes, Marck and Calais – collectively the "Pale of Calais" – to English rule in perpetuity, but this assignment was informally and only partially implemented.
In 1363 the town was made a staple port. It had become a parliamentary borough sending burgesses to the House of Commons of the Parliament of England by 1372. It remained part of the diocese of Thérouanne, keeping an eccelesiastical tie with France.
The town came to be called the "brightest jewel in the English crown" owing to its great importance as the gateway for the tin, lead, cloth and wool trades (or "staples"). Its customs revenues amounted at times to a third of the English government's revenue, with wool being the most important element by far. Of its population of about 12,000 people, as many as 5,400 were recorded as having been connected with the wool trade. The governorship or Captaincy of Calais was a lucrative and highly prized public office; the famous Dick Whittington was simultaneously Lord Mayor of London and Mayor of the Staple in 1407.

Calais was regarded for many years as being an integral part of Kingdom of England, with its representatives sitting in the English Parliament. Over one of its gates carried the inscription:

When shall the Frenchmen Calais win/
When iron and lead like cork shall swim

This was, however, at odds with reality. The continued English hold on Calais depended on expensively-maintained fortifications, as the town lacked any natural defences.
Maintaining Calais was a costly business that was frequently tested by the forces of France and the Duchy of Burgundy, with the Franco-Burgundian border running nearby. The duration of the English hold over Calais was to a large extent the result of the feud between Burgundy and France, under which both sides coveted the town but preferred to see it in the hands of the English rather than their domestic rivals. The stalemate was broken by the victory of the French crown over Burgundy, and the incorporation of the duchy into France.
The end of English rule over Calais came on January 7, 1558 when the French, under Francis, Duke of Guise, took advantage of a weakened garrison and decayed fortifications to retake it. The loss was regarded by Queen Mary I of England as a dreadful misfortune. When she heard the news, she reportedly said, "When I am dead and opened, you shall find 'Philip (her husband)' and 'Calais' lying in my heart"^[2] The region around Calais, then-known as the ''Calaisis'', was renamed the ''Pays Reconquis'' ("Reconquered Country") in commemoration of its recovery by the French. Use of the term is reminiscent of the Spanish Reconquista, with which the French were certainly familiar - and, since it occurred in the context of a war with Spain (Philip II of Spain was at the time Queen Mary's consort) might have been intended as a deliberate snub.

The town was captured by the Spanish in 1596 in an invasion mounted from the nearby Spanish Netherlands but it was returned to France under the Treaty of Vervins in 1598.
Calais was also on the front lines of France's conflict with the United Kingdom during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1805, it hosted Napoleon's army and invasion fleet for his aborted invasion of Britain.

The British returned to Calais again during World War I, due to its proximity to the front lines in Flanders. It was a key port for the supply of arms and reinforcements to the Western Front. The town was virtually razed to the ground during World War II. In May 1940, it was a key objective of the invading German forces and became the scene of a last-ditch defence that allowed the defeated British forces to be evacuated from nearby Dunkirk in the Battle of Dunkirk. 3,000 British and 800 French troops, assisted by Royal Navy warships, held out from 22 May to 27 May 1940 against two German panzer divisions. The town was flattened by round-the-clock bombing and only 30 of the 3800-strong defending force were evacuated before the town fell.
During the ensuing German occupation, it became the command post for German forces in the Pas-de-Calais/Flanders region and was very heavily fortified, as it was generally believed by the Germans that the Allies would invade at that point. It was also used as a launch site for V1 flying bombs and for much of the war, the Germans used the region as the site for railway guns used to bombard the south-eastern corner of England. Despite heavy preparations for defence against an amphibious assault, the Allied invasion took place well to the west in Normandy on D-Day. Calais was very heavily bombed and shelled in a successful effort to disrupt German communications and persuade them that the Allies would target the Pas-de-Calais for invasion (rather than Normandy). The town, now largely in ruins, was liberated by Canadian forces in October 1944.
Today the French still refer to Calais as "the most English town in France".^[3]
'A short note on eleven-month siege of Calais by the English (1346-1347)'
At the beginning 1346, the town of Calais, protected by its location in the middle of marshy land flooded by the sea at each tide, was defended by a garrison under the command of a knight from Burgundy, Jean de Vienne (or de Via(e) ne) and seconded by a certain number of knights from Artois (Pas-de-Calais) named by Froissart as Ernoulz d’Audrehem, Jehan de Surie (or de Sury), Baudouin de Belleborne (or de Bellebrune), Joffroy de le Motte, Pépin de Were (or de Wiere, or de Werie), to which the Normandy Chronicle adds lords de Beaulo and de Grigny.
Seeing that the English army was prepared for a siege to the “bitter end”, the captain of Calais, fearing with reason that he would be obliged to surrender through famine, resolved to get rid of all unprofitable mouths and expelled from the town (between 500 and 1700 persons according to the chroniclers) all those who had neither goods nor provisions. There was little in the way of battle in the country around Calais but at sea, the English king had placed 25 ships outside Calais. Genoese boats, in the service of France, did however manage to run the blockade as well as boats from Normandy and sailors from Abbeville (Somme) who resupplied Calais resolved and its besieged inhabitants.
King Edward III of England (of the House of Anjou-Plantagenets) resolved to block the entrance to the channel with all kinds of obstacles and from June 1347 it was impossible for the French to provide supplies for Calais.(
★ 1)
NOTE: After having carried off the victory at Crécy-en-Ponthieu in 1346, King Edward III of England hurried on to continue the siege of Calais: he was looking for a harbour town which would be the key for landing his troops in France. He began investing the area on the 4th September 1346. By June 1347, in desperation, Jehan de Vienne, captain of the besieged Calais, wrote a letter to the King of France, Philippe VI de Valois, asking for him to come to his aid: ''“..the garrison has no other alternative but to attempt a desperate sortie: we would rather die honourably in the field than to eat each other !..”''
This letter, sent via the intermediary of a Genoese ship was intercepted by the English navy and therefore never reached Philippe VI. However, on the 27th June 1347, the French army arrived as far as Sangatte. The Flemish and the Germans went over to the English side, the people of Hainaut to the French. Two papal legates were dispatched to Calais and a three-day truce was concluded. All the routes leading to Calais were obstructed by ditches and guarded by the English and the King of France could not intervene. It was at this point that Jehan de Vienne, pressured by the besieged population of Calais, asked to parley with the English king about the surrender of Calais on condition that the population and the garrison were spared.
Hearing this, Edward III required that six burghers were to come dressed only in their shirts, barefooted and with a rope around their necks and to be left at his disposal: they were; Eustache de Saint Pierre, Jehan d’Aire, Jacques de Wissant and his brother Pierre, Jean de Fiennes and Andrieux d’Andres. Arriving before Edward III, the six burghers of Calais were spared by grace of an intervention by Countess Philippa de Hainaut, wife of the English King.
The town was occupied by the English at the end of August 1347 and the king took ship for England (leaving troops to guard Calais under the command of Jean de Montgomery who was in the service of the English king) with the French knights as his prisoners (amongst whom were the abovementionned Jehan de Vienne and Jehan de Sury): these noble prisoners remained six months in England and were afterwards offered for ransom (in 1348). Philippe VI of France ransomed them.
The siege of Calais lasted eleven months. For three years, from 1347, truces were concluded between France and England (Edward III being satisfied with holding Calais). The town did not become French again until 1558. (
★ 2)
G.S. B.
''(
★ 1) Source : Georges Daumet, archivist at the Archives Nationales, “Calais sous la domination anglaise », p. 4, after the Froissart Chronicles, published by Repressé-Crépel and Sons, Arras (France), 1902.
(
★ 2) ''Source : The Froissart Chronicles, published by Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, Brussels (Belgium), 1868-1876. –Translation from French, Gr. Henderson.''

Economy

The city's proximity to England has made it a major port for centuries. It is the principal ferry crossing point between England and France, with the vast majority of cross-Channel being made between Dover and Calais. The French end of the Channel Tunnel is also situated in the vicinity of Calais, in Coquelles some 4 miles (6 km) to the west of the town.
The mainstay of the town's economy is, naturally, its port, but it also has a number of indigenous industries. The principal ones are lace making, chemicals, and paper manufacture. It possesses direct rail links to Paris (148 miles / 238 km to the south).
Due to the large difference in taxation between Britain and France on such items as alcoholic beverages and tobacco, massive shopping complexes targeted at British day-trippers have sprung up on and around Calais to take advantage of the border trade. Such day trippers are colloquially known as "booze cruisers" and were the target of considerable attention from the UK Customs and Excise authorities. However, given that both the UK and France are members of the EU customs zone, there is no restriction on the movement of purchases between the two countries as long as the goods are for personal use. [2]

Transport

As well as the large port, the town is served by two railway stations: Gare de Calais-Fréthun and Gare de Calais-Ville, the former being the first stop on mainland Europe of the Eurostar line.

Sights

Virtually the entire town was flattened in the Second World War, so there is little in Calais that pre-dates the war. For most visitors, the town is simply a place to pass through ''en route'' to other destinations.
The town centre is dominated by its distinctive ''hotel de ville'' (town hall), built in the Flemish Renaissance style (and visible well out to sea). Directly in front of the town hall is a cast of the statue ''The Burghers of Calais'' (French ''Les Bourgeois de Calais''), by Auguste Rodin.
The German wartime military headquarters, situated near the train station in a small park, is today open to the public as a war museum.
Immediately to the west is the Côte d'Opale, an extremely scenic cliff-lined section of coast that parallels the White Cliffs on the British coast and is part of the same geological formation.
On clear days, the buildings of Calais can quite readily be seen with the naked eye from the British shore, 21 miles (33 km) away.

In Fiction

A large portion of the historical novel The Queen's Fool by Philippa Gregory takes part at Calais during the last years of English rule, culminating with a vivid description of its conquest by the French in 1558.

References

1. Delatre, C. ''et al. Guides Géologiques Régionaux: Région du Nord'' Masson & Cie (1973) Fig.18.
2. ''Holinshed's Chronicles'', IV (1808).
3. "Inside Nord-Pas-de-Calais: Culture", TripAdvisor.com (2007 TripAdvisor LLC).[1]

External links

★ Official Website (in French)

★ Agglomération (in French)

★ Info about the port and city (in French)

★ Port of Calais

★ Visiting the city of Calais (guide in English with PDF map)

★ General information on calais

★ Calais fortifications

★ Old Postcard Views of Calais

★ Photos of Calais in 3d (Anaglyphs).