Étaples
Encyclopedia
Étaples or Étaples-sur-Mer (Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

: Stapel
) is a commune
Communes of France
The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...

 in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. It is a fishing and leisure port on the Canche
Canche
The river Canche is one of the rivers that flow from the plateau of the southern Boulonnais and Picardy, into the English Channel. The Somme is the largest example. The basin of the Canche extends to 1,274 square kilometres and lies in the southern end of the département of Pas-de-Calais...

 river.

There is a separate commune named Staple, Nord
Staple, Nord
-References:*...

.

History

Étaples takes its name from having been a medieval staple port (stapal in Old Dutch
Old Dutch
In linguistics, Old Dutch denotes the forms of West Franconian spoken and written in the Netherlands and present-day northern Belgium during the Early Middle Ages. It is regarded as the primary stage in the development of a separate Dutch language...

), from which word the Old French word Estaples derives. As a port it was part of the administrative and economic complex centred on Montreuil after access from the sea to that town was restricted by silting.

The site of modern Étaples lies on the ridge of dunes which once lay to seaward of a marsh formed off-shore from the chalk plateau of Artois
Artois
Artois is a former province of northern France. Its territory has an area of around 4000 km² and a population of about one million. Its principal cities are Arras , Saint-Omer, Lens and Béthune.-Location:...

. From the Canche northwards, the dunes tend to extend inland, all the way to the old chalk cliff. It lay just outside the southern edge of the medieval Boulonnais and some eighteen kilometres south of the geological region of that name.

The dunes were established as the sea level rose during the Quaternary
Quaternary
The Quaternary Period is the most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the ICS. It follows the Neogene Period, spanning 2.588 ± 0.005 million years ago to the present...

 and show signs of habitation during the Palaeolithic. They had therefore stabilized at something like their present form by 2000 BC. The dunes to the north-west of the town have revealed Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...

, Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...

ish material.

Étaples was one of a number of sites formerly identified as Quentovicus from which, as from Boulogne-sur-Mer
Boulogne-sur-Mer
-Road:* Metropolitan bus services are operated by the TCRB* Coach services to Calais and Dunkerque* A16 motorway-Rail:* The main railway station is Gare de Boulogne-Ville and located in the south of the city....

, Roman ships prepared for the passage to Britannia
Britannia
Britannia is an ancient term for Great Britain, and also a female personification of the island. The name is Latin, and derives from the Greek form Prettanike or Brettaniai, which originally designated a collection of islands with individual names, including Albion or Great Britain. However, by the...

. However, excavations coordinated by Dr David Hill of Manchester University between 1984 and 1991 uncovered the remains of a substantial settlement at Visemarest near the hamlet of La Calotterie. This site is located to the east of Étaples, further up the Canche valley, near the town of Montreuil-sur-Mer. This is now accepted as the site of Quentovic, although the finds from the excavations are located in the Musée de Quentovic in Étaples (the museum predating the discovery of the site itself by a number of years).

During the ninth century the coast was subject to raids and settlement by Norsemen
Norsemen
Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...

. From their point of view, this off-shore site, protected by mud flats and marsh, was ideal as a base from which to conduct raids elsewhere, assemble the booty and ship it home.

In 1172, Matthew of Alsace
Ida, Countess of Boulogne
Ida of Boulogne was Countess of Boulogne. She was the eldest daughter of Matthew of Alsace by Marie I, Countess of Boulogne. Her maternal grandparents were King Stephen of England and Matilda I of Boulogne....

, Count of Boulogne
Count of Boulogne
The county of Boulogne was a historical region in the Low Countries. It consisted of a part of the present-day French département of the Pas-de-Calais , in parts of which there is still a Dutch-speaking minority....

, built a fortress on the old Roman site. In 1193, King Philip Augustus
Philip II of France
Philip II Augustus was the King of France from 1180 until his death. A member of the House of Capet, Philip Augustus was born at Gonesse in the Val-d'Oise, the son of Louis VII and his third wife, Adela of Champagne...

 made it the main port of his northern fleet after the southern end of the County of Boulogne (The Boulonnais) was added to the royal domain, forming the only direct access to this coast from royal lands in the hinterland.

Étaples was to suffer particularly during the Hundred Years War, owing to its proximity to the English landing places a little further north. Edward III of England
Edward III of England
Edward III was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe...

 burnt the port in 1346 as he was returning from the Battle of Crécy
Battle of Crécy
The Battle of Crécy took place on 26 August 1346 near Crécy in northern France, and was one of the most important battles of the Hundred Years' War...

. In 1351 it was sacked by Roger Mortimer, 2nd Earl of March and burned in 1359 by Edward's son, John of Gaunt. There were sieges in 1378 and 1435 and it was burnt again in 1455 and 1546. To complete its disasters, the town had a severe outbreak of the plague
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...

 in 1596 .

On 3 November 1492, the castle was the scene of the signing of the Treaty of Étaples between Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII, called the Affable, , was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. Charles was a member of the House of Valois...

 and Henry VII of England
Henry VII of England
Henry VII was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the House of Tudor....

. At the time of the Field of the Cloth of Gold
Field of the Cloth of Gold
The Field of Cloth of Gold is the name given to a place in Balinghem, between Guînes and Ardres, in France, near Calais. It was the site of a meeting that took place from 7 June to 24 June 1520, between King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France. The meeting was arranged to increase...

, the diplomatic meeting near Calais
Calais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....

 between Francis I of France
Francis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...

 and Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

, Francis stayed in the castle of Étaples. The meeting took place at Balinghem
Balinghem
Balinghem is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.-Population:-Places of interest:* The sixteenth century church of the Nativité-de-Notre-Dame....

 from 7 to 24 June 1520 and Francis slept at the castle on the 27th. Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

 was received there on 26 May 1637 and it was dismantled around 1641.

Between 1803 and 1805, Napoleon gathered a large army in places along this coast, principally at Boulogne
Boulogne-sur-Mer
-Road:* Metropolitan bus services are operated by the TCRB* Coach services to Calais and Dunkerque* A16 motorway-Rail:* The main railway station is Gare de Boulogne-Ville and located in the south of the city....

, so as to threaten an invasion of England. As part of this, for two years the Sixth Army Corps of Marshal Ney was stationed in and near to Étaples. The Emperor came several times to the town to review his troops. After the Battle of Trafalgar
Battle of Trafalgar
The Battle of Trafalgar was a sea battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy, during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars ....

 ended any hope of providing naval cover for an invasion, the troops moved on.

The influence of the railway

By the mid-19th century, the Bradshaw
George Bradshaw
George Bradshaw was an English cartographer, printer and publisher. He is best known for developing the most successful and longest published series of combined railway timetables.-Biography:...

 railway guide was describing Étaples as ‘a decayed fishing port, on a sandy plain’. The railway between Amiens
Amiens
Amiens is a city and commune in northern France, north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in Picardy...

 and Boulogne had recently been built northwards along the coast and the station in the town was opened in 1848. Traffic was increased when the local railway company was amalgamated with the Chemin de fer du Nord
Chemin de Fer du Nord
Chemin de Fer du Nord , often referred to simply as the Nord company, was a rail transport company created in September 1845, in Paris, France. It was owned by among others de Rothschild Frères of France, N M Rothschild & Sons of London, England, Hottinger, Laffitte and Blount...

 in 1851 and the connection between Boulogne and Calais was completed in 1867, slowly reversing the decay. The line enabled the swift transport of fish inland as far as Paris, displacing the old Chasse marée system and requiring changes to working practices in order to accommodate the rail timetables. The town’s economy also benefitted from the influx of holiday visitors as what is now called the Opal Coast was developed. However, Étaples remained a working port with its fishing and associated trades such as boat building and rope making. The main holiday resort was developed 6 kilometres away, south of the river, at what was then called Paris-Plage. The two banks of the Canche were linked by a road bridge in 1860 and the Étaples tramway was built from the town station to the resort in 1900. The big money flowed there and cheaper prices in the town attracted an international colony of artists
Etaples art colony
The art colony at Étaples had its heyday between 1880 - 1914, after which it was disrupted by World War I. Although broadly international, it was made up mainly of English-speakers from North America, Australasia and the British Isles...

 between 1880 and 1914.
The railway, with its network of connections across the north of France, became of strategic importance during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, and it was added to temporarily
War Department Light Railways
The War Department Light Railways were a system of narrow gauge trench railways run by the British War Department in World War I. Light railways made an important contribution to the Allied war effort in the First World War, and were used for the supply of ammunition and stores, the transport of...

 during the period it lasted. Étaples became the principal depôt and transit camp for the British Expeditionary Force in France and also the point to which the wounded were transported. Among the atrocities of that war, the hospitals there were bombed and machine-gunned from the air several times during May 1918. In one hospital alone, it was reported, 'One ward received a direct hit and was blown to pieces, six wards were reduced to ruins and three others were severely damaged. Sister Baines, four orderlies and eleven patients were killed outright, whilst two doctors, five sisters and many orderlies and patients were wounded.' The nearby six-hectare Etaples Military Cemetery
Etaples Military Cemetery
Étaples Military Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Étaples, near Boulogne on the north-west coast of France. The cemetery holds over 11,500 dead from both World War I and World War II.-History:...

 is resting place to 11,658 British and Allied soldiers from the conflict. When the war artist John Lavery
John Lavery
Sir John Lavery was an Irish painter best known for his portraits.Belfast-born John Lavery attended the Haldane Academy, in Glasgow, in the 1870s and the Académie Julian in Paris in the early 1880s. He returned to Glasgow and was associated with the Glasgow School...

 depicted it in 1919, he showed a train in the background, running along the bank of the river below the sandy crest on which the cemetery was sited.

The military camp had a reputation for harshness and the treatment received by the men there led to the Étaples Mutiny
Étaples Mutiny
The Étaples Mutiny was a mutiny by British troops in France in 1917, during the First World War.-Background:Étaples, about south of Boulogne-sur-Mer, was at the time a small town with a thriving fishing industry and a fleet of sail powered wooden trawlers, a few miles up the river Canche...

 in 1917. Étaples was also, from a later British scientific viewpoint, at the centre of the 1918 flu pandemic. The British virologist, John Oxford, and other researchers, have suggested that the Étaples troop staging camp was at the centre of the 1918 flu pandemic or at least home to a significant precursor virus to it. There was a mysterious respiratory infection at the military base during the winter of 1915-16.

Following the war, the town was given recognition by the French state for the difficulty of accommodating up to 80,000 men at a time over four years and the damage done by the enemy bombing which their presence attracted, and it was awarded the Croix de guerre
Croix de guerre
The Croix de guerre is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was awarded during World War I, again in World War II, and in other conflicts...

 in 1920. In World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Étaples suffered again from German bombing and the tramway was irreperably damaged. The town was then occupied by the Germans and during the Allied invasion was again bombarded, causing seventy civilian casualties and destroying or damaging a third of its houses. In 1949, the Minister of Defence came and added a palme (bar) to the Croix de guerre.

Demography

In 1807 the population was recorded as 1,507 inhabitants and had grown to 4,692 habitants by 1901.
This had nearly doubled to 8,628 by 1962 and had grown by almost as much again to 11,714 in 2007.

Places of interest

  • The Rope Walk houses the tourist information office, the Museum of the Miniature (models etc.), the Maréis (all aspects of sea fishing).
  • Étaples Museum of Seafaring: mainly the history of étapleois fishing. In the former fish market.
  • The Quentovic archaeological museum.
  • The Canche Bay nature reserve: 505 hectares, mainly of natural dunes.
  • Hôtel Souquet-Marteau noted for its façade and roof on the main square. It was occupied in 1803-5 by Marshal Ney. Napoleon paid two visits.
  • The Delaporte Brewery was built in 1754 but largely destroyed by shelling in 1918. It was reconstructed in 1924 and is now out of use.
  • Étaples Military Cemetery
    Etaples Military Cemetery
    Étaples Military Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Étaples, near Boulogne on the north-west coast of France. The cemetery holds over 11,500 dead from both World War I and World War II.-History:...


Twin towns

Hückeswagen
Hückeswagen
Hückeswagen is a town in the north of Oberbergischen Kreis, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is part of the governmental district of Cologne,-Geography:...

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 since 29 July 1972 Folkestone
Folkestone
Folkestone is the principal town in the Shepway District of Kent, England. Its original site was in a valley in the sea cliffs and it developed through fishing and its closeness to the Continent as a landing place and trading port. The coming of the railways, the building of a ferry port, and its...

, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

since August 2009

External links

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