Charleroi
a borough of Pennsylvania, in Washington co. It is on the Monongahela river, and on the Pennsylimportant, include mining and the manu- facturing of glass and shovels. Pop. vania railroad. Its industries, which are of glass and shovels. (1910) 9,615; (1920) 11,516.
CHARLEROI (shär-ler-wä'), a fortified and important manufacturing town of CHARLES Belgium, in the province of Hainault, on the navigable river Sambre, 33 miles S. of Brussels. The town is the center of the large coal-basin of Charleroi, and its chief manufactures are iron, glass, fire-arms, cutlery, slates, woolens, leather, tobacco, sugar, soap, rope, etc.
The fortress of Charleroi was built in 1666 and named after Charles II. of Spain. The town has sustained several memorable sieges, and been successively possessed by the Spaniards, Austrians, and French. It felt the fury of the German invasion in the first year of the World War. The town was held by a combined force of French and British, the former commanded by General Lanrezac and the latter by General French. The Second German army under Von Buelow_attacked the town on Aug. 21, 1914. Fierce street fighting ensued, first one side and then the other being driven from the town, but stubbornly returning to renew the fight. On the 22d, the enemy was re-enforced by another army under Von Hausen, and the French being heavily outnumbered, were forced to withdraw. The town remained in the hands of the Germans until the latter were driven out of Belgium in the victorious Allied drive in the fall of 1918. Pop. about 29,000.