Ardennes
Ardennes names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Ardennes a frontier department of France
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a frontier department of France, bordering on Belgium. It is named from the forest of Ardennes, and formed a part of the old province of Champagne; area, 2,020 square miles. The N. E. belongs to the basin of the Meuse; the S. W. is watered by the Ais Aisne; these rivers being united by a canal. About two-fifths of the whole surface is hilly, and covered with forests and wide tracts of pasturage. In the N., marble is obtained. South of this, and stretching across the department from E. to W., are great layers of slate. Only the valleys are fertile, and produce corn. The vine is cultivated in the S. W. Cattle and sheep are reared. Slate, marble, iron, clay, copper, and coal are found. Iron working is largely carried on; but the chief industry is cloth-making, especially in Sedan. There are also manufactures of clay pipes, glass, paper, sugar, and beer. The capital is Mézières, but the most important place is the great fortified city of Sedan. Pop. of department about 320,000. In the World War the department was the scene of some of the greatest battles between the German and the Allied forces. On Nov. 3, 1918, the First American Army destroyed the Mézières-Metz railway, and Nov. 6 gained the heights of the Woevre and Sedan. On Nov. 9 the French invested Mézières. See WORLD WAR.
Ardennes an extensive hill-country and forest
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
an extensive hill-country and forest, ocupying the S. E. corner of Belgium, between the Moselle and the Meuse, but extending also into France and Rhenish Prussia. It con. sists of a broken mass of hills, for the most part of no great elevation, which gradually slope toward the plains of Flanders. The channel of the Meuse is in some places bound in by rugged and precipitous cliff's more than 600 feet high. The wealth of the region is its wood and its minerals. Enormous supplies of coal are found in the north, a very important element in Belgium's industrial wealth; iron, lead, antimony, copper, and manganese are also found. Multitudes of cattle and sheep are reared. In the World War (1914-1918) the Ardennes saw much severe fighting. See WORLD WAR.
Ardennes Forest of, an extensive forest of Gaul
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
Forest of, an extensive forest of Gaul. In Caesar's time it occupied the lower plains of the Rhine. Some writers say that it extended to the North Sea . The name is still retained by the French department of Ardennes. Portions of the forest still remain in Ardennes, Luxemburg, and Belgium. In Quentin Durward Walter Scott, it may be remembered, calls William de la Marck "the Wild Boar of Ardennes." The name, in a somewhat shortened form, recurred in England in the Arden Forest of Warwickshire.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's noted in 1921 that the Ardennes had "seen much severe fighting," but the worst was still to come: German armour drove through the supposedly impassable forest at Sedan in May 1940 to break the French front in days, and in December 1944 the same ground became the Battle of the Bulge, the costliest single battle in American history with roughly 19,000 US dead. The industrial picture Collier's described has also gone. Belgian coal mining, called "a very important element in Belgium's industrial wealth," ended altogether in 1992, and Sedan's cloth trade collapsed, leaving the French department one of the country's most deindustrialised; its population has fallen from about 320,000 then to roughly 270,000 now. The capital Mézières merged with neighbouring Charleville in 1966 to become Charleville-Mézières, and the hills that swallowed three invasions are now largely walking, cycling and forestry country.
Written for this edition, 2026.