Cassel dans les Flandres
Cassel de A à Z - Historique - Le Moulin de Cassel - Reuze papa et maman
		Mont Cassel in Flanders It is hardly possible to assign one precise time with the foundation of Cassel. It goes back to a time if moved back that the facts able to indicate it were lost in the darkness of the centuries. A fact is certain: the mount was strengthened at the time of Morins, well before the era Christian and called Cassel or Quastel, which meant " fortress " in Celtic language. Ménapiens, first ancestors of Cassellois occupied the septentrional end of Gaule. This is why Virgile called them " extremi hominium " (men of the end of the world). The Romans conquered the country and occupied, in their turn Castellum, during five centuries. They appreciated the Cassel Mount like excellent military position and strengthened the terrace of the hillock (175,90 meters). The Romans, as clever as untiring, built ways or military roads solid (strata) of which six are still remarkable. The majority of these ways were built in year 27 before Jesus Christ. They employed the legions to carry them out: the paving stones double, are posed one on the other. It is what explains the solidity of these roadways.
Here these seven roads or septemvium: De Cassel with Minariacum (bridge of Estaires) by Holy Marie Cappel, Holy Sylvestre Cappel, Strazeele De Cassel with the Lily (close to Surface) by Oxelaere, Staple De Cassel with Tervanna (Thèrouanne) by Bavinchove De Cassel with Gessoriacum (Boulogne on Sea) in the North-West De Cassel in old Marcae (Mardyck) by Esquelbecq, Crochte De Cassel with Brussiac (Bruges) by Steenvoorde, Poperinghe, Ypres De Cassel with Viaoviacum (Wervicq) and from there in Tournai. Since the Roman time, Cassel was besieged, taken or taken again thirteen times, was devastated or set fire to ten times, was demolished five times, was restored six times, was bombarded three times. Three great battles proceeded there: As a 1071:première battle of Cassel.Victoire of Robert the 1st Clippings close to Bavinche, with the bottom of the Mount, on the Richilde Countess and the King of France, Philippe 1st. The young Count de Flandre, Arnoul, known as the Unhappy one, lost the life there. In 1328: second battle of Cassel. Defeat of Nicolas Zannequin and the communiers flamingos, revolted against the count of Flanders, Louis of Nevers. King, Philippe de Valois, was the winner of this delivered battle on the side of Hardifort. The shortly after the battle, the Constable Gauthier de Châtillon, on command of the King, ransacked the city and the strong castle and passed to the wire of the sword the inhabitants who had not been able to flee. Their descendants had to pay tax during several generations, like consequence and punishment of this rising. The third battle of Cassel, in 1677, most decisive for the future of the Flanders. Victoire of the troops of Philippe of Orleans, brother of Louis XIV, on those of Prince Guillaume d' Orange. It involved the opening of negotiations leading to the peace of Nimège (1678) where were recognized the current borders. Here finishes the history of the famous castle-extremely, of old Castellum of the Romans, true rampart of the various modes which followed one another in Flanders.
		Cassel will join again with the military history: Marshal FOCH, installed his headquarters there from October 1914 at April 1915. In 1914, Marshal FOCH, then General as a head of the armies of North, had his office in a room of old Châtellerie. He worked there of October 23, 1914 to June 21, 1915. Of this room, it directed the battle of Yser there. It passed there, according to its own expression " the hours more distressing its vie".En 1940, the English rear-guard resists during three days to the invader, which allows the loading of the troops allied in Dunkirk (Dynamo operation). Cassel is partially destroyed, 80% of its population disaster victim. Marshal Foch Cassel, whom chooses Foch to establish its headquarters there in October 1914, April 1918, at the most serious hours of the large war, was to raise a monument of recognition to the large soldier who had saved the horrors of the invasion to him. When, a few months after the armistice, October 19, 1919, Marshal FOCH was accepted in Cassel as a triumphant victor, the idea of this monument was already in germ. The project was not long in shaping and a committee was formed to study the realization of it. The committee obtained, not without sorrow, which the Marshal definitively did not oppose so that was carried out the wish of the Town of Cassel and Flandres, with the assistance of members and subscribers, as well French as allied, of which the number was to reach an imposing figure.