THE FORESTS OF BELGIUM 



By Charles Harris Whitaker 



THE traveler, crossing from Dover 

 to Ostend, or leaving the Chan- 

 nel to wend his way slowly up 

 the Scheldt to Antwerp, or cross- 

 ing from Harwich to the Hook of 

 Holland, would scarcely picture the \o\\- 

 lying seacoast of Belgium and Holland 

 as having once been girt with a thick 

 forest. Yet this "nether land, hollow 

 land" — whence we no doubt derive 

 both of the words Netherlands and 

 Holland — was at one time only saved 

 froin the fiu^ther relentless encroach- 

 ments of the sea by the tangled woods 

 which grew about its seaward limits. 

 They offered a barrier against which the 

 sea beat in vain. The impenetrable net- 

 work of roots and branches only aided 

 in heaping up the dunes into those bul- 

 warks which the skill of man was to 

 transform later into dikes, and by their 

 aid , turn the almost impenetrable morass 

 into a land of fertility and aVjundance. 



All of the territory which we once 

 knew as the Netherlands, and which 

 under the name of the Low Countries 

 played so important a pa,rt in Europe's 

 ceaseless wars of conquest and lust for 

 power, was practically .surrounded by 

 forests. On the south, the hills and 

 valleys of the Ardennes, densely wooded, 

 offering an almost impenetrable obstacle 

 to invasion, as they have today played 

 so important a part in the war by barring 

 the direct invasion of France by 

 Germany. It is perhaps true that 

 Belgium would have been spared many 

 of the horrors which have fallen to her 

 lot had the forest of the Ardennes not 

 forced the German General Staff to 

 make plans for the occupation of almost 

 the whole of Belgium, although we 

 must leave to the future the revelation 

 to us of many secrets which are still 

 unknown to the world at large. On the 

 north was the sinister Badahuenna 

 wood, whose only claim to historic value 

 lies in the fact that it once resounded 

 with the horrors of the Druidical sacri- 

 fices. On the eastern side there 

 stretched away the great Hercynian 

 22 



forest. Legend has it that nine days 

 were required to traverse the labyrinth 

 of its wild ways from north to south, 

 while its eastern extent was said to be 

 so great that no German had ever been 

 able to find its beginning, although one, 

 most adventurous and courageous, had 

 pluckily held to a journey of no less 

 than sixty days. 



Of these forests comparatively little 

 remains. The Wood, just outside the 

 Hague; the groves of Harlem, the for- 

 ests of Soignes and Ardennes are all 

 that have been left. From Amsterdam on 

 the north to the banks of the Meuse, 

 and from the seacoast to the Rhine, 

 one seldom gets a view of anything 

 which would even suggest that a forest 

 had ever existed in this highly cultivated 

 land. Trees are everywhere, for the 

 Belgians knew well how to shade their 

 roads and protect their streams. The 

 long rows of willows and poplars, 

 stretching away in every direction, are 

 familiar sights, but there is no sugges- 

 tion of the forest until one reaches 

 Brussels or until one has journeyed 

 south and west and come up with the 

 border of the Ardennes. Just above 

 Dinant on the Meuse, already a victim 

 to the devastation which has overtaken 

 this dauntless nation, the Ardennes be- 

 gin, sweeping in a southerly and south- 

 easterly direction clear down to the con- 

 fines of the Duchy of Luxembourg and 

 the frontiers of France. 



The favorite holiday ground of thou- 

 sands of Englishmen, the Ardennes are 

 scarcely known to Americans. Within 

 the boundaries of this delightful section 

 there are to be found some of the finest 

 woods in all Europe. Some of them seem 

 to have come down from the days of 

 Caesar, but best of all, one finds the 

 keenest pleasure in knowing that, thanks 

 to the compulsory replanting laws of 

 Belgium, they are as nearly certain of 

 preservation as it is possible to make 

 them. 



The Arduenna Silva was the most 

 extensive forest within the Gallic do- 



