52 
LAND & WATER 
August 10, 1916 
The late Gothic Hotel de Ville, Mons, the Head- 
quarters for a short time of the British General Staff 
must be so constituted that she can play eftectivcly her 
part among the nations in the coming years. To a large 
extent the old order must and will pass away. The new 
roads and highways will be different from the old, both 
as to construction, width, and surface. Sanitation in 
the smaller as well as the larger towns will of necessity 
be less a thing left to chance, and more of an exact science. 
Slum areas, however picturesque at a distance — chiefly 
confined to a few of the larger industrial towns of the 
South- West or Borinage district— will, let us hope, dis- 
appear. But it would be a thousand pities to allow purely 
utilitarian ideas to rule, and thus to eliminate imagination 
and the art of preserving ancient things which are worthy 
of preservation either from intrinsic merit or because 
they form valuable historical data and object-lessons 
for coming generations. 
But in the endeavour to preserve that which is admir- 
able, useful, or historic, there is some risk that too much 
will be attempted, and the scheme may be doomed to 
failure because of its vastncss. 
What lovers of Belgium of the past, the artist and the 
archaeologist, will urge is that any scheme must keep in 
view the following main points : (a) That the faults of 
the past shall not be perpetuated merely because they are 
old ; (b) that convenience and sanitation shall have due 
consideration ; (c) that in every town and village which 
possessed a unique, beautiful, or historic church or other 
buildings an endeavour shall be made to preserve these 
or at least some, of them by restoration or rebuilding 
upon the lines of the original plans. 
Belgium has suffered through the past centuries so 
much at the hands of invaders and conquerors that one 
used to wonder at the extraordinary richness and interest 
of the survivals. The incomparable nth Century 
Cloth Hall of Ypres ; the storied i3th-i5th Centurj' 
Belfry of Bruges ; the exquisite Hotel de Ville at Lou- 
vain ; the grim and historic Chateau des Comtcs founded 
in the 9th century and re-erected by Count Philip of 
Alsace on his return from the Holy Land towards the 
close of the 12th, as the records have it ad reprimcndam 
superbiavi Gandcnsiam ; and the magnificent late Gothic 
Church of St. Jacques, Liege, dating in part from the 
latter half of the 12th century, though the main portion 
dates from the early years of the i6th, for example. 
The reason is not far to seek. Through the centuries 
Belgium has been happy in the possession of the indestruc- 
tible spirit and of men who appear to have set seriously 
and promptly about the restoration and, where necessary, 
rebuilding of great churches or historic buildings whicli 
had been injured or destroyed by the ravages of war or 
the lust of conquerors. And though it cannot, of course, 
be claimed that these efforts were in every case equally 
happy, blameless, or successful, the present generation 
and those that have gone before prior to the war, 
iiave owed much to the pious and munificent soul 
under whose auspices and by w hose generosity so mucl. 
that was beautiful and valuable was preserved. 
How much or how little survives of the Belgium beloved 
in the past by artists, antiquarians, and those for whom 
beauty and romance have a direct and potent personal 
appeal, will become known during the next few months 
if all goes well with the Allies. It is impossible, of course, 
as yet, accurately to estimate the extent of the damage and 
destruction that the invasion and rule of the Huns have 
brought about. Those who have been able to see some- 
thing of Belgium since the Germans swept through it on 
their road to Paris dread the " damage of retreat, not 
less than that caused during the drunken fury of the 
successful first onslaught." From our pictures of Dinant 
as it was and is, and from that of Dixmilde some idea 
mav be gathered of the ruin that has been wrought. 
We know that much of Liege is in ruins ; that Louvain 
is little more than the blackened husk of a once beautiful 
and storied town ; that Antwerp has suffered much 
more damage than has ever been fully realised by the 
general public ; that Malines, with its magnificent Cathe- 
dral Church of St. RumboH dating from the 14th and 
15th centuries, has been greatly damaged ; that Dinant, 
historic and picturesque, is now little more than a heap 
of rubbish ; that Mons, which will ever dwell in the 
memory of the men and women of British blood, as a place 
of glory and of sacrifice, is almost obliterated ; that 
Tournai and Courtrai, both with fine churches and 
historic buildings, have been severely damaged ; that 
Ypres, once wealthy, famous and historic, its fortunes, 
linked up with England, is now a desolate waste of 
blackened ruins ; that quaint Nieuport, with its famous 
Templars' Tower, is reduced to heaps of rubble ; and that 
the glories of the picturesque little town of Dixmude, its 
fine parish church of St. Nicholas, and its beautiful 
Flamboyant Rood Loft, are no more. Our pictures of 
some 01 these delectable places possess, therefore, 
an added if melancholy interest. And to the sum 
total of this must be added many smaller towns and 
villages all or most of them possessing priceless treasures 
of architecture or of art ravaged and burned. 
In not a few instances there exist in this sadly devastated 
land concrete and encouraging examples of the policy 
of rebuilding and reconstruction such as I advocate. 
It is necessary to go back no further than the Napoleonic 
[Continued on pa^e 54) 
A corner of the Grand Place, Malines, with some of the 
15th— 18th century, houses, and the Cathedral of St. Rom- 
bold, most of which have been destroyed or damaged 
