In October, 1914, it saw the close of the fighting which concluded the "race to the sea," and the stabilising of the front here resulted in more than six months' continuous fighting.
A little later, the Artois offensive of 1915 found an echo in local operations for the possession of key positions like Festubert and Neuve-Chapelle, giving rise to sanguinary struggles without decisive result for either side.
Finally, in 1918, it was the scene of the third great German offensive for the conquest of the Hills (see pp. 38—43.)
Béthune
The foundation in 984 of the Collegiate Church of St. Bartholomew, by Robert I., ancestor of Sully, is the first mention of Béthune in history. The town, owned in turn by the Counts of Flanders, the Dukes of Burgundy, and the House of Austria, annexed to France at the Peace of Nimègue in 1678, taken in 1710 by the Triple Alliance, was finally restored to France in 1713 by the Treaty of Utrecht.
A fraternity, called the "Confrérie des Charitables," still survives. Founded after the plague of 1188 by two blacksmiths, to whom St. Eloi appeared in a vision, asking them to assist their fellow-countrymen who were dying unsuccoured, it performed the burial rites of the dead.
During the Great War the town was intermittently bombarded for three and a half years, but from the end of February, 1918, to April 21 the violence of the shelling increased tenfold, and on the latter date the civil population had to be evacuated, the battle having carried the German lines within two miles of Béthune.
BÉTHUNE, from an old engraving