Maubeuge Abbey

The siege of Maubeuge (30 September – 16 October 1793) was a siege of the city of Maubeuge by an Austro-Dutch force of 60,000 men: 58  under Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld during the War of the First Coalition. Maubeuge was defended by a 24,000-strong garrison under the French Republican generals Desjardin and Mayer.: 66  The Prince was aiming to clear his march on Paris, but he had to raise the siege after the Republican victory at the battle of Wattignies and the prospect of the armée de la Moselle coming to raise the siege. The French representative on mission, Jean-Baptiste Drouet, was captured by the Austrians during the siege, and only returned to France in December 1795 through a prisoner exchange.

Maubeuge (French pronunciation: [mobøʒ]; historical Dutch: Mabuse or Dutch: Malbode; Picard: Maubeuche) is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. It is situated on both banks of the Sambre (here canalized), 36 km (22 mi) east of Valenciennes and about 9 km (5.6 mi) from the Belgian border.

The siege of Maubeuge took place from 24 August – 7 September 1914, at the Entrenched Camp of Maubeuge (le camp retranché de Maubeuge) the start of the First World War on the Western Front. The railway from Thionville (Diedenhofen, 1871–1919) to Luxembourg City, Arlon and Namur into Belgium had been cut by the demolition of the rail bridge over the Meuse at Namur in Belgium. During the siege, the German armies in the north could use only the single-track line from Trier to Liège, Brussels, Valenciennes and Cambrai, which could accommodate a maximum of forty trains a day. At the end of August the garrison made several sorties but the third was a costly failure, after which the French prepared to receive the German attack. The German bombardment began at 1:00 p.m. on 29 August, assisted by agents in the Entrenched Position who passed reports on the fall of shot, greatly increasing the accuracy of the German guns. The forts and infantry shelters (ouvrages) were wrecked by the German and Austrian super-heavy howitzers; German medium artillery proved unexpectedly effective. Parts of Maubeuge were set on fire, causing an exodus of civilians and deserters to the village of Hautmont to the south-west. From 1 to 7 September, the French were forced out into the open and infantry attacks from the east gradually overran the French defences on both sides of the Sambre, forcing the survivors back level with Maubeuge. Brigadier-General Joseph Fournier, the governor of Maubeuge, surrendered to General Hans von Zwehl on 7 September, effective at noon the next day. The French suffered 5,000 casualties and up to 49,000 troops went into captivity, along with several hundred guns and machine-guns; German casualties were 1,100–5,000 men. The garrison had withstood bombardment by heavy and super-heavy artillery, air raids and infantry attacks for fifteen days, longer than any other besieged fortress in Belgium or France, leaving the German 2nd Army short of troops as it pursued the Franco-British Armies southwards towards the Marne.

The canton of Maubeuge is an administrative division of the Nord department, northern France. It was created at the French canton reorganisation which came into effect in March 2015. Its seat is in Maubeuge. It consists of the following communes:

The Hôtel de Ville (French pronunciation: [otɛl də vil], City Hall) is a municipal building in Maubeuge, Nord, northern France, standing on Place de l'Hôtel de Ville.

Maubeuge is a railway station serving the town Maubeuge, Nord department, northern France. It is situated on the Creil–Jeumont railway.

The Communauté d'agglomération Maubeuge Val de Sambre is an intercommunal structure, centred on the city of Maubeuge. It is located in the Nord department, in the Hauts-de-France region, northern France. It was created in December 2013. Its seat is in Maubeuge. Its area is 343.6 km2. Its population was 125,651 in 2017, of which 29,944 in Maubeuge proper.

Louvroil (French pronunciation: [luvʁwal]) is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. It lies adjacent to the southwest of Maubeuge.

Ferrière-la-Grande (French pronunciation: [fɛʁjɛʁ la ɡʁɑ̃d]) is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. The river Solre flows through the commune. In 1828 Pierre François Dumont applied for a concession to operate iron mines in the canton of Maubeuge, and for authorization to establish two iron furnaces at Ferrière-la-Grande powered by steam. Dumont founded the factories at Ferrière-la-grande in 1830, the first coke-fired blast furnaces in the north of France to produce and mould pig-iron from the local minerals. By decree of 23 April 1859 Dumont was granted a concession to build a railway line to link the factories Ferrière-la-Grande to the Saint-Quentin line at Erquelinnes. The line was built on land acquired by Dumont or expropriated on the grounds of public utility.

Rousies (French pronunciation: [ʁuzi]) is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. It is located south of Maubeuge, on the river Solre.

Solre is a river in France that runs in the Département Nord in the region Hauts-de-France. It originates from the confluence of two source streams at Solre-le-Château, in the Avesnois Regional Nature Park. The river generally drains to the northwest and empties at 22.4 kilometers east of Maubeuge, in the municipality of Rousies, as a right tributary to the channeled Sambre.

Assevent (French pronunciation: [asvɑ̃]) is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.