Visé


Visé is a municipality and city of Belgium, where it is located on the river Meuse, in the Walloon province of Liège.
The municipality consists of the former municipalities of Visé, Lanaye, Lixhe, Richelle, Argenteau, and Cheratte.
In the north-east the area of the municipality extends up to the village of Moelingen in the Limburgian municipality of Voeren, while in the north-west it extends up to the border between Belgium and the Netherlands.
The city of Visé is located in a distance of some 20 km north eastern of Belgian Liège city and of some 15 km southern of the most southern Dutch city of Maastricht.
Apart from the Meuse river another waterway, the Albert Canal, passes through this town.

History

The Germans entered Belgium on 4 August 1914, and entered Visé that day as part of the opening movements of the Battle of Liège. A small group of Belgian gendarmes opposed the advancing Germans and two of their number, Auguste Bouko and Jean-Pierre Thill, were killed in the action becoming the first Belgian casualties of World War I. On 7 August, in the Lixhe section of the town, the German 90th Infantry Regiment killed eleven civilians and destroyed eleven houses.
The Lixhe part of the town was also the site of one of Belgium's ninety eastern-frontier advanced-warning posts, aimed at preventing a German invasion in 1939 - its number was "PA 0". The coal mine of Hasard de Cheratte was dug in Cheratte and exploited between 1850 and 1977.

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