{"id":39,"date":"2014-03-03T12:32:15","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T12:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/?page_id=39"},"modified":"2014-03-09T13:56:36","modified_gmt":"2014-03-09T13:56:36","slug":"the-first-action-the-capture-of-the-belgia","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/?page_id=39","title":{"rendered":"The First Action: the Capture of the Belgia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gwent can claim to have carried out the first action of the war when, overnight on 4<sup>th<\/sup>\/5<sup>th<\/sup> August 1914, \u00a0policemen from Newport arrested the crew of the <i>Belgia<\/i>, a German liner anchored off the town\u2019s new Alexandra Dock, and impounded the ship.<\/p>\n<p>The liner, which was retuning to Germany from America, had entered British waters the before Britain declared war on Germany for fear of being sunk by the French navy in the English Channel, France already being at war with Germany.<\/p>\n<p>The ship was re-named the Huntstrick and became a British merchant vessel.\u00a0 It was sunk off Morocco in 1917 by a German U-boat while carrying stores and troops to Salonika. \u00a015 lives were lost.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/WW1-Belgia-prisoners1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-44\" alt=\"Prisoners being taken ashore from the Belgia\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/WW1-Belgia-prisoners1-300x189.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"189\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/WW1-Belgia-prisoners1-300x189.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/WW1-Belgia-prisoners1-475x300.jpg 475w, https:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/WW1-Belgia-prisoners1.jpg 674w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gwent can claim to have carried out the first action of the war when, overnight on 4th\/5th August 1914, \u00a0policemen from Newport arrested the crew of the Belgia, a German liner anchored off the town\u2019s new Alexandra Dock, and impounded &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/?page_id=39\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":138,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-39","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/39\/revisions\/46"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwentwfa.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}