Later on, another building was added to the fort, the Caserne Rougé, the longest barracks of France at that time, named after Pierre François, Marquis de Rougé, general of the French armies k.a. 1761.
The town's history claims thatSaint Hubert lived there in 720 and performed a miracle. The town has changed hands several times since the Roman era before becoming part of France in 1678, and was later invaded by Russians and Germans.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the French maintained a camp here for British naval prisoners of war from 1804 to 1814. One of the officer prisoners, CaptainJahleel Brenton, Royal Navy, who had been captured when his ship, H.M. frigateMinerve ran aground off Cherbourg, and Naval Chaplain the Reverend Robert B. Wolfe, also a prisoner, established a school of navigation for the imprisoned British sailors. This was a successful unofficial initiative for teaching navigation that also provided a center for the growth of religious piety in the Royal Navy.[3] An example of student work in the navigation school ispreserved in the notebook by British seaman William Carter.[4] British seaman, John Wetherell, a survivor of the British 38-gun frigateHMS Hussar that had wrecked near Brest and was burnt by her crew to prevent her capture, was imprisoned at Givet from 1804 to 1814 and left an account of his experiences.[5]
InWorld War II, Givet was occupied by the Germans on May 12, 1940 and liberated by theallies on September 7, 1944. By December 1944, 11,000 American soldiers were billeted in the ancientCharlemont fortress. The GermanArdennes Offensive targeted Givet and its crossing of the Meuse. The British, underGeneral Montgomery, organized a last-ditch defense, and on 24 December, the German drive was stopped about 10 kilometres (6 mi) from Givet.
TEC bus 154A runs every hour or two from the station toDinant, taking about 42 minutes.[9] It replaces railway line 154A, which took about 30 minutes[10] for the 22 km (14 mi) route[11] and closed in 1988. In 2021 a study began into reopening a single track, with a cycleway alongside.[12]
The River Meuse is navigable from theNorth Sea to Givet. TheCanal de la Meuse links to the rest of the French canal network. The port declined after the canal was enlarged to allow 1,350 ton barges in the 1960s,[14] but, when it was reconnected to the railway in 2013, it was still handling about 760,000 tonnes of freight a year.[15]
Givet is served by several main roads, including D8051 toRocroi, formerlyN51, andD949, which is the French section of Belgium'sN40, linkingArlon andMons.
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