Ypres: The Town that Never Forgets

At first glance, the Belgian town of Ypres looks just like any other Medieval European town. It’s a charming place with a grand cloth hall, a medieval church, and a bustling high street lined with gabled houses and busy shops. Seeing it now, it’s hard to imagine that only a century ago, this town experienced a series of battles so intense that it was left in ruins.

At the end of the high street, a hulking stone archway that seems almost out of place stands as a reminder of Ypres’ tragic history. This is the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing, a monument built to commemorate the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who lost their lives in and around Ypres during the First World War. Meticulously rebuilt after the war, Ypres has become a symbol of resilience and a reminder of the tragic legacy of that devastating chapter in European history.

Ypres Before 1914

In the Middle Ages, Ypres was one of the most prosperous towns in Flanders thanks to its successful cloth industry. Its strategic position 40km from the coast placed it at the crossroads of several important trade routes leading to the Netherlands, France, and England which enabled it to thrive. Ypres’ original Cloth Hall, built in the 13th century as a centre for trade and commerce, was one of the largest commercial buildings in Medieval Europe. This symbol of the town’s illustrious past would stand proudly until the bombs of the Great War reduced it to ruble seven centuries later.

The Great War

Ypres’ strategic position which helped make it so prosperous in the Middle Ages also put it directly in the path of the German army as they marched through Belgium into France in August of 1914. Germany’s invasion of neutral Belgium set in motion a bloody conflict that would last four years and cost millions of lives. Between 1914 and 1918, three major battles were fought in the Ypres Salient area of Flanders.

The Second Battle of Ypres in the spring of 1915 witnessed the first use of poison gas by the Germans, a weapon that would come to change the face of the war. After this battle, the use of poisonous gases escalated as both sides made use of the deadly weapon. In all, more than 100,000 tons of chemical weapons were used during World War I which resulted in 30,000 dead and a further 500,000 injured.

The Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele, was one of the deadliest campaigns of the entire war. The British army launched this offensive on July 31, 1917, in an attempt to recapture the Ypres Salient from the Germans. The battle lasted more than three months and was fought under horrific conditions as heavy rain and flooding transformed the battlefield into a muddy swamp.

By the end of the battle, more than half a million soldiers across both sides were wounded, killed or missing. The hard-fought victory won the Allies only 8km of ground which would be recaptured by the Germans mere months later. Historians often point to this battle as the epitome of the senseless, brutal nature of trench warfare that ruled the Western Front during World War I.

Post-War Ypres

After the war, there was some discussion of leaving the ruined city untouched to serve as a memorial. However, it was ultimately decided that it would be rebuilt exactly as it was pre-war, an undertaking that would take many years to complete. The Cloth Hall, which was rebuilt on its original foundations, was not completed until 1967. It is now home to the In Flanders Fields Museum which tells the story of the First World War.

As the city was being reconstructed, it was decided that a memorial would be built here to honour missing soldiers. The site for the Menin Gate was chosen because it was the historical gateway into and out of Ypres. This was the point through which hundreds of thousands of soldiers exited the town en route to the battlefields, many never to return.

Engraved on the walls of the Menin Gate are the names of more than 54,000 soldiers from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, and South Africa who fell in the Ypres Salient and whose graves are unknown. It is one of four such memorials in Flanders which are maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

The memorial was unveiled on July 24, 1927, by Field Marshal Lord Herbert Plummer. During the first of what would become many remembrance ceremonies at the Menin Gate, Plummer spoke of the memorial’s significance to the assembled crowd:

“But when peace came and the last ray of hope had been extinguished, the void seemed deeper and the outlook more forlorn for those who had no graves to visit, no place where they could lay tokens of loving remembrance.

The hearts of the people throughout the Empire went out to them and it was resolved that here at Ypres, where so many of the missing are known to have fallen, there should be erected a Memorial worthy of them which should give expression to the Nation’s gratitude for their sacrifice and their sympathy with those who mourned them.

A Memorial has been erected which, in its simple grandeur, fulfils this object, and now it can be said of each one in whose honour we are assembled here today: He is not missing: he is here!”

Field Marshal Lord Herbert Plummer

Lest We Forget

Each evening at 8:00, the street that passes beneath the gate is closed to traffic so that a ceremony can be conducted which includes the last post and laying of wreaths. This nightly ritual has been taking place here every single day since 1928. It was interrupted only during World War II when Ypres was under German occupation but resumed immediately following the liberation.

The ceremony is organized by the Last Post Association and is open to all. Occasionally groups or individuals will participate in the ceremony to pay tribute to specific groups or commemorate important anniversaries. I recently attended the Last Post Ceremony as part of an eye-opening World War I tour of Flanders which concluded in Ypres. It was a moving experience and I was amazed at the large number of people in attendance. I highly recommend both the tour and the ceremony to anyone visiting the area.

More than a century has passed since the end of the First World War and yet its impact has not, and should not, be forgotten. During my tour of Flanders, I had the opportunity to visit some of the battlefields, memorials, and cemeteries that have been preserved as reminders of the horrific war that caused so much death and destruction. The beautiful Belgian countryside is peaceful once again. Most of its scars have healed over the years and those who experienced the horrors of that time are all long gone. But the legacy of the Great War is well remembered in Ypres and it invites visitors to reflect on the sacrifices made there by so many.

Further Reading

• In Flanders Fields Museum: https://www.inflandersfields.be/
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission: https://www.cwgc.org/
• Last Post Association: https://lastpost.be/