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A Bloody History
The ancient town of Ypres, once the centre of the medieval
wool trade, was completely destroyed during the First World
War (1914 to 1918) when it was used as a supply depot
for the British forces fighting in the trenches just to the
east. In the south western corner of Belgium, Ypres and its
surrounding area was the last stronghold of territory unoccupied
by the Germans and acted as a barrier to the German advance
to the French coastal ports in the Calais region.
The Germans shelled Ypres to the ground, but following the
war the town was rebuilt to its earlier design - there's even
a replica of its thirteenth century Lakenhalle (cloth
hall) and these days it contains the excellent In Flanders
Fields museum. For the people of Ypres, the depth of tragedy
and horror of World War One still lingers - from the necessary
reconstruction of the town, to the dozens of cemeteries across
the area, to the vast amounts of unexploded ordinance littering
the countryside - all of which was the impetus behind the
museum which opened in 1998. The museum is organized thematically
and is experiential rather than coldly factual. At the beginning
of the tour you can enter a person booth in which you're assigned
a real historical character whose destiny you follow throughout
the museum which is designed to bring you closer to the genuine
wartime experience.
The Ypres Salient stretches for 25 miles from Langemark
north of Ypres to close to Menen near the border with
France. The Salient was a bulge in the frontline between the
opposing armies which ran from the North Sea at Nieuwpoort
in Belgium through to Switzerland. Because both armies felt
this would be a good place to break through each other's lines
this area witnessed a large concentration of men and four
major battles including the infamous Passchendaele
of July 1917. This battle, lasting 100 days and resulting
in around 400,000 casualties on both sides, has become synonymous
with the senseless waste and violence of World War One. During
this battle a staggering 4.7 million shells were fired into
the narrow salient protruding into the German front line;
as many as a third failed to explode in the wet clay. Dovos,
the Belgian army's EOD (explosives ordnance disposal) team,
receive 3,000 calls per year and remove hundreds of tons of
shells, trench mortars, grenades, and other weapons still
left from World War One. They predict it could take over 70
years more to complete the disposal.
Visiting Ypres Today
Apart from the live ammunition, there are lots of other wartime
remnants to visit. Tyne Cot Cemetery is the largest
British Commonwealth war cemetery in the world. The flowers
that have been planted here are all native to Britain so that
those buried here can feel at home. It's a haunting place
with rows upon rows of white crosses; 11,956 graves and the
Memorial to the Missing inscribed with the names of
a further 35,000 men whose bodies were never found. There's
also the Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof (the German cemetery)
and Essex Farm Cemetery where the Canadian doctor John
McCrae wrote the famous poem In Flanders Fields.
The best way of seeing the area is to take a tour - Peter
Slosse comes highly recommended.
The town is also home to Menin Gate, inscribed with
the names of 54,896 British and Commonwealth troops lost in
the trenches, whose bodies were never found. Every evening
since 1928 at exactly 8pm, the traffic is stopped as the buglers
play The Last Post in remembrance to the dead. |
