Flanders Fields

The countryside around Ypres holds one of the densest concentrations of war memorials and cemeteries in the world, commemorating the many hundreds of thousands who died in the salient between 1914 and 1918. Ypres itself was destroyed and then rebuilt to its medieval appearance, and the reconstructed Cloth Hall houses the In Flanders Fields Museum, which tells the story through individual accounts rather than strategy. The Menin Gate carries the names of tens of thousands of missing soldiers, and every evening at eight the road is closed and buglers of the local fire brigade sound the Last Post, a ceremony held almost without interruption since 1928. Tyne Cot, the largest Commonwealth war cemetery anywhere, lies a few kilometres away on a low ridge.

History

The salient around Ypres was fought over for most of the First World War: the First Battle of Ypres ended on 22 November 1914; in the Second, from 22 April to 25 May 1915, poison gas was used as a weapon; and the Third, usually called Passchendaele, ran from July to November 1917, after the Battle of Messines that June. German forces were finally pushed out of the salient in 1918 (Wikipedia, Ypres Salient). The name the landscape goes by comes from a poem: the Canadian army doctor John McCrae wrote "In Flanders Fields" on 3 May 1915 at a dressing station outside Ypres, after the funeral of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who was killed in the Second Battle, and Punch published it on 8 December 1915 (Wikipedia, In Flanders Fields).

Highlights

• The Last Post at the Menin Gate - the nightly ceremony at eight o'clock.
• In Flanders Fields Museum - in the rebuilt Cloth Hall, told through personal stories.
• Tyne Cot Cemetery - the largest Commonwealth war cemetery, on the Passchendaele ridge.
• Preserved trench sites - surviving trench and crater ground at Hill 62 and Hill 60.

When to go

April to October for comfortable travel. The Last Post takes place every evening year-round in all weather. Armistice Day in November brings large crowds and a fuller programme of ceremonies.

Good to know

This is a landscape of mass graves and it should be approached that way; it is not a sightseeing circuit. The nightly ceremony draws large crowds and arriving early is necessary to see anything. Reaching the outlying cemeteries and preserved trenches without a car is difficult, and organised tours vary widely in tone, from thoughtful to briskly commercial.

Nearby

Bruges and Ghent are within an hour and a half; the French Somme battlefields lie further south.