Ypres is a Belgian municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Ypres and the villages of Boezinge, Brielen, Dikkebus, Elverdinge, Hollebeke, Sint-Jan, Vlamertinge, Voormezele, Zillebeke, and Zuidschote.
Nowadays, the town of Ypres (in Dutch : Ieper) looks like a small quiet provincial town. The gigantic cloth hall overlooks the market square of this beautifully rebuilt medieval town. The past is always just one step away.
Ypres was one of the most important cloth producing and cloth trading cities of the county of Flanders in the high Middle-Ages. Bruges is known all over the world for being a beautifully preserved medieval town, but if the First World War (The great War) had not raged over Ypres, perhaps Ypres would have been as famous as Bruges.
By 1918 almost nothing remained of the city, because it was in the middle of the frontline between the German and the Allied Armies. Ypres was bombed to pieces and almost wiped off the face of the earth.
During World War I, Ypres was the centre of intense and sustained battles between the German and the Allied forces. Ypres is a friendly Belgian Flanders town endowed with wonderful architecture and a troubled past. Ypres is best known as the site of three major battles of the First World War, the most famous being the Battle of Passchendaele from July November 1916. The many memorials and cemeteries of the fallen in and around Ypres draw thousands of visitors each year.
After the war the town was rebuilt using money paid by Germany in reparations, with the main square, including the Cloth Hall and town hall, being rebuilt as close to the original designs as possible. (The rest of the rebuilt town is more modern in appearance.) The Cloth Hall today is home to In Flanders Fields Museum, dedicated to Ypres’s role in the First World War.
Ypres these days has the title of “city of peace” and maintains a close friendship with another town on which war had a profound impact: Hiroshima. The association may be regarded as somewhat gruesome because both towns witnessed warfare at its worst: Ypres was one of the first places where chemical warfare was employed, while Hiroshima suffered the debut of nuclear warfare.
The city governments of Ypres and Hiroshima advocate for cities never to be targets again and campaign for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The City of Ypres hosts the international campaign secretariat of Mayors for Peace, an international Mayoral organization mobilizing cities and citizens worldwide to abolish and eliminate nuclear weapons by the year 2020. Mayors for Peace 2020 Vision Campaign
War graves, both of the Allied side and the Central Powers, cover the landscape around Ypres. The largest are Langemark German war cemetery and Tyne Cot Commonwealth war cemetery. The countryside around Ypres (Flanders Fields) is featured in the famous poem by John McCrae, In Flanders Fields. Saint George’s Memorial Church commemorates the British and Commonwealth soldiers, who died in the five battles fought for Ypres during World War I.
The official Flemish name for the city is Ieper – this is the version of the name you will see most commonly in and around the predominately Flemish-speaking town. Most native English speakers, however, will know the town by its French name Ypres, as popularised in media and history texts during and immediately after the First World War.
The town of Ypres formed the centre of the so-called “Ypres Salient” during most of the First World War—an area of Allied (British and Belgian)-held land surrounded on three sides by the German front line that formed the northernmost section of the Western Front. Holding Ypres was vital for the Allies in their bid to prevent the Germans gaining control of all the Channel ports, vital for the transport and supply of the British Expeditionary Force.
As a result, the city became the focus of several major battles to break in / out of the Salient and was subjected to fairly continuous bombardment by German artillery for most of the war. By 1918, little remained of the town but shattered ruins surrounded by muddy shell-pocked fields. After the First World War, most of central Ypres was rebuilt with German reparations (war debt) money. This was a lengthy process: the famous Cloth Hall was not completed until the 1960s.
Ypres city centre is best approached on foot. For visiting the war graves and memorials, one could use a car or cycle. Take the guided “Battle field tour” -bus, or buy an audio tour on the internet – same sites, but a lot cheaper if you have your own transport.
Ypres itself is easily reachable by train, or by car – highway to Kortrijk, then follow directions for Ieper (A19). From the ports of Calais or Dunkerque, take the A16 East, turning off at junction 28 (A25 towards Lille). Get off at Junction 13 and follow the signs for Ypres (Ieper).
The imposing Cloth Hall was built in the 13th century and was one of the largest commercial buildings of the Middle Ages. The structure which stands today is the exact copy of the original medieval building, rebuilt after the war. The belfry that surmounts the hall houses a 49-bell carillon. The whole complex was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999.
The Gothic-style Saint Martin’s Cathedral, originally built in 1221, was also completely reconstructed after the war. It houses the tombs of Jansenius, bishop of Ypres and father of the religious movement known as Jansenism, and of Robert of Bethune, nicknamed “The Lion of Flanders”, who was Count of Nevers (1273-1322) and Count of Flanders (1305–1322).
The Menin Gate Memorial2 in Ypres commemorates those soldiers of the British Commonwealth – with the exception of New Zealand and Newfoundland – who fell in the Ypres Salient during the First World War before 16 August 1917, who have no known grave. Those who died from that date – and all from New Zealand and Newfoundland – are commemorated elsewhere.
The memorial’s location is especially poignant as it lies on the eastward route from the town which allied soldiers would have taken towards the fighting – many never to return. Every evening since 1928, traffic around the imposing arches of the Menin Gate Memorial has been stopped while the Last Post is sounded beneath the Gate by the local fire brigade. This tribute is given in honour of the memory of British Empire soldiers who fought and died there.
The ceremony was prohibited by occupying German forces during the Second World War, but it was resumed on the very evening of liberation — 6 September 1944 — notwithstanding the heavy fighting that still went on in other parts of the town. The lions that marked the original gate were given to Australia by the people of Belgium and can be found at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
the Menin Gate Memorial – dedicated on 24 July 1927 as a memorial to the missing British and Commonwealth soldiers who fell in Belgium during World War One. Has a Last Post Ceremony each night at 8.00 pm to remember those who died for our freedom, by the buglers.
the Cloth Hall – originally built around 1200 as a center of Flemish wealth, completely destroyed by German artillery shelling in 1916, the Cloth Hall was rebuilt, the project completing in 1962 and the symbol of a resurgent city. Contains the In Flanders Fields Museum (see below).
This memorial contains, inside and out, huge panels into which are carved the names of the 54,896 officers and men of the commonwealth forces who died in the Ypres Salient area and who have no known graves. The names recorded on the gate’s panels are those of men who died in the area between the outbreak of the war in 1914 and 15th August, 1917.
The names of a further 34,984 of the missing – those who died between 16th August, 1917 and the end of the war, are recorded on carved panels at Tyne Cot Cemetery, on the slopes just below Passchendaele.
The Cat Parade (“Kattenstoet”) takes place every three years on the second Sunday of May. It involves the throwing of toy cats from the belfry and a colourful parade of cats and witches. The last edition of the Cat Parade took place in May, 2006.
Ypres is also the home of The Belgium Ypres Westhoek Rally since its creation in 1965. It is organized by the Auto Club Targa Florio. Some of the drivers are among the best-known names in rallying, such as Juha Kankkunen, Bruno Thiry, Henri Toivonen, Colin McRae, Jimmy McRae, Marc Duez, François Duval, and Freddy Loix among others. Ypres holds an annual canoe polo tournament in which teams from all over Europe to play.
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