Ieper's medieval buildings rebuilt after WWI including the Cloth Hall, centre, and St. Martin's Cathedral, right.
In summer 2014 I spent several days in the Belgian city of Ieper, also known by its French name of Ypres. From there I took an informative day tour of World War I sites led by a Canadian man who runs a bookstore in Ieper. The tour visited the field hospital at Essex Farm where John McCrae served; the new Welsh memorial; Langemark German cemetery; the Brooding soldier at St. Julien; open country where the 3rd Battle of Ypres was fought; Tynecot Cemetery, the largest Commonwealth cemetery with nearly 12,000 burials; and the Hooge Crater.
Canadian Dr. John McCrae wrote one of the most famous poems of WWI.
The Brooding Soldier at Canada’s St. Julien commemorates the Canadian First Division's participation in the Second Battle of Ypres which included fighting in the face of the first poison gas attacks along the Western Front.
The number of graves - 11,965 - in the Tynecot Cemetery in the Belgian countryside is overwhelming.
More than 44,000 German soldiers are buried in the Langemark German Cemetery, 24,917 in a mass grave.
In Ieper I went to two of the memorial services at the Menin Gate where for an hour every evening vehicular traffic is stopped and people gather to remember the Commonwealth soldiers of WWI who fell in the area and have no known graves. About 1000 people attended each night I was there.
Menin gate just before traffic was stopped for nightly remembrance ceremony.
Inscription on Ieper's Menin Gate.
The Menin Gate ceremony varies each night with the different groups who have applied to participate.
Roses left at Menin Gate by Four Days of the Yser marchers.
Lucky timing had me in Ieper for the conclusion of an annual walking tour called Four Days of the Yser when participants, who have passed through several cities that were on the Western Front in WWI, parade into the market square carrying roses. This international march, organized by the Belgian Defence, welcomes civilians and military and foreigners as well as Belgians. One of its 3 goals stated on the event website is “to respectfully commemorate the casualties of both World Wars, particularly those who fell on the battlefields of the Westhoek during the First World War.” The other two goals concern relationship building between the military and civilians and exposing hikers to local historic and tourist sites.
Women dressed as WWI nurses enter Ieper market square in parade to conclude Four Days of the Yser.
Soldiers and civilians from different countries mingle in Ieper at end of Four Days of the Yser walking tour.
Another highlight of Ieper was In Flanders Fields Museum, named for the famous poem by Canadian John McCrae and located in the reconstructed medieval Cloth Hall that had been destroyed in WWI. The overall sense of the museum is of the tragedy of war.
WWI Museum in Ieper is named for famous poem by Canadian, Dr. John McCrae.
My time in Ieper was an emotional few days of absorbing the scale of death and destruction wrought by war. The names of thousands of missing soldiers are inscribed at the Menin Gate and Canada’s Vimy Monument in France, which I also visited in 2014. At both I found the names of friends of my grandfather, who was a soldier fortunate to survive the war. I have previously written about my Vimy visit. From Belgium I went on to England and saw the amazing poppy display at the Tower of London. All these experiences helped me with several research and writing projects related to acknowledging soldiers who perished in WWI.
The Vimy monument names 11,285 Canadian soldiers killed in France whose final resting place was unknown.
The 2014 Tower of London ceramic poppy installation commemorated soldiers who died in the First World War.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
From the poem For the Fallen by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943),
published in The Times newspaper on 21st September 1914.