Each night at 8 pm the traffic is stopped at the Menin Gate while buglers of the Last Post Association sound the Last Post in the roadway under the Memorial's arches. For more information on the Last Post Association please check their website: www.
Panel Numbers quoted at the end of each entry relate to the panels dedicated to the Regiment with which the casualty served. In some instances, where a casualty is recorded as attached to another Regiment, his name may appear within their Regimental Panels. Please refer to the on-site Memorial Register Introduction. All odd panel numbers are on the North side of the road and even numbers are located on the South side of the road.
Steps on either side of the memorial leading to the rear of the memorial, make wheelchair access to the rear impossible. Today, St.
George's is still a place of worship for Protestants living in Ypres, but the parishioners are not so many now and the church depends largely on donations from those whose memories of Ypres are still fresh. Ypres now Ieper is a town in the Province of West Flanders. The Memorial is situated at the eastern side of the town on the road to Menin Menen and Courtrai Kortrijk. Each night at 8 p. Menin Gate Memorial and St. George's Church When the Germans launched the great spring offensives of , their forces were finally halted less than two and a half kilometres from the Menin Gate at Ypres.
A feature of the architecture on this building is that two loggias run along the length of the north and south sides of the memorial on the upper level. A loggia is a gallery or a corridor open to the air on one side and supported by columns. This upper level is situated on the ramparts of the old fortifications dating back to the time when the city was protected by fortified walls and a moat.
The inscribed panels of Portland Stone, bearing the names of the missing casualties, continue up the walls of the north and south stairways and then along the walls of the upper level of the memorial. The loggia on the opposite side of the memorial is the same. In the photograph of the side view of the northern loggia the stone lion can be seen.
He lies on the eastern end of the Menin Gate Memorial looking out to the east across the Ypres Salient battlefields, where so many lives were lost. The names are inscribed on the memorial in blocks by regiment. The register of names and the Panel Number where a casualty can be found are located in the brass box just inside the western entrance of the memorial. Registers are arranged alphabetically by name.
Odd numbered panels are to be found on the north side of the road. All even numbered panels will be found on the south side of the road. Each panel on the memorial contains the names of several hundred casualties, arranged in order of seniority of rank and alphabetically by name.
To search online for the alphabetical list of names recorded on the Menin Gate Memorial and to find out more about the memorial you can go to the Menin Gate Memorial page on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website:. Website: www. He was killed whilst commanding the 1st Guards Brigade during the First Battle of Ypres in the autumn of His date of death was 12 November Almost exactly fifteen years before he met his death in the Ypres Salient, Charles Fitzclarence was serving as a Captain in the Boer War and was awarded the Victoria Cross for three actions of gallantry in October and December Brigadier General Fitzclarence played a key role in directing the successful action to recapture the village of Gheluvelt from the German Army with a British counter-attack on 31 October After his death on 12 November his body was never found.
He was aged 49 when he died. A farm in the vicinity of the place where he was killed was named Fitzclarence Farm on British Army trench maps. His name can be found as the first name at the very top of Panel 3, which is the first panel on the left when entering the memorial from its western end from the direction of the town and Meensestraat.
Access to the Memorial is easiest on foot. With space exhausted in Boulogne and Wimereux, a new burial site was opened in June in Terlincthun to accommodate the soldiers who died in the base hospitals on the French coast.
This contrivance of the architect Sir Herbert Baker is best viewed from behind the Stone of Remembrance and seems to suggest that Napoleon, atop his column, is watching over the dead of the Great War. During the Great War, the German Army prosecuted underwater operations against the military and merchant navies of the Allies in an attempt to close the shipping routes between England and France and so deprive the British forces on the Continent of supplies and reinforcements.
In the summer of the German Army marched through Belgium and entered France where they came up against the fortified outworks of Maubeuge. On 25 August the Germans surrounded the town in what was to become the longest siege of the war: it lasted a fortnight. Today the museum of Leveau Fort tells the story of Maubeuge during the two world wars. On 8 September the Siege of Maubeuge, the longest in the Great War, came to an end with the surrender of the French no longer able to resist the heavy German artillery.
Two years later the bodies of nearly 2, soldiers of both sides had still not been given a decent burial. Intent on resolving the situation, the German Army decided to concentrate the graves in a 'memorial cemetery' which the sister of the German Emperor would officially open and hand over to the town of Maubeuge in In the summer of British and French troops were forced back towards France as the German Army swept across Belgium. On 26 August the soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force held their ground near the town of Le Cateau to slow down the enemy's progress and allow the Allied soldiers enough time to reorganize prior to continuing their retreat.
In the aftermath of the fighting, the Germans buried dead British soldiers in a corner of the town's civilian cemetery. Erected in in honour of those who died in the Great War, Caudry Monument is also a poignant reminder of the German occupation of the town which lasted the length of the war.
Four bas-reliefs on the monument show a French soldier in a trench dreaming of Sainte-Maxellende church tower and a family mourning the death of a loved one.
Other scenes depict women, children and the elderly fleeing the town; and the liberation of the town by the British on 30 September Comines cemetery is home to a sturdy funerary monument bearing the Imperial Eagle, the last remaining trace of the German extension which, prior to , contained 4, graves that are now in Saint-Laurent-Blangy.
Occupied for four years during the Great War, the town of Comines served as a German rear base in Lys Valley for the many battles around Ypres.
Totally destroyed in the fighting and evacuated in , the town was rebuilt after the war and given a magnificent onion-domed bell-tower. Commonwealth Forces arrived in Arras in and used Faubourg-d'Amiens Cemetery to bury their dead right up to the end of the war.
The names of the soldiers of the sky who lost their lives in the Great War are inscribed on the Arras Flying Services Memorial. To make up for a lack of available labour in Europe, the British Army recruited volunteer workers from India and China, but some also came from Egypt and South-Africa. These men carried out manual tasks in the supply bases along the French coast and at the Western Front. In the aftermath of the war many stayed behind to work on rebuilding France. The monument stands in a cemetery which is the last resting place of 2, men, many of whom were declared 'DOD' Died of Disease and probably succumbed to 'Spanish Flu'.
Between early and mid a particularly virulent form of flu spread far and wide as civilians and troops moved around the world, and it probably killed at least 25 million people. The ten metre high Butte de Warlencourt, an ancient Gallo-Roman tumulus, was a fortified German observation post during the Great War and British Forces expended much energy trying to take it during the Battle of the Somme in In February the Germans abandoned the hill in their withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line.
Today a memorial erected by the Western Front Association pays tribute to the soldiers who died there, many of whom were buried in nearby Warlencourt British Cemetery. This operation was the first of its kind to rely on tanks to support the infantry and in all Mark IVs were used. Initially things went well and the British broke through the Hindenburg Line; however the German counter-attack, which came a few days later, pushed them back.
Next to the Louverval Military Cemetery stands a memorial to the 7, men of the Commonwealth killed in the Battle of Cambrai. The Orival Wood Cemetery was started during the battle and today contains the graves of soldiers who fell in the area in and He was killed on 21 November For most of the Great War, from August to October , the Germans occupied the town of Cambrai which they turned into a major command and logistics centre with a number of hospitals.
In the Germans established on the road to Solesmes a cemetery for not only their own dead but also for those of their British and French enemies. Today that cemetery contains the graves of 10, German, British and Russian soldiers, the latter having fought alongside the French. On 8 August the Allies, under the command of General Foch and strengthened with fresh troops from the USA, launched an offensive which penetrated deep into the German lines and eventually brought about the end of the war.
The Vis-en-Artois Memorial, an impressive monument comprising pylons and a relief depicting Saint George and the Dragon, is inscribed with the names of 9, English, Irish and South African soldiers who were lost in action in Somme and Artois during the Advance to Victory. Close to Monchy-le-Preux Church a bronze caribou stands proudly on the ruins of a German fortified post. On 11 April , during the Battle of Arras, the village of Monchy-le-Preux was held briefly by Allied soldiers until a German counter-attack on 14 April drove them all out except for the brave men of the Newfoundland Regiment who held fast until relief came four hours later.
Today the bronze Caribou of Monchy-le-Preux commemorates the courage and bravery of those Newfoundlanders. Three British infantrymen, back to back with their weapons at rest, dominate the memorial erected 'in memory of the officers and soldiers of the 37th Division of the British Army' who fell in the Great War. They distinguished themselves in the Battle of Arras when they took the village of Monchy, a high position above the Cambrai Road.
Entering the village on 11 April in the middle of a snow storm, by the 14 it was completely secure thanks to the heroism of the Newfoundland Regiment. After the Armistice the graves of a 1, soldiers killed in the sector were concentrated at Bailleul of whom were identified, including the poet Isaac Rosenberg who was killed in April near the village of Fampoux.
During concentration, the English poet's body could not be formally identified which is why his headstone, like a number of others in the cemetery, bears the words, 'Buried near this spot'. Founded in , it was the oldest infantry regiment in the British Army prior to its merger with the King's Own Scottish Borderers in The Royal Scots distinguished itself in the Battle of Arras when it liberated the village of Saint-Laurent however it paid a heavy price in casualties.
Most of the soldiers buried in Bailleul cemetery were killed on 9 April , the first day of fighting. Saint-Laurent-Blangy was established in by the French as a concentration cemetery for the German soldiers who died in the southern area of the Arras Front. In the German war graves commission VDK carried our landscaping work in the cemetery to make it as natural as possible and in the original wooden crosses were replaced by metal ones.
The cemetery contains the remains of 31, German soldiers who died in the Great War, of which 24, were laid to rest in a vast ossuary. Close to the main road which connects Arras to Douai, in the place known as Point-du-Jour, stands a memorial in the shape of a cairn.
It was built to honour, in the best Celtic tradition, those men of the 9th Scottish Division who fell on the first day of the Battle of Arras while liberating the village of Athies. A short distance away lies Point-du-Jour Cemetery which is the last resting place of the men of the South African Brigade who belonged to the same division. On the hill at Mont-Saint-Eloi stand two ruined towers, the last-remaining vestiges of a powerful medieval abbey.
From the start of the Great War the towers were used by the French Army to observe German positions on Lorette Spur and Vimy Ridge, and this made them important targets for the German artillery. Listed on France's register of ancient monuments in as a testament to the ravages of war, today the ruins mark the start of a historic trail which culminates in the Canadian Memorial on Vimy Ridge. The civilian cemetery in the hamlet of Ecoivres was extended by the French Army at the end of to accommodate its dead soldiers.
The graves are in almost-perfect chronological order; they contain British soldiers from onwards and Canadian soldiers who fell during the Battle for Vimy Ridge in In total there are 1, Commonwealth and French graves. A huge hand grasping a Torch of Peace rises out of a pile of rubble in the grounds of the Neuville Home for Disabled Veterans.
The home comprises sixteen detached houses and was built at the behest of philanthropist Ernest Petit to provide accommodation for the disabled war veterans employed by their countries to tend the various war cemeteries in the area.
At the heart of the complex is an accommodation centre for families visiting the graves of their loved ones who were killed in the Great War. It was there that the 2nd Canadian Division set up its forward headquarters and artillery in preparation for the assault on Vimy Ridge in April The cemetery was begun in the same period. Nearly a third of the soldiers interred in the cemetery, including Canadians, were artillerymen who took part in the assault on Vimy Ridge and its subsequent defence.
With its endless rows of white crosses, the cemetery was established in to accommodate the remains of 11, French soldiers killed in the Great War, of whom 3, were never identified and buried in two ossuaries.
Established by the French at the end of the war, the cemetery is the final resting place of 44, German soldiers who died in Artois.
VDK redesigned the cemetery in the s. A cross at the entrance to the site bears the words, 'Peace to men of goodwill', an aspiration shared by the VDK in their motto, 'Reconciliation above the graves'. Intent on fighting German and Austro-Hungarian rule in their native countries, Czechoslovak and Polish immigrants living in and around Paris at the outbreak of the war were quick to enrol in the French Army and take part in the Second Battle of Artois in May Standing opposite the memorial to the soldiers of the Nazdar Company which marks the entrance to the Czechoslovak Cemetery, the Polish Memorial bears the motto 'Za wolnosc nasza i wasza' which means 'For our freedom and yours'.
United for the first time in a single army corps, the 4 Canadian Divisions of the Allied Army launched an attack on the heavily-defended Vimy Ridge on 9 April The officer in charge of burials used a mine crater at the foot of the ridge to inter the one hundred soldiers who were killed in the fighting.
Today the burial grounds of Lichfield Crater and Zivy Crater are beautifully gardened although they still retain their circular shape, a unique feature among the Commonwealth War Cemeteries. Destroyed along with the rest of the village in the fighting of spring , Saint Lawrence Church was rebuilt ten years later using a brand new material: reinforced concrete.
The church contains stained-glass memorial windows which show Christ kissing the forehead of a dying soldier and views of Lorette Spur Cemetery and the old church tower. Before the war there was a house in Souchez named Cabaret Rouge. The house was destroyed with the rest of the village however its name lives on in the war cemetery which was created in by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to concentrate the graves of the burial grounds in the region.
Situated between two war cemeteries, one French and the other German, Cabaret-Rouge Cemetery today contains 7, Commonwealth burials of the Great War, more than half of them unidentified. The peaceful fields at the foot of Vimy Ridge belie the strategic importance of the position in times of war. In May the Moroccan Division gained a foothold on the ridge after much fighting in the ravine below, since named 'Zouave Valley'. Opened by the British Army in May , Zouave Valley Cemetery suffered shelling to such an extent that some of the graves in the cemetery could not be formally identified after the war.
These now bear the inscription 'Buried near this spot'. The remarkable bronze statue on the monument dedicated to 'glory of the Barbot Division' is the effigy of General Ernest Barbot whose bravery and humanity acquired him the reputation of 'a good knight' among the French ranks.
In October , at the head of the 77th Infantry Division, he also gained the sobriquet the 'Saviour of Arras'. He is buried on Lorette Spur in a common, soldier's grave.
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