A Guide to WW1 Battlefields and History of the First World War
This site provides an overview of the First World War battlefields on the Western Front by showing you where they are and what you can see there today.
Visiting the WW1 Western Front Battlefields
Take a look through our pages of information, advice and photographs.
Visiting the WW1 Western Front Battlefields
Location of The Western Front Battlefields
Map of the Western Front battlefield locations and an overview of the regions in Belgium and France where the 1914-1918 battlefields are situated.
WW1 Battlefields of The Western Front
Battlefield Remains
The Western Front battles left a scarred landscape in Belgian Flanders and north-eastern France. Various preserved sites of battlefield remains can be can be visited.
Battle Remains on the WW1 Western Front
Museums
A number of museums focus on the First World War, with a number of large national museums and small private museums on the battlefields.
War Graves on The Western Front
There are many thousands of war graves and commemorative memorials for the fallen of many nations along the line of battlefields that formed The Western Front.
War Graves for WW1 Dead on The Western Front
Battles and the Western Front Battlefields
Find out about how the Western Front was formed as a battlefront from the battles of movement in autumn 1914, through a three year period of trench warfare to the final Advance to Victory by the Allied Armies from July to November 1918.
Battles of the Western Front 1914-1918
WW1 Research
A wide range of material is available to explore and study the First World War from online and public archive collections, academic study courses, lectures, guided tours, books, military documents, trench maps, and resources for teachers.
WW1 Research and Sources of Information
The Poppy Umbrella — A Gift to Remember
In keeping with the spirit of Remembrance The Poppy Umbrella is a practical way to “Remember” throughout the seasons — in sunshine or in rain. The family behind this website at greatwar.co.uk also founded The Poppy Umbrella. A number of ex-Service charities and military heritage organizations sell The Poppy Umbrella to help raise funds towards their good work. The idea for this unique umbrella originated in Ieper (Ypres) on Armistice Day 1995, close to where the famous poem “In Flanders fields the poppies blow...” is believed to have been written.
Special Features on greatwar.co.uk
The Story Behind the Remembrance Poppy
This is the story of how the red field poppy came to be known as an internationally recognized symbol of Remembrance. From its association with poppies flowering in the first spring of the war in 1915 on the battlefields of Belgium, France and Gallipoli this vivid red flower has since become synonymous with great loss of life in war.
The Story of the Remembrance PoppyIn Flanders Fields The Poppies Blow...
Read the poem by John McCrae and how he is believed to have written this famous poem one evening in May 1915 after he had buried a friend killed by an artillery shell.
In Flanders Fields by Lt. Col. John McCrae
Sounding Last Post in Ypres
Every night at 8 o'clock the Last Post is played in a ceremony at the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing in Ypres (Ieper), Belgium.
Listen to a live recording of the Last Post ceremony and find out more about the Menin Gate Memorial.
Tracing WW1 Family History
If you are looking to find out more about a member of your family who served in the First World War, see our advice on how to get started. We tell you the sort of information you can find and where to find it for military records, medal records, unit histories, trench maps and official military histories.
Tracing World War 1 Family History
Battle Study — The Second Battle of Ypres
98 pages of an innovative study of the Second Battle of Ypres. Told from the German and Allied sides of the wire the story is illustrated with maps, previously untranslated German material and original research.
On the sunny afternoon of 22nd April 1915 French soldiers on the battlefields north of the Belgian town of Ypres were suddenly engulfed by a frightening new development in the 1914-18 war. This was a trial by the German Army to send chemical gas drifting on a gentle wind over the enemy positions. A way of “knocking out” the enemy by gassing him out of his static defensive positions was revealed by German scientists. Gas warfare on a large scale on the Western Front had begun ...
Build up to the Second Battle of Ypres, 1915The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing, Ypres
Find out about the memorial which commemorates over 54,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers whose remains in the battlefields of the Ypres Salient have never been found or identified. Our fully illustrated pages describe the design of the memorial, why it was located in that place, the speech given by Field marshal Lord Plumer at the inauguration ceremony in 1927 and the daily Last Post Ceremony held there every evening at 8 o'clock.
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