Home/Western Front

1914-1918 Reference

Remembering

Interpretations

About the site

During 1914-1918 the Allied Forces of Belgium, France, Britain and America (from April 1918) made a stand against the advance of the Imperial German Army into Belgium and France.

The German Army called it their western battle front, 'die Westfront'.

The French Army named it 'le Front Occidental'.

To the British Army it became known as 'The Western Front'.

The battlefields of the Western Front are located along a line which runs for approximately 450 miles from the Belgian coast, through northern France and the provinces of Lorraine and Alsace to the Swiss border.

Map: Battlefields on the Western Front

The Ypres Salient

Between October 1914 and November 1918 several major battles took place to the north, east and south of the ancient town of Ypres in western Belgium. For maps and information on the region, tourist information, museums, battles, and military burial sites go to Ypres Salient.

A detailed study of one of these battles can be found in The Second Battle of Ypres, 1915.

The Somme

For information on the region go to The Somme.

Troops from the national and imperial armies of Germany, France, Belgium, Britain, Portugal, Italy and Russia were involved in the fighting on the Western Front.

Military Units

The scale of casualties caused by the fighting from the early months of the Great War of 1914-1918 confronted the warring nations with the question of what to do about the burial of the dead. As a result, war graves registration services were set up during or soon after the war.

War Graves

Acknowledgements

(IWM) neg. E(AUS) 1220: Photograph by kind permission of the Imperial War Museum Department of Photographs

Copyright Joanna Legg & Graham Parker © 2002 All rights reserved