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Ypres/Ieper

The Ypres Salient

1914-1918 Reference

Remembering

Interpretations

About the site

Ypres - now known by its Flemish name Ieper - is an ancient town located in the province of West-Vlaanderen (West Flanders) in south west Belgium. There are presently 35,000 inhabitants in the city.

Since the first century B.C., when the Belgae people were conquered by the Romans, the Flanders region has been invaded by successive armies and has suffered from the ravages of war. In spite of this, Ypres managed to establish itself as a financially and culturally rich city in the 12th century. By the 13th century Ypres had gained the status of an independent city-state.

Centre of the Wool and Cloth Trade

Being only 40 miles inland from the Belgian coast, Ypres was the hub of many important trade routes consisting of roads, rivers and canals leading to the Netherlands, France and to the English Channel. Consequently it grew into an important market place for the region. Easy access to the coast meant that the the people of the city established links with the wool trade in England. The city became a very important centre for the cloth trade. Guilds and master guilds were founded. The Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall) was begun in the centre of Ypres in 1200. It took 100 years to complete. In 1260 the population of the city had grown to 40,000.

A Fortified City

From the end of the 14th century (1385) the city went into economic decline for the next two hundred years. During the 17th and 18th centuries the city was occupied by the Habsburgers and the French. During that time the defensive fortifications were extensively developed and the city was turned into a fortress.

Originally the town had been protected by earthworks. As the town grew more wealthy the fortifications were modified to keep out prospective invaders. The oldest part of the ramparts still surviving is near the Rijselpoort (Lille Gate) which dates from 1385. Major work was carried out by Sebastien Le Prestre, Seigneur de Vauban (1633-1707), the famous French military engineer, at the end of the 17th century.

Ypres in the Great War of 1914-1918

From 1914-1918 the city became the focus of fighting between the Imperial German Armies of Emperor Wilhem II and the Allied Armies of Belgium, France and Great Britain. The First Battle of Ypres began in mid October 1914. It was the first of four long battles fighting over possession of this ancient city.

The first serious damage to the buildings occurred during the First Battle of Ypres (19 October - 22 November 1914). German artillery fired onto the city from its positions in the north-east, east and south-east. On 22 November 1914 the Cloth Hall (Lakenhalle) was set on fire by an incendiary device.

A few months later, in the spring of 1915, an intensive German bombardment was started up on the town. This was carried out by long range, heavy German artillery, which included a huge 42cm howitzer. This gun was nicknamed 'Dicke Bertha' (big Bertha) by the German Army and consequently became known as 'Big Bertha' to the British Army. This bombardment was the prelude to the launch of a German gas attack on the Allied front line in the Ypres Salient on 22nd April 1915. It was the beginning of the Second Battle of Ypres and the beginning of the total destruction of a beautiful Flemish city.

By the end of the war in 1918 there was no building left untouched. The city was demolished.

Reconstruction: 1919

After the Armistice and the end of the fighting the local population began to return to their homes and businesses from places of refuge in neighbouring parts of Flanders or France.

Every building the locals had known was shattered and in ruins; houses, shops, municipal buildings, schools, the cathedral, churches, and the Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall) were gone.

It was suggested that the city might be left in ruins as a memorial. A new city could be built nearby. But there was a pressing need to accommodate the returning inhabitants. From 1919 there was also an influx of visitors to Ypres, because the city became the focus for many pilgrims. They were travelling to the battlefields of Flanders to visit the graves of their loved ones lost in the fighting. Some believed they might even find a relative or friend still alive who had been reported as 'missing in action'. Ex-soldiers returned to the old Ypres Salient to see the ground they had fought over.

In order to provide shelter and makeshift homes The King Albert Fund began to construct sheds in the ruins of the city. Albert I (1875-1934) was King of Belgium during the First World War. He had remained in Flanders to lead the Belgian Army's stand against the German invasion throughout the four years of fighting.

In addition to the temporary housing, hotels, restaurants and cafés were built to offer accommodation and food for locals, pilgrims and visitors. The archive photograph reproduced here was taken from the ramparts on the south side of the original Menenpoorte (now the site of the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing) looking to the east. The shadow of the photographer can be seen in the bottom right hand corner of the photograph. The name of the pub (the light coloured building) in the centre of the picture is 'In de Meenenpoorte' - 'At the Menen Gate'). Behind it there are three hotels and restaurants, including the Hotel Splendid and the Hotel Ypriana. Two water towers can be seen on the left side of the photograph. There is a narrow-gauge railway line running along the right hand side of the road. This would have been used by the British Army during the war as a railway line to carry supplies forward into the Ypres Salient. Shortly after the road bends to the left above the lorry (left-centre of the photograph) there is a crossroads . The road leading off to the right at this crossroads is the road to Menen leading into the Ypres Salient battlefields. This road was known to the British Army as The Menin Road.

During the 1920s and 1930s the buildings and streets were reclaimed and rebuilt, brick by brick. Photograph 6 shows the Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall) partially rebuilt in the 1930s. The eastern wing (in the foreground of the photograph) has not been started and only the pillars remain in their original location.

Interestingly, when St. Martin's cathedral was rebuilt from its ruins, the shape of the spire was changed. Pre-1914 the spire was a square tower. By the time the new 'gothic' cathedral was finished it had been rebuilt with a spire. Photograph 7 is taken looking at the south door of the cathedral before the east wing of the Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall) had been rebuilt. The original pillars of the Lakenhalle east wing can be seen in the foreground.

Ieper (Ypres) Today

85 years after the end of the First World War visitors to Ieper are amazed by the way in which the medieval city has been rebuilt. It stands almost exactly as it was prior to its destruction.

Reconstruction in the 1990s

In the mid 1990s the town square was dug up again and reconstructed. A First World War machine gun was found buried beneath the cobbles, which had been laid during the reconstruction in the 1920s and 1930s.

next>> Historical Sites in Ieper (Ypres)

Acknowledgements

Photograph 1: The Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall) pre-1914. Postcard set, Ern. Thill, Bruxelles.

Photograph 2: The Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall). IWM neg no. Q61646. By kind permission of the Imperial War Museum Department of Photographs

Photograph 3: Ieper destroyed. IWM neg no. Q29795. By kind permission of the Imperial War Museum Department of Photographs

Photograph 4: La Rue au Beurre; Butter Street. Postcard Guerre Européenne Series, no. 46. Lévy Fils et Cie, Paris

Photograph 5: Reconstruction at Ypres 1919. IWM Neg. no. Q100384: By kind permission of the Imperial War Museum Department of Photographs

Photograph 6: The Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall) post First World War. Postcard set, Ern. Thill, Bruxelles.

Photograph 7: St. Martin's cathedral. Postcard set, Ern. Thill, Bruxelles.

Photograph 8: The Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall) today. Courtesy of Ieper Tourist Office.

Photograph 9: copyright www.greatwar.co.uk

Copyright Joanna Legg & Graham Parker © 2001. Updated 2003. All rights reserved