City of Ypres

On the occasion of “The Tribute for The Tribute”  also some pictures of the marvelous city of Ieper  from wich the famous “Menin Gate” and the “Cloth Hall” who was destroyed completely during the war and rebuld completely
 
From outside, the memorial looks like a gate. It has a lion on top facing the Ypres Salient (a statue made by William Reid Dick), which stands for the determination of the British Empire. On the city side, the sarcophagus on top gives the memorial the feeling of a mortuary. Over each of the two centre arches there is a panel with the following inscription ‘To the armies of the British Empire who stood here from – 1914 to 1918 – and to these of their dead who have no known Grave’. The indication “British Empire” clearly stands for the entire empire and thus not just ‘England’. The 55,000 names on the memorial are those of military men of the British Empire who died but have no known grave. They were all killed before 15th August 1917. Because of lack of space for the names of later casualties who were never found two additional monuments were built; one at Tyne Cot (35,000 names) and the other at Ploegsteert (10,000 names). Together they amount to approximately 100,000 names, which is 30 casualties per square meter. The Menin Gate was inaugurated on 24th July 1927.
On Monday 2nd July 1928, the first ceremony took place and since that day, it has taken place every day, except during the Second Word War when the city was re-occupied by the Germans.
During this time the ceremony took place at the Brookwood military cemetery. On 6th September 1944 the Polish 1st Armoured Division liberated Ypres and that evening the Last Post was sounded once again.

The Menin Gate is a memorial that expresses the enormous human cost of the Ypres Salient. It is a huge shrine dedicated to the almost 55,000 casualties of the British Empire who have no known graves. The design is by the British architect Sir Reginald Blomfield, one of the four principle architects of the Imperial War Graves Commission (he also designed the well-known Cross of Sacrifice). He was chosen for his classical and formal attitude; one that best fitted the city of Ypres and its gothic associations. The monument was to be inserted in Vauban’s 17th century ramparts and since Blomfield was a great fan of Vauban he was open to the idea. Blomfield’s plans for the final structure took their inspiration from the (now gone) Porte de la Citadelle in Nancy, France.

In the middle of an arch-shaped bulge in the lines (known as a salient) sat the old city of Ypres.
Ypres  medieval  a masterpiece of gothic architecture built between 1260 and 1304, dominated the city’s skyline. From October 1914, Ypres was attacked by German artillery and on 22nd November 1914, the Cloth Hall and Saint-Martin’s church were lost to fire. By May 1915, the last residents were forced to leave, as Ypres was subjected to an onslaught of military violence. By the end of 1917, there was not a single house or tree left standing in the city. Fragments of the pre-war city, saved in time or found in the ruins, have become silent witnesses to a rich heritage that was lost forever beneath the guns of war. Although Ypres still looks like the prosperous mediaeval trading centre it once was, not a single building in the city is more than 80 years old. Ypres was so devastated during the First World War, a man on horseback could see from one side to the other. Yet within weeks of the Armistice, the people returned to try and make their city fit to live in again. The Cathedral was completed in 1930 and the belfry tower of the Cloth Hall was rebuilt to its original design in 1934. The last stone of the Hall itself wasn’t put into place until 1967.

 
On Passing the New Menin Gate.

Who will remember, passing through this Gate,
The unheroic Dead who fed the guns?
Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,
Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?

Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own.
Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp;
Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone,
The armies who endured that sullen swamp.

Here was the world’s worst wound. And here with pride
‘Their name liveth for ever,’ the Gateway claims.
Was ever an immolation so belied
As these intolerably nameless names?
Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime
Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime.

More pictures on  Facebook  "Antoine Roels"