Origins (around 1775)|246x246px Ypres is an ancient town, known to have been raided by the
Romans in the first century BC. It is first mentioned by name in 1066 and is probably named after the river
Ieperlee on the banks of which it was founded. During the
Middle Ages, Ypres was a prosperous
Flemish city with a population of 40,000 in 1200 AD, renowned for its
linen trade with England, which was mentioned in the
Canterbury Tales. As the third largest city in the
County of Flanders (after
Ghent and
Bruges), Ypres played an important role in the history of the textile industry. In 1850, the
Ypresian Age of the
Eocene Epoch was named on the basis of geology in the region by
Belgian geologist
André Hubert Dumont. Ypres had long been fortified to keep out invaders. Parts of the early ramparts, dating from 1385, still survive near the (Lille Gate). Over time, the earthworks were replaced by sturdier masonry and earth structures and a partial
moat. Ypres was further fortified in the 17th and 18th centuries while under the occupation of the Habsburgs and the French. Major works were completed at the end of the 17th century by the French military engineer
Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban.
First World War Ypres occupied a strategic position during the First World War because it stood in the path of Germany's planned sweep across the rest of Belgium and into France from the north (the
Schlieffen Plan). The
neutrality of Belgium, established by the
First Treaty of London, was guaranteed by Britain; Germany's invasion of Belgium brought the
British Empire into the war. The German army surrounded the city on three sides, bombarding it throughout much of the war. To counterattack, British, French, and allied forces made costly advances from the
Ypres Salient into the German lines on the surrounding hills. In the
First Battle of Ypres (19 October to 22 November 1914), the Allies captured the town from the Germans. The Germans had used
tear gas at the
Battle of Bolimov on 3 January 1915. Their use of
poison gas for the first time on 22 April 1915 marked the beginning of the
Second Battle of Ypres, which continued until 25 May 1915. They captured high ground east of the town. The first gas attack occurred against Canadian, British, and French soldiers, including both metropolitan French soldiers as well as
Senegalese and
Algerian
tirailleurs (light infantry) from French Africa. The gas used was
chlorine.
Mustard gas, also called Yperite from the name of this town, was also used for the first time near Ypres, in the autumn of 1917. Of the battles, the largest, best-known, and most costly in human suffering was the Third Battle of Ypres (31 July to 10 November 1917, also known as the
Battle of Passchendaele), in which the British, Canadian,
ANZAC, and French forces recaptured the
Passchendaele Ridge east of the city at a terrible cost of lives. After months of fighting, this battle resulted in nearly half a million casualties to all sides, and only a few miles of ground won by Allied forces. During the course of the war the town was all but obliterated by the artillery fire. English-speaking soldiers often referred to Ieper/Ypres by the deliberate mispronunciation "Wipers". British soldiers even published a wartime newspaper called
The Wipers Times. The same style of deliberate mispronunciation was applied to other Flemish place names in the Ypres area for the benefit of British troops, such as
Wytschaete becoming "White Sheet" and
Ploegsteert becoming "Plug Street". Ypres was one of the sites that hosted an unofficial
Christmas Truce in 1914 between German and British soldiers.
War memory and memorial On 12 February 1920,
King George V awarded the
Military Cross to the City of Ypres, one of only two awards of this decoration to a municipality during World War I, the other being to
Verdun. In May 1920
Field Marshal French presented the Cross in a special ceremony in the city, and in 1925 it was added to the city's coat of arms, along with the French . Historian
Mark Connelly states that in the 1920s, British veterans set up the Ypres League and made the city the symbol of all that they believed Britain was fighting for and gave it a holy aura in their minds. The Ypres League sought to transform the horrors of trench warfare into a spiritual quest in which British and imperial troops were purified by their sacrifice. In 1920,
Lieutenant-Colonel Beckles Willson's guide book,
The Holy Ground of British Arms captured the mood of the Ypres League: There is not a single half-acre in Ypres that is not sacred. There is not a single stone which has not sheltered scores of loyal young hearts, whose one impulse and desire was to fight and, if need be, to die for England. Their blood has drenched its cloisters and its cellars, but if never a drop had been spilt, if never a life had been lost in defence of Ypres still would Ypres have been hallowed, if only for the hopes and the courage it has inspired and the scenes of valour and sacrifice it has witnessed. Ypres became a pilgrimage destination for Britons to imagine and share the sufferings of their men and gain a spiritual benefit. After the war,
Winston Churchill proposed to leave Ypres as a mausoleum, with the rightful owners to be deprived from regaining their land. By early March 1919, the Belgian scheme was to leave the Cathedral and Cloth Hall and the buildings around them in ruins. By November 1919, the Belgian government was seriously considering two schemes, both of which would have kept the Cloth Hall and the Cathedral in ruins, but one scheme would allow rebuilding houses around the Grote Markt, whereas the other would have created a belt of trees surrounding the Hall and Cathedral. By early September 1920, the decision had been made by the British Government that the
Menin Gate and its immediate surroundings would be used as a memorial, by which time, the Belgians had already begun to rebuild the area. In the 100th anniversary period more attempts were being made to preserve the First World War heritage in and around Ypres.
Second World War During World War Two, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) would fight the Germans in a delaying action in the
Battle of the Ypres–Comines Canal, one of the actions that allowed the Allied retreat to Dunkirk.
Adolf Hitler (later
Chancellor of Germany) fought at Ypres in the First World War and later visited the town during the
Battle of France. On September 6, 1944, the 1st Polish Armoured Division liberated the town of Ypres after four years of occupation, and the nightly '
Last Post' ceremony was resumed at the
Menin Gate; the Germans had forbidden the ceremony when they occupied Ypres in 1940; from January 1941 until the liberation, the daily commemoration took place in
Brookwood Military Cemetery.
Ypres today After the war the town was extensively rebuilt using money paid by Germany in
reparations, with the main square, including the Cloth Hall and town hall, being rebuilt as close to the original designs as possible (the rest of the rebuilt town is more modern in appearance). The Cloth Hall today is home to
In Flanders Fields Museum, dedicated to Ypres's role in the First World War and named for the
poem by
John McCrae. Ypres hosts the international campaign secretariat of
Mayors for Peace, an international Mayoral organization mobilizing cities and citizens worldwide to abolish and eliminate nuclear weapons by 2020. ==Sights==