Battles for Ypres. Part 1
The view of no-mans-land from a recreated trench near Ypres. On this day, 11 November 2019, one hundred and one years ago, the madness which was the First World War came to an end. The Guns on the Western front fell silent. Yesterday, 10 November 2019, I visited the battlefields around the town of Ypres (Ipres) in Flanders Fields in Belgium. The first major battle of the first world war took place here at Langemark about 6 km away from Ypres and became known as the "Slaughter of the Innocence". The German army at that stage was made up mostly of very young, often school children, who only had a few weeks of basic training. They came up against a very well trained regular (professional) British army. Many of these young volunteers (around 3000) were killed and they graves can be seen in the Langemark German cemetery. There are around 44 000 Germans buried there. There is a mass grave with some 24 917 bodies in at the entrance to the cemetery. The names of the German miss...