Menin Gate

In the Middle Ages , the gate on the eastern side of the city of Ypres was called the Hangoartpoort ( poort means Dutch- style gate ). Ypres was at the crossroads of trade routes and, in order to protect itself, was strongly fortified. In the 17th and 18th centuries under the occupation of the Habsburgs and France, the city was more fortified. The main works were completed at the end of the 17th century by the great Vauban . The gates in the eastern part of the city were called Menensky, because the road to the town of Menen passed through them. At the beginning of World War I, the gates and fortress walls were destroyed.

At the beginning of the war, Ypres found itself in the strategic direction of the movement of the German troops. The Schlieffen Plan provided for the occupation of Belgium , but the Allied armies stood in their way. Most of them were British. The first battles turned east of the Mena Gate. Practically throughout the war, the battles for Ypres did not subside, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and officers of the Entente were killed in them. The remains of many of them have not been found. And now, during agricultural and road works, the remains of those killed in that war are found. For the first time, Germany used chemical weapons near Yprom: in 1915 - chlorine , in 1917 - mustard gas , later called yperite .

In 1921, Sir Reginald Bloomfield drafted a monument to soldiers and officers who died in the battles for Ypres, whose bodies were not found and buried. The project was an archway with a lion at the top. The lion is a symbol not only of Great Britain , but also of Flanders .

On the inner walls of the arch were strengthened tablets with the names of 54896 soldiers and officers whose bodies were not found. During the construction of the arch it turned out that there were too many such names, therefore the names of the soldiers from Newfoundland and New Zealand were placed on separate monuments. The names of 34,984 missing soldiers after August 15, 1917 were posted on the Missing Monument.

The opening ceremony of the monument took place on May 24, 1927, during which the popular march song of the British army was performed. It's a Long Way to Tipperary . Since then, there has been a tradition in Ypres: every day at 20.00 a trumpeter from the local fire station arrives at the gate and plays a last post. This tradition was interrupted only during the Second World War , when the city was occupied. Nevertheless, it was conducted in England , in the county of Surrey at the Brookwood Military Cemetery. In Ypres itself, it was resumed on the very first day after the liberation of the city, although there were still battles in and around the city.