War

Remembrance sunday

Remembrance Sunday = Poppy day

  • nearest Sunday to 11 November = Armistice Day

  • remembrance of the dead of both world wars

    • special church services

    • civil ceremonies

  • laying flowers at the Cenotaph by royal family, leading politicians and Commonwealth representatives

    • 2 min. silence at 11 a.m.

 

The Cenotaph

  • war memorial in Whitehall, London

  • built after WWI in memory of the dead

  • 1 unknown soldier was buried here

    • represents all unknown soldiers (a million British and Empire soldiers died)

 

Poppies = symbolise the war dead of WWI (and II)

  • in WWI poppies grew in cornfields when soldiers died in trenches

  • artificial poppies are sold

    • to support the cause of the Royal British Legion whose members served in British Armed Forces

    • to support ex-service personnel + families financially and materially

Introduction to WW1

Austrian archduke was shot by a Serbian

  • Austrians want to bash the Serbians

  • Serbians are protected by Russians

  • Germans have to bash France, so they don’t help Russia against Austria

Central powers

Allied Forces

Austria - Hungary

Germany

Turkey

VS

Serbia

Russia

France

Britain + Empire

Italy (1917)

USA (1917)

→ USA isolation politic until Germany sunk an American passenger ship

Ypres during WWI

  • Germany’s first Schlieffen Plan failed

    • they now wanted the Calais and Boulogne channel ports (had to be prevented)

  • Ypres Salient: defended by the British (hated by the British)

    • salient = bulge in the front line

The Battles

  • First Ypres

    • October - November 1914

    • Germans captured Messines ridge, vantage point

  • Second Ypres

    • 1915

    • Germans used gas for the first time + captured Passchendaele Ridge

  • The Battle of Messines

    • 1917

    • Allies succeeded (in June) to take back Messines Ridge by planting mines under the Germans (tunnelling)

  • Third Ypres

    • July - November 1917

    • lots of dead to recapture Passchendaele Ridge

  • Fourth Ypres

    • 1918

    • Battle of the Lys

The Cemeteries

  • over 150 in/ around Ypres

    • most laid out during WWI behind frontline, close to first-aid posts

  • Commonwealth War Graves Commission responsible for upkeep of British cemeteries

    • British soldier laid in grave where they died

    • only affluent people could ship over their dead boys

    • avoid social discrimination

  • identical tombstone for all soldiers + individual graves for unknown soldiers

 

The Menin Gate

  • British wanted to turn Ypres (town) into memorial, citizens wanted to return to live

    • ruined Cloth Hall was offered (rebuilt in ‘64)

    • Menin Gate site was offered (built ‘27)

  • every evening at 8pm

    • closing of road

    • buglers from Ypres Fire Brigade play the Last post on silver bugles