Langemark German war cemetery

Langemark is a village in the Belgian province of West Flanders, and a subdivision of the municipality of Langemark-Poelkapelle. The village has about 5,000 inhabitants. Besides the village center, there are also three smaller hamlets on the territory, Madonna, Bikschote and Saint-Julien/Sint-Juliaan. Written as Langemarck on French, British and German maps, the village is known in military history as the scene (see trench map) of the first gas attacks by the German army in the western front, which marked the beginning of the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915. Before and during the First Battle of Ypres, the German reserve corps suffered enormous losses: over 10,000 young soldiers (some only 15 years old), led by young officers without practical experience, died without achieving any objective. On 10 November 1914, about 2,000 soldiers died during an attempted breakthrough. One day later, the German Command (Oberste Heeresleitung) published the following communiqué: Westlich Langemarck brachen junge Regimenter unter dem Gesange‚ Deutschland, Deutschland über alles‘ gegen die erste Linie der feindlichen Stellungen vor und nahmen sie. Etwa 2.000 Mann französischer Linieninfanterie wurden gefangengenommen und sechs Maschinengewehre erbeutet.In west Langemarck, youth regiments singing Germany, Germany Above All advanced on front line enemy positions, broke and took them. Approximately 2,000 French line infantry and six machine guns were captured.A popular and enduring myth of heroic self-sacrifice for the nation known as the "Mythos von Langemarck" arose from the propagandistic story. For this reason, the Flemish division of the Waffen-SS was named 27th SS Volunteer Division Langemarck. The village was destroyed during World War I. There is now a major German war cemetery, the Langemark German war cemetery, (Soldatenfriedhof) in this location, which has about 40,000 burials.

The Battle of Pilckem Ridge (31 July – 2 August 1917) was the opening attack of the Third Battle of Ypres in the First World War. The British Fifth Army, supported by the Second Army on the southern flank and the French 1reArmée (First Army) on the northern flank, attacked the German 4th Army, which defended the Western Front from Lille northwards to the Ypres Salient in Belgium and on to the North Sea coast. On 31 July, the Anglo-French armies captured Pilckem (Flemish: Pilkem) Ridge and areas on either side, the French attack being a great success. After several weeks of changeable weather, heavy rain fell during the afternoon of 31 July. In the XIX Corps area in the centre and on the right of XVIII Corps, three reserve brigades advanced from the black line to the main objective (green line) and pressed on towards the red line, the furthest that exploitation on local initiative had been allowed for in the plan. It began to rain, cutting off the advanced British troops from view, just as German regiments from specialist Eingreif (counter-attack) divisions advanced over Passchendaele Ridge. To avoid being rolled up, the reserve brigades retreated, suffering many casualties, through the green line to the black line, which the British artillery-observers could still see; the German infantry were prevented from advancing further by massed artillery and small-arms fire. A substantial amount of ground had been captured by the British and French, except on the Gheluvelt Plateau on the right flank, where only the blue line (first objective) and part of the black line (second objective) were captured. A large number of casualties were inflicted on the German defenders during the attack and 5,626 prisoners were taken; the German Eingreif divisions recaptured some ground from the Ypres–Roulers railway northwards to St Julien, forcing the British back to the black line. For the next few days, both sides made local attacks to improve their positions, much hampered by the deluges. The rains had a serious effect on operations in August, causing more problems for the British and French, who were advancing into the area devastated by artillery fire and partly flooded by the unseasonable rain. A local British attack on the Gheluvelt Plateau on 2 August was postponed several times because of the weather until 10 August and the second big general attack, due on 4 August, did not begin until 16 August. The green line objectives on the Plateau were not captured until the Battle of the Menin Road Ridge on 20 September, after the principal role in the offensive was transferred to the Second Army and three weeks' sunshine and fresh breezes dried much of the ground. The Third Battle of Ypres became controversial while it was being fought, with disputes about the predictability of the August deluges and for its mixed results, which in much of the writing in English is blamed on apparent misunderstandings between Gough and Haig and on faulty planning, rather than on the resilience of the 4th Army.

Langemark-Poelkapelle (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈlɑŋəˌmɑr(ə)k ˌpulkaːˈpɛlə]) is a municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders.

Captain Thomas Walter Nash (25 November 1891 – 23 October 1918) was a British World War I flying ace credited with eight aerial victories.

The Welsh National Memorial Park is a war memorial in Langemark near Ypres (Belgium) for soldiers of World War I, located near the Pilkem Ridge in the former Ypres Salient. It commemorates the service of men and women of Welsh origin, wherever they served during the Great War as part of the Allied Powers, as well as the non-Welsh soldiers serving in Welsh formations.

The St. Julien Memorial, also known as The Brooding Soldier, is a Canadian war memorial and small commemorative park located in the village of Saint-Julien, Langemark (West Flemish: Sint-Juliaan), Belgium. The memorial commemorates the Canadian First Division's participation in the Second Battle of Ypres of World War I which included fighting in the face of the first poison gas attacks along the Western Front. The memorial was designed by Frederick Chapman Clemesha and was selected following a design competition organized by the Canadian Battlefields Memorials Commission in 1920.

The Battle of Poelcappelle was fought in Flanders, Belgium, on 9 October 1917 by the British Second Army and Fifth Army against the German 4th Army, during the First World War. The battle marked the end of the string of highly successful British attacks in late September and early October, during the Third Battle of Ypres. Only the supporting attack in the north achieved a substantial advance. On the main front, the German defences withstood the limited amount of artillery fire achieved by the British after the attack of 4 October. The ground along the main ridges had been severely damaged by shelling and rapidly deteriorated in the rains, which began again on 3 October, turning some areas back into swamps. Dreadful ground conditions had more effect on the British, who needed to move large amounts of artillery and ammunition to support the next attack. The battle was a defensive success for the 4th Army, although costly to both sides. The weather and ground conditions put severe strain on all the infantry involved and led to many wounded being stranded on the battlefield. Early, misleading information and delays in communication led Plumer and Haig to plan the attack of 12 October (the First Battle of Passchendaele) under the impression that a substantial advance had taken place at Passchendaele ridge when most of the captured ground had been lost to German counter-attacks.

Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, or L&H, was a Belgium-based speech recognition technology company, founded by Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie, that went bankrupt in 2001 because of a fraud engineered by the management. The company was based in Ypres, Flanders, in what was later called Flanders Language Valley (mimicking the Silicon Valley).

Bard Cottage Cemetery is a World War I, Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground near Ypres, Belgium. It is home to 1607 identified casualties. The cemetery is half a kilometre north of Essex Farm Cemetery.

Boezinge (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈbuzɪŋə]; West Flemish: Boezienge) is a village in the municipality of Ypres in the Belgian province of West Flanders. Boezinge can be reached via the N369 road in the direction of Diksmuide. It was an independent municipality until 1977.

The Vampire dugout (known locally in Belgium as the Vampyr dugout), is a First World War underground shelter located near the Belgian village of Zonnebeke. It was created as a British brigade headquarters in early 1918 by the 171st Tunnelling Company of the Royal Engineers after the Third Battle of Ypres/Battle of Passchendaele. Rediscovered in 2007, the Vampire dugout was the subject of a 2008 British television programme (Time Team) which was also broadcast abroad. The structure is inaccessible to the public, but inspected regularly by battlefield historians.

The Arrondissement of Ypres (Dutch: Arrondissement Ieper; French: Arrondissement d'Ypres) is one of the eight administrative arrondissements in the Province of West Flanders, Belgium. It is both an administrative and a judicial arrondissement. However, the Judicial Arrondissement of Ypres also comprises the municipalities of Staden and Moorslede in the Arrondissement of Roeselare.