Le Gheer

Ploegsteert Wood was a sector of the Western Front in Flanders in World War I, part of the Ypres Salient. It is located around the Belgian village of Ploegsteert, Wallonia. After fierce fighting in late 1914 and early 1915, Ploegsteert Wood became a quiet sector where no major action took place. Units were sent here to recuperate and retrain after tougher fighting elsewhere, and before returning to take part in more active operations. British Tommies referred to Ploegsteert Wood as "Plugstreet Wood". From January to May 1916, Winston Churchill served in the area as Commanding Officer (Lieutenant-Colonel) of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. There are numerous Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemeteries and memorials around the wood, including the Hyde Park Corner (Royal Berks) CWGC Cemetery and the Berks CWGC Cemetery Extension with the Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing. The Ploegsteert Memorial commemorates more than 11,000 British and Empire servicemen who died during the First World War and have no known grave. It is one of several CWGC Memorials to the Missing along the Western Front. Those lost within the Ypres Salient without a known grave are commemorated at the Menin Gate and Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing, while the missing of New Zealand and Newfoundland are honoured on separate memorials.

Ploegsteert (Picard: Ploster) is a village of Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Comines-Warneton, located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. It is the most westerly settlement of Wallonia. It is approximately 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) north of the French border. Created in 1850 on part of the territory of Warneton, it includes the hamlet of Le Bizet, which is the border with France (there is also a hamlet named "Le Bizet" in France). It is largely francophone, with facilities for Dutch speakers. In late 1914 and early 1915, the nearby Ploegsteert Wood was the site of fierce WWI fighting. Today there are numerous cemeteries and memorials, including the Hyde Park Corner (Royal Berks) CWGC Cemetery and the Berks CWGC Cemetery Extension with the Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing, which commemorates more than 11,000 British and Empire servicemen who died outside the Ypres Salient and have no known grave. From January to May 1916, Winston Churchill served in the area as Commanding Officer (Lieutenant-Colonel) of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. Another nearby burial ground is the Lancashire Cottage Cemetery. As part of Comines-Warneton, Ploegsteert was declared a sister city of Wolverton, Buckinghamshire, England, in 2006; this was partly initiated through the finding of letters from a 16-year-old soldier from Wolverton named Albert French. He is buried in Hyde Park Corner (Royal Berks) Cemetery, just outside the village. The village is home to a carpentry museum.

Messines Ridge British Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground for the dead of the First World War located in the Ypres Salient in Belgium on the Western Front.

The Messines Ridge (New Zealand) Memorial is a World War I memorial, located in Messines Ridge British Cemetery, near the town of Mesen, Belgium. The memorial lists 827 officers and men of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force with no known grave who died in or near Messines in 1917 and 1918. This period included the Battle of Messines.

The Canal de la Deûle is one of the oldest canals in northern France, originally connecting the river Scarpe near Douai with the river Lys at Deûlémont near the Belgian border. Roughly half of its original length has been absorbed in the high-capacity Dunkerque-Escaut waterway, as shown on the map, and the remaining length through the port of Lille is often considered as a branch of the main route, hence the alternative names Liaison or Antenne Bauvin-Lys. This official name was never adopted by the local population, which refers simply to the Deûle, evoking its original state as a natural river, although it has the size and the appearance of a built canal. It is 34.8 kilometres (21.6 mi) long with 3 locks.

The Battle of Messines was fought in October 1914 between the armies of the German empire and British empire and France as part of the Race to the Sea, between the river Douve and the Comines–Ypres canal.

Mesen (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈmeːsə(n)] (listen); French: Messines, French pronunciation: ​[mɛsin], historically used in English) is a city and municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders. On January 1, 2006, Mesen had a total population of 988. The total area is 3.58 km2 which gives a population density of 276 inhabitants per km2. The municipality comprises only one main settlement, the town of Mesen proper. An exclave to the west of the main territory is surrounded by the municipalities of Heuvelland and Comines-Warneton. Villages neighbouring the municipality: a. Wijtschate (in the municipality of Heuvelland) b. Warneton (in the municipality of Comines-Warneton) c. Ploegsteert (in the municipality of Comines-Warneton)Mesen is the smallest city in Belgium. It is a municipality with language facilities. Mesen is twinned with Featherston in New Zealand in part due to the location of the New Zealand World War I Memorial, which has annual Anzac Day commemorations on 25 April.

Frelinghien (French pronunciation: ​[fʁəlɛ̃ɡjɛ̃]; Dutch: Ferlingen) is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. It is part of the Métropole Européenne de Lille.

Houplines (French pronunciation: ​[uplin]; Dutch: Opline) is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. It is part of the Métropole Européenne de Lille.Adjoining the communal (village) cemetery is the Houplines Communal Cemetery Extension, a Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintained cemetery containing the graves of 466 identified casualties, 465 of them Commonwealth servicemen who died in the area around the village during the First World War. Houplines maintains a partnership arrangement with the German community of Kirchhundem.

The Deûle (French pronunciation: ​[døl]; Dutch: Deule) is a river of northern France which is channeled for the main part of its course (from Lens to Lille). The upstream part is still partly free-flowing and is known as the Souchez. The Deûle flows into the Lys (right bank) in Deûlémont. The Souchez is formed from the union, in the village of Souchez, of two smaller brooks, called the Carency and the Saint-Nazaire. The channeled part comprises two branches: the high gauge canal known as Canal de la Deûle which ensures the connection between the channeled Lys and the Scarpe (a tributary of the Scheldt) in Douai, the Canal de Lens, fed by the Souchez, which connects Lens with the Canal de la Deûle at Courrières.Immediately downstream of Lens, the channel is unusually elevated compared to the neighboring banks, as a result of mining depressions. The Deûle flows through the departments of Pas-de-Calais and Nord, and the towns of Lens, Wingles, Loos, Lille, Wambrechies and Quesnoy-sur-Deûle, before it flows into the Lys at Deûlémont. The Deûle does not yet profit from a Schéma d'aménagement et de gestion des eaux.

Armentières (French pronunciation: ​[aʁmɑ̃tjɛʁ]; West Flemish: Armentiers) is a commune in the Nord department in the Hauts-de-France region in northern France. It is part of the Métropole Européenne de Lille.The motto of the town is Pauvre mais fière (Poor but proud).

Winter operations 1914–1915 is the name given to military operations during the First World War, from 23 November 1914 – 6 February 1915, in the 1921 report of the British government Battles Nomenclature Committee. The operations took place on the part of the Western Front held by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), in French and Belgian Flanders. After the northern flank of the Western Front had disappeared during the Race to the Sea in late 1914, the Franco-British attacked towards Lille in October, then the BEF, Belgians and the French Eighth Army attacked in Belgium. A German offensive began on 21 October but the 4th Army (Generaloberst Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg) and 6th Army (Generaloberst Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria) were only able to take small amounts of ground, at great cost to both sides, at the Battle of the Yser (16–31 October) and further south in the First Battle of Ypres (19 October – 22 November). By 8 November, the Germans realised that the advance along the coast had failed and that taking Ypres was impossible. Attacks by both sides had quickly been defeated and the opposing armies had improvised field defences, against which attacks were costly failures. By the end of the First Battle of Ypres in November 1914, both sides were exhausted, short of ammunition and suffering from collapses in morale; some infantry units refused orders. The mutual defeat of the First Battle of Flanders was followed by trench warfare, in which both sides tried to improve their positions as far as the winter weather, mutual exhaustion and chronic equipment and ammunition shortages allowed.