Battle of the Yser
Ieper, A walk around Ieper (Ypres)
Lille Street Rijselestraat
The ‘Donkerpoort’, under the Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall), Ypres. [DVA]
Australians passing through the ruins of Ypres on their way to the front line, October 1917. [AWM E04612]
Download a PDF map of the walk around Ieper (Ypres)
If you leave St Martin’s by the side door, you will see straight ahead the back of the Lakenhalle in the Sint–Maartensplein. Down to the right is a walkway known as the ‘Donkerpoort’ (the dark gate) through the centre of the great building. The walls of the gate are still pitted with World War I shell scars and here one passes by the surviving remains of the original Lakenhalle upon which the new structure was raised after the war. Above the ‘Donkerpoort’ in the Grote Markt is a statue of Our Lady of Thuyne. To the left of the statue are figures of Earl Baldwin IX and his wife, Mary of Champagne, under whose auspices the construction of the Lakenhalle was begun in 1200. To the right is King Albert I of Belgium and his queen, Elizabeth, in whose reign the reconstruction of the Lakenhalle was undertaken in the 1920s.
Statue of Our Lady above the ‘Donkerpoort’, Lakenhalle, Ypres. [DVA]
Statues of Earl Baldwin IX and Mary of Champagne, Lakenhalle, Ypres. [DVA]
Statues of King Albert I and Queen Elizabeth, Lakenhalle, Ypres. [DVA]
King Albert was a well–known figure to Australians during the war as he came to symbolise Belgian resistance to German invasion and occupation. When the Germans told him that their war plans assumed free passage for their troops through his country to attack France he reputedly responded – ‘Belgium is a nation, not a road’. Albert and the Belgian people were the heroes of the hour in August 1914 and for the rest of the war the King remained on Belgian soil, on the coast to the north of Ypres, and at the head of what remained of the Belgian army.
A propaganda poster produced in Queensland in World War I suggesting perhaps what might be expected in Australia if the German occupation of Belgium was repeated here. Such images were supposed to encourage Australians to enlist in the AIF. [AWM ARTV01335]
A shopkeeper and her ‘Patisserie’ among the ruins of Ypres, 20 March 1915. [Photo Anthony, Ypres, Stedelijke Musea, Ieper]
At this time Britain took in an estimated quarter of a million Belgian refugees and in Australia, newspapers reported the plight of ‘brave little Belgium’. The Australian Federal Parliament voted £100,000 for the relief of Belgium and after he had handed the money over to the British Government for use by the Belgians, Sir George Reid, Australia’s High Commissioner in London, wrote:
I have never performed a more agreeable duty. They may cease to be allies, and regain their neutrality again, but the Belgians will remain in our loving regard a kindred people whose full rights and national existence the whole British Empire will always defend.
Sir George Reid, in King Alberts’ Book: A Tribute to the Belgian King and People from Representative Men and Women throughout the World, London, 1914, p.126
During the war more than £1,480,000, an immense sum by today’s standards, was raised throughout Australia for Belgian relief.
Sign in the Grote Markt, Ypres. [DVA]
Street sign for the Rijselstraat (Lille Street), Ypres. [DVA]
The burning Cloth Hall, Ypres, taken from Lille Street (Rijselstraat), 22 November 1914. Pictorial newspapers made good propaganda use of the German destruction of Ypres by publishing images of the ruined and burning town. [Photo Anthony, Ypres, Stedelijke Musea, Ieper]
Doorway, Rijselstraat (Lille Street), Ypres. [DVA]
The Belle Alms House, Rijselstraat (Lille Street), Ypres. [DVA]
Many Australian soldiers returning from the fighting in the Salient marched past the ruined Lakenhalle and at the end of the Grote Markt turned left down the Rijselstraat, Lille Street, and headed along it to the Rijselspoort, the Lille Gate. It could be a deadly experience. As the exhausted 40th Battalion (Tasmania) were marching past the Sint–Pieterskerk (St Peter’s Church) near the end of the street on the morning of 15 October 1917, German shells were falling at a rate of four every two minutes on the road ahead. The battalion’s historian, Captain Frank Green, reported that the battalion was too tired to ‘hurry, and did not quicken its pace’. Ahead of them a platoon of the 38th Battalion (Victoria) was hit and a number of men were killed, one of whom was Sergeant William Landon. Lieutenant Ernest Major observed Landon’s death:
Casualty was returning through Ypres for a rest. I was in the same party. A HE [high explosive] shell exploded at the head of our column killing casualty instantly including also Sergeant Pankhurst [Lance Sergeant Harold Pankhurst], RSM Rust [Regimental Sergeant Major Albert Rust] Lieutenant Kirkbride [Lieutenant Ronald Kirkbride] and five others. I was fifty yards away at the time of casualty’s death but saw his body immediately afterwards. He was beyond all aid. He was buried in Ypres cemetery. A cross was erected with his name, number and unit upon it.
Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau file, Sergeant William Landon, http://www.awm.gov.au/cms_images/1DRL428/00021/1DRL428–00021–1550107.pdf
View up the Rijselstraat (Lille Street), towards the Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall), Ypres. [DVA]
The old Post Office, Rijselstraat (Lille Street), Ypres. [DVA]
The old Post Office before World War I, Rijselstraat (Lille Street), Ypres. [Photo Anthony, Ypres, Stedelijke Muse, Ieper]
View towards the Rijselspoort (Lille Gate) near the end of the Rijselstraat (Lille Street), Ypres. [DVA]
The ruins of Ypres photographed by Captain Frank Hurley, official Australian photographer, October 1917. The ruined belfry of the Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall) is in the top left and the Post Office, still standing, in Lille Street (Rijselstraat), is at the bottom right. [AWM E01257]
Collection of old Imperial War Graves Commission cemetery signs, Rijselspoort (Lille Gate), Ypres. [DVA]
Landon lies buried in Ypres Reservoir Cemetery, one of only two war cemeteries within the old town of Ypres itself, in Plot I, Row H, Grave 38. This tragedy acted out in front of them did not slow the 40th Battalion, eager to put the Salient and Ypres behind them:
The pace of the … battalion never changed, and we dragged past the danger spot as the next salvo fell 50 yards [45 metres] short. The pave under our feet was dry and shells did not matter. The next salvo missed the tail of the column, and we passed safely through the Lille Gate and across the canal, destined never to see Ypres again. We did not want to see Ypres again.
F C Green, The Fortieth, Hobart, 1922, p.94
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© 2008 Department of Veterans' Affairs and Board of Studies NSW :: Last update - November 2008