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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge join dignitaries at the Menin Gate to remember Passchendaele’s victims 100 years on
Every night in the Belgian city of Ypres at 8pm sharp, the Last Post echoes out across the Menin Gate.
Since 1928 the buglers of the Last Post Association have performed this simple act of remembrance to the 250,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers killed here during the First World War.
Sometimes they have played in the driving rain that defines this part of Flanders with not a soul watching. Yesterday evening, at an event commemorating the centenary of one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War, the eyes of the world were upon them.
Before the service began, the Duke of Cambridge stepped forward to speak on behalf of a nation. “Thank you for the honour that you do us,” he said.
Last night’s event at the Menin Gate was the beginning of two days of commemorations marking the Third Battle of Ypres, latterly known as Passchendaele, which raged between July 31 and Nov 6 1917 causing some 320,000 Allied casualties.
The Sir Reginald Blomfield designed Menin Gate is inscribed with the names of more than 54,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers killed around Ypres in the First World War whose graves are not known – 40,537 were members of Britain’s Armed Forces.
The memorial was unveiled by Field Marshall Lord Plumer in July 1927 who told the assembled families of their fallen loved ones: “He is not missing. He is here.”
Last night’s service, attended by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who was wearing a cream dress and hat with a poppy pinned to her chest, King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium and dignitaries from the 19 nations that fought on the Ypres Salient, was the 30,752nd time the Last Post has played here after the custom was first started by a Belgian policeman. When the final notes echoed off the cobbles of the medieval Belgian city dubbed “Wipers” by the British troops posted here, the chairman of the Last Post Association Benoit Mottrie read the Exhortation.
The Duke of Cambridge then laid a wreath alongside King Philippe of Belgium, followed by Theresa May, the Prime Minister.
During his reading the Duke, who was wearing a suit with medals pinned to his chest, described how in the First World War, Britain and Belgium stood “shoulder to shoulder”.
“One hundred years on, we still stand together, gathering as so many do every night, in remembrance of that sacrifice,” he added.
During his address, which followed that of the Duke of Cambridge, King Philippe of Belgium spoke of his pride at the people of Ypres for continuing the Last Post tradition for so many years and of “the immense sacrifice” of those who fell here.
“Every time we stand here under the Menin Gate, we feel overwhelmed by the immensity of the sacrifice of the men whose names surround us,” he said. “This battle, a hundred years ago, makes the bond between our countries strong and everlasting.”
After the wreaths were laid, the National Youth Choir of Scotland performed the song, O Valiant Hearts, which was adapted from a poem by John Stanhope Arkwright and has become known as the Ypres Hymn.
As they sang, 54,391 poppy petals cascaded from the top of the Menin Gate – one for each name inscribed within its Portland stone arches.
Around 200 descendants of those who fought in Passchendaele have travelled out to Belgium for the centenary commemorations which continue today at Tyne Cot Cemetery.
Among those in Ypres yesterday evening was Caroline Price, whose father, Colonel Cyril Helm, was in command of the 42nd Field Ambulance at Passchendaele. The 67-year-old from Kent recalls him first taking her to the Menin Gate aged just 10. “He stood there and cried,” she said. “He had lost so many friends. It was a horrendous time for him.”
Alan Evans, a retired Royal Navy petty officer had travelled out to pay tribute to his great uncle Thomas George Evans who had signed up to fight with the Liverpool Pals Battalion at the onset of war and survived the Somme and countless other battles before losing his life at Passchendaele on Sept 20 at the age of 28. Evans has managed to get hold of the battalion diary for the day he was killed which records one officer killed, four wounded, 14 other ranks killed and 16 others wounded. “They said that was a good day for Passchendaele,” the 56-yearold says.
Following the service at the Menin Gate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attended a commemoration event in Ypres Market Square. Dame Helen Mirren started the performance with a reading of the poem, In Flanders Fields, written by the Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John Mccrae during the second battle of Ypres in 1915.
She was followed by Ian Hislop who performed extracts from the Wipers Times, a play he wrote based on the satirical trench newspaper first produced in 1916 by two British soldiers holed up beneath the Ypres ramparts. There was also a reading by the author Michael Morpurgo of
‘This battle, a hundred years ago, makes the bond between our countries
strong and everlasting’
his new short story, From Farm Horse
to War Horse, specially written for the centenary event.
The story is a follow-up to his children’s book, War Horse, which in 2007 was adapted into an extraordinarily successful National Theatre production. The life-size puppet of Joey from the play accompanied Morpurgo yesterday evening in Ypres Market Square. His new story began with a grandfather recounting to his grandson the horrors of the war. “Just staying alive was the difficult bit,” he says. “The worst was at Passchendaele. Hell on earth.”
Throughout the evening images from the battle were projected on to the Ypres Cloth Hall, along with footage of veterans recorded after the war. Private Harry Patch, the last surviving British soldier from the Western Front who died in 2009 at the age of 111 recalled Passchendaele simply as “mud, mud, mud” – what unspeakable events were obscured by the morass he could never bring himself to say. The evening ended with a projection of soldiers walking past the Menin Gate, a route so many once took only to never return
A century on and the footsteps of the fallen still ring out. Their sacrifice is not forgotten.