Ypres, Battles of

In World War I, three major battles 1914-17 between German and Allied forces near Ypres, a Belgian town in western Flanders, 40 km/25 mi south of Ostend. Neither side made much progress in any of the battles, despite heavy casualties, but the third battle in particular (also known as Passchendaele) July-November 1917 stands out as an enormous waste of life for little return. The Menin Gate (1927) is a memorial to British soldiers lost in these battles.

October-November 1914 A British offensive aimed at securing the Channel ports of Dunkirk and Ostend clashed with a German offensive aimed at taking those ports. The subsequent fighting was extremely heavy and ended with the Germans gaining the Messines Ridge and other commanding ground but with the British and French holding a salient around Ypres extending into the German line. German losses were estimated at 150,000 troops, British and French at about the same number.

April-May 1915 Battle opened with a German chlorine gas attack; this made a huge gap in the Allied lines but the Germans were unprepared for this success and were unable to exploit it before the Allies rushed in reserves. More gas attacks followed, and the British were driven to shorten their line, so making the Ypres salient a smaller incursion into the German line.

July-November 1917 An Allied offensive, including British, Canadian, and Australian troops, was launched under British commander-in-chief Field Marshal Douglas Haig, in an attempt to capture ports on the Belgian coast held by Germans. The long and bitter battle, fought in appalling conditions of driving rain and waterlogged ground, achieved an advance of only 8 km/5 mi of territory that was of no strategic significance, but the Allies alone lost more than 300,000 casualties.