Menin Gate

Did You Know?

• The Menin Gate was the first of the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission's Memorials to the Missing.
• War poet Siegfried Sassoon condemned the Menin Gate in his poem 'On Passing the New Menin Gate', saying the dead would 'deride this sepulchre of crime'.
• The remains of missing soldiers are still found during building or road-mending work; if identified, the relevant name is removed from the Menin Gate.

Background

In medieval times, the original narrow gateway on Ypres's eastern wall was called the Hangoartpoort. During the 17th and 18th centuries, under Habsburg and French occupation, the city was increasingly fortified, with major works completed at the end of the 17th century by French military engineer Sebastien Le Prestre, Seigneur de Vauban. By the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the eastern exit cut through the remains of the ramparts and crossed a moat, and was known as the Menenpoort, or Menin Gate in English, because the road through it led to the town of Menen.

Ypres held strategic importance during the war as it stood in the path of Germany's planned sweep across Belgium per the Schlieffen Plan. By October 1914, the Belgian Army broke the dykes on the Yser River north of the city to keep the western tip of Belgium out of German hands. Ypres anchored one end of this defensive feature and was essential for the Germans seeking the Channel Ports through which British support arrived. For the Allies, Ypres became the last major Belgian town not under German control.

Five major battles occurred around the town during the war. British and Commonwealth soldiers often passed through the Menenpoort on their way to the front lines; some 300,000 were killed in the Ypres Salient, with 90,000 having no known graves. From September to November 1915, the British 177th Tunnelling Company built tunnelled dugouts in the city ramparts near the Menin Gate, the first British tunnelled dugouts in the Salient.

Memorial

Reginald Blomfield's triumphal arch, designed in 1921, serves as the entry to a barrel-vaulted passage for traffic through the mausoleum honouring the Missing. A patient lion atop the arch represents both the lion of Britain and the lion of Flanders. The gate was chosen as a memorial because it was the closest gate to the fighting, though most troops actually passed out of other gates as the Menin Gate was too dangerous due to shellfire. The large Hall of Memory contains stone panels listing 54,395 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Salient with unidentified bodies.

Upon completion, the memorial was found too small for all names; an arbitrary cut-off date of 15 August 1917 was chosen, and 34,984 UK missing after that date were inscribed on the Tyne Cot Memorial. The Menin Gate does not list missing New Zealand or Newfoundland soldiers, who are honoured on separate memorials. Inside the archway, an inscription proposed by Rudyard Kipling begins with the Latin phrase 'Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam' and records the names of those to whom the fortune of war denied known and honoured burial.

The main overhead inscription on both façades was also composed by Kipling. On the opposite side is the dedication 'They shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away'. Latin inscriptions in circular panels read 'Pro Patria' and 'Pro Rege'. A French inscription offers the monument to the citizens of Ypres in commemoration of the days the British Army defended the city.

Notable commemoratees

Arthur O'Neill, the first British MP killed in the war; Second Lieutenant Clyde Bowman Pearce, first Australian-born winner of the Australian Golf Open; Lance-Sergeant Leonard Sutton, an English first-class cricketer; Private Arthur Wilson, an English rugby international; and Second Lieutenant Euan Lucie-Smith, the first mixed race officer killed in war, originally recorded on the Ploegsteert Memorial.

Last Post ceremony

Following the memorial's opening in 1927, Ypres citizens wished to express gratitude to those who gave their lives for Belgium's freedom. Every evening at 20:00, buglers from the Last Post Association close the road under the memorial and sound the 'Last Post'. Except during World War II German occupation, when the ceremony was conducted at Brookwood Military Cemetery in England, this ceremony has continued uninterrupted since 2 July 1928. On 6 September 1944, the evening Polish forces liberated Ypres, the ceremony resumed at the Menin Gate despite heavy fighting elsewhere in the town.

During extended ceremonies, individuals or groups may lay wreaths, and bands, choirs, and military units from around the world may apply to participate. The Last Post Association, an independent voluntary non-profit organisation, founded the ceremony in 1928 and administers the Last Post Fund. Buglers wear the uniform of the local volunteer Fire Brigade, of which they are all required to become members. The Last Post was originally a bugle call marking the end of the day's labours; in remembrance, it represents a final farewell to the fallen.

The Reveille, a bugle call rousing troops at daybreak, symbolises a return to daily life and the ultimate resurrection of the fallen.