Cemeteries & Memorials

To defend the nation against foreign attacks, a series of forts were built around Antwerp, Liège and Namur from the end of the nineteenth century. For example, the Defense Line of Antwerp consisted of sixteen larger strongholds in a wide circle around the city, including Fort Breendonk.

In early May 1915, Canadian doctor and poet John McCrae wrote the world-famous poem 'In Flanders Fields' from a medical aid station a stone's throw from Ypres.

The British army ruled Ploegsteert woods throughout World War I, except from April to September 1918, when the German army held Ploegsteert for six months.

The Irish Peace Park in Belgium is next to the Battle of Messines, which started on June 7, 1917.

An eagle atop a 15-meter-high pillar was inaugurated in 1930 and originally commemorated German marines killed aboard a submarine during World War I.

The Laboe Naval Memorial's foundation stone was laid in 1927 at the mouth of the Kieler Fjord in the Baltic Sea. The 72-metre-high tower was finished in 1936.

The French military cemetery and monument of Notre-Dame de Lorette, close to Lens, commemorates the thousands of soldiers who lost their lives in one of the heaviest battles during World War I.

The two 30-metre-high pylons of the Canadian War Memorial in Vimy, France, commemorate Canadian soldiers who died during World War I.

A sculpted soldier guards the Canadian Forces Memorial near the hamlet of St Julian in Langemarck-Poelkapelle since 1922.

Once a country house set in lush parkland just outside Ypres, Bedford House was blown to bits during the First World War. The ruins were then used as a field hospital and brigade headquarters, among other things.