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 The Ypres League
There were other British battlefields, where the test came.
The fields of the Somme were the fighting grounds and the graveyards of thousands of
gallant men. From St. Quentin to La Bassee across the Vimy ridge, out beyond Arras, there
is not a yard of earth that does not belong to the history of British valour, suffering
and sacrifice. Each hummock of ground was a landmark in this frightful epic of human
strife. But the Ypres Salient is especially the greatest Battleground of the British race.
All our divisions passed through the furnace there at one time or other. Not one of them
escaped that ordeal, and by general consent, it was the worst place of all.
It was worst of all in the early days of the War when the
Germans made their thrust towards Calais, and all we had of strength - which was not much
- barred their way until the lines were thin and ragged, but still unbroken, in the first
battle of Ypres, and the second. It was the worst place when the New Armies came along and
learnt their first lessons in the school of war, and were flogged by shell fire. The enemy
had all the good ground on tile ridges above us. They had perfect observation of all we
did, from the Wytschaete ridge and the Messines ridge and Westhoek, and the Frezenberg.
They had great gun power when we were weak in guns, and the New Army had to stand under
fire, without " answering back '' or with much artillery, and by day or night, as
they marched up the roads to Ypres past Vlamertinghe, as their guns went up and their
wagons, and their mules, shells followed them, and met them, and caught them, and they
were " fed up'' with it all.
They were " fed up'' with the stinking pits of Hooge
where they lay in water, lice-eaten, with the smell of death in their nostrils, with mine
craters close to them. It was the worst place of all for many months, and for longer than
that. Year after year the Ypres Salient did not change its character very much. It was
never really pleasant for British soldiers. It was not a "health resort" even
after the capture of the Messines ridge, when we knew how much the enemy had seen - and
were staggered by the knowledge. It was less of a "health resort" when the
battles of Flanders began in 1917 It was then one of the most dreadful plots of ground
upon which the old moon had ever looked down since the beginning of the world.
Hundreds of thousands of men wallowed through the swamps in
enormous strife, under immense and all-destructive storms of high explosives. The solid
earth became a liquid bog when the rains began and did not end. By Glencorse Wood and
Inverness Copse wounded men fell and were drowned in the swamps, and I saw them lying
there. The way to Passchendaele was a via dolorosa and the horror of it, the
immense range of its misery and massacre, was only relieved and lightened by the wonderful
patience, the most grim endurance, of those masses of British soldiers who in their masks
of mud refused to surrender in their souls to the agony they endured. As I write, those
human pictures come back to me hauntingly, and I salute again the men who served in the
Salient of Ypres: the Royal Naval Division, infantry, gunners and engineers, lorry drivers
and labour units, surgeons and stretcher bearers, Air Force and tanks, machine gunners and
trench-mortar men, the great heroic crowd. There were other bad days and weeks and months,
when the enemy was going strong still in the last phase of the War which was touch-and-go
for us. I remember seeing old Bailleul go up in flames and Kemmel captured, and all our
roads about Westoutre taped out by shell-fire. The battalions of ours who were in the
Salient then stood between us and ruin. They were weak battalions, worn down to little
groups of dazed and tired men, fighting all the time, snatching a little sleep, and waking
up to fight again. It was a weak line that curved round Ypres and its ramparts - but it
was strong enough to save us all - and the ragged ruin of the Cloth Hall in Ypres is a
pillar of victory gained by an immense sum of death now gathered into the graveyards where
those comrades lie.
All our Armies on the Western Front passed through Ypres.
The Ypres League is the brotherhood of all ranks - British, Belgian, French and American -
who served there. The annual re-unions of officers and men belonging to the League which
it is proposed to hold would gather up locally the spirit of those five years of history.
Membership of the League is open to all who served
in the Salient, and to all those whose relatives or friends died there, in order that they
may have a record of that service for themselves and their descendants, and belong to the
comradeship of men and women who understand and remember all that Ypres meant in suffering
and endurance.
Life membership, £2 10s. Annual members, 5s. Special
charges are made to those who cannot afford the 5s. subscription.
Do not let the fact of your not having served in the
Salient deter you from joining the Ypres League. Those who have neither fought in the
Salient nor lost relatives there, but who are in sympathy with the objects of the Ypres
League, are admitted to its fellowship, but are not given scroll certificates.
There is also a Junior Division, to which children (and
certain other near relatives) of those who fought in the Salient have a right to belong.
Annual Subscription, 1/- up to the age of 18, after which they can become ordinary members
of the League.
Among the Objects of the League are:-
I.- Commemoration, comradeship and help.
II.- To arrange special facilities for travel and transport
of members.
III.- To furnish information about the Salient; to mark
historic sites, and to compile charts of the battlefields.
IV.- To secure the erection of an outstanding memorial of
the Defence.
V.- To diffuse amongst members information on all matters
connected with the battlefields. VI.- To establish, maintain, regulate and control groups
of members throughout the world, through corresponding members.
VII. - To establish cordial relations with the dwellers on
the battlefields of Ypres.
What Has Been and Is Being Done,
I. & IV.- Commemoration is visible on every side. There
are the cemeteries. There will be the Menin Gate and other Memorials. The League will add
a fitting memorial to complete the work when funds permit, and the time has arrived.
The idea of comradeship amongst the members of the League
is strengthening daily and many men and women, whether members or non-members, are helped
advice or in some practical way, and their letters of thanks are a certain indication that
the League's efforts are not wasted.
The scroll certificate designed by Bernard Partridge is one
of the most touching and beautiful commemorative drawings which can be imagined. It is
sent to all members who served in the Salient or lost relatives there.
The thirty-first of October in every year is celebrated as
Ypres Day. This day marked the crisis of the First Battle of Ypres in 1914, when our line
was re-established at Gheluvelt, thus deciding the fate of the Salient.
The Ypres Book of Valour - a history of notable deeds
contributed by all regiments - is in process of compilation.
II. An Ypres League Pilgrimage Centre at Ypres has been
established, and all members of the League are invited to spend some time in the Rest
Room, where every comfort and information will be provided. There are also two or three
bedrooms which can be occupied at very reduced prices by those too poor or too old or
shaken to bear hotel life.
The Centre is shared with the St. Barnabas Hostels Society,
with which the League is co-operating very closely in all pilgrimage matters. At this
Centre it is proposed to form a museum containing maps, guide books, pictures, a complete
list of cemeteries and their location. Here too, advice and sympathetic help will be given
to all visitors.
At present members of the Ypres League are well satisfied
with the hotel accommodation available, while complete repose can be obtained by making
use of the Rest Room at the Centre.
This temporary Pilgrimage Centre is a beginning, from which
much may develop.
A perfected travel arrangement has been organised. Members
ate invariably satisfied with the arrangements for visiting cemeteries. Parties can go
privately or as a pilgrimage. Small pilgrimages of 30, 40 and 50 are taken out monthly
during the summer. It is only necessary to join one of these to realise the appreciation
of its members for the sympathy and kindness extended from all sides.
Where in any place there exists a group of members
exceeding 100, one of the poorer members may be selected and arrangements made by
Headquarters for his or her participation in a pilgrimage free of charge.
The League representatives in Belgium are active members of
our Association and take care that all members visiting Ypres are able to carry out every
part of their intended programme.
III.- (a) The League was invited, through the Belgian
Touring Club, to participate in the erection of the 240 red granite pylons, which will
stretch from the Swiss border to the sea, and which will mark the extreme line of advance
of the German invasion. The League has paid for seven of these pylons in the Ypres
Section; they have been erected on the following sites:
I. On the St. Jean, Wiltze Road, leading to Shell Trap
farm.
2. Near Potijze on the Zonnebeke Road.
3. Hell Fire Corner on the Menin Road.
4. The railway crossing by the Zillebeke River on the Hill
60 road.
5. Near Trois Rois on the Lille Road.
6. A point near Voormezeele on the Kemmel Road.
7 Near Vierstraete on the Kemmel Road.
(b) A Guide Book- "The Immortal Salient" - has
been compiled with the assistance of the War Office and the Historical Section of the
Committee of Imperial Defence. It provides a historical record with maps, in addition to
being a complete guide to the Salient of Ypres. Price 5/- (Publishers, John Murray).
(c) Sign-Boards have been erected to indicate forty
historic points in the Salient, such as Polygon Wood and Hell Fire Corner.
V.- THE YPRES TIMES, the journal of the Ypres League,
contains information of the greatest interest. It is issued free to members quarterly and
can be obtained from Headquarters for 7d. post free. Most of the back numbers can still be
obtained at 1/-. It has been issued regularly since October, 1921.
Registers containing the names of all those buried in the
Salient are being gradually compiled by the Imperial War Graves Commission. These
registers are purchased by the League as they are published, and can be referred to at the
head office, or copies can be obtained, price 3/- They contain the names of the dead with
their numbers and regiments, and, wherever possible, the name of the next-of-kin.
The Ypres League supplies badges, the scroll, beautiful
artificial wreaths, many publications, photographs, booklets and post cards, etchings,
songs, prints and maps, a complete list of which can be had on application.
VI.- Groups of members- British, Belgian and American -
have been established throughout
the world.
VII.- Our relations with the dwellers on the battlefield
are most cordial.
To defend the Ypres Salient cost the lives of 250,000
soldiers. The Salient, more than any other battle ground, represents in a peculiar degree
the things to be commemorated. It was here that the "old contemptibles "
exhibited their qualities at ]east as much as they did at Mons, on the Marne or on the
Aisne. It was here that the Territorials and New Army showed what they were good for, and
if the Canadians stood out conspicuously, troops from every part of the Empire and
Overseas also won their laurels in the Salient.
The formations which escaped duties in the Salient at one
time or another, must be few in number. Other sections have their claims to special
memory, but Verdun and Ypres stand out unrivalled for dogged tenacity. The defence of
Ypres kept the War within bounds - the collapse of Ypres would have proved a blow to our
mastery of the sea, and all that that meant to the Allies.
LEST WE FORGET
They paved the way for us on the Great Road
To the freedom of the world,
Which now is ours, bought at a costly price
By the gold of Life,
Coined and stamped with suffering and with Death
In the Red Mint of Ypres.
CAMPBELL OF SADDELL (F.S.A., Scotland).
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