Memorial sites of the First World War (Western Front) - Flanders Fields, Belgium

Perhaps the most famous Commonwealth war memorial in the world, tens of thousands of soldiers passed through here on their way to the front, many never to return. Every evening at 8pm, a ceremony takes place under the vast arch: traffic stops and buglers play The Last Post

Established in October 1914, this cemetery eventually became the final resting place of over 25,000 German soldiers, including the son of the famous artist, Käthe Kollwitz, who, in her sorrow, created the sculpture The Grieving Parents. 

Located in the heart of Houthulst Forest, this is the most well-known Belgian military cemetery. It contains the graves of 1,723 Belgian soldiers, the majority killed during the so-called Liberation Offensive of 1918, and 81 Italian soldiers, who died as prisoners of war. 

Beyond the Deutcher Soldatenfriedhof’s monumental entrance, lie over 44,000 soldiers, half of them in a mass grave. Over 3,000 cadets and student volunteers, killed in October 1914 during the first battle of Ypres, are among the dead.

This memorial was erected in remembrance of the 2,000 dead of the First Canadian Division, who were killed in the fighting which followed the German gas attack of 22^nd April 1915. Built on Canadian soil with Canadian shrubs, it is Canadian territory.

This is the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s largest cemetery, with almost 12,000 tombstones. Four German soldiers were also laid to rest here. The memorial bears the names of nearly 35,000 soldiers from the United Kingdom and New Zealand, whose graves are not known.

This front line cemetery was in use between August 1917 and April 1918, and again in September 1918. It contains the remains of 107 Commonwealth soldiers, 19 of them unidentified. 60 of the men buried here served with the New Zealand forces. There is also one German grave.

This burial ground includes the New Zealand Memorial to the Missing, which commemorates 378 men of the New Zealand Division, and a memorial to the 5^th Australian Division. A service is held to commemorate the efforts of the ANZAC soldiers every year on ANZAC Day (25^th April).

Used as a dressing station from April 1915 to August 1917, 1,200 WW1 servicemen are buried or commemorated here. Concrete remains of the dressing station can still be seen. It was at this cemetery that war poet, John McCrae, wrote the renowned In Flanders Fields, in May 1915.

For most of the First World War, the German front line directly faced the village of Boezinge, where this cemetery was begun by the 38^th Welsh Division in July 1917, at the spot known as Caesar’s Nose. 23 of the Division’s soldiers are buried here, with 68 WW1 graves in total.

Named after a nearby building (the word cot refers to a particular style of building), this cemetery contains 79 WW1 graves. More than half of the remains are of officers and men of the 51^st (Highland) Division. It was in use from the end of July 1917 to March 1918.

Located between the Allied and German front lines, this cemetery was in use from July 1917, after Commonwealth forces advanced on the Western Front, until November 1917. Another two burials then took place in May 1918. A total of 149 soldiers are buried in the cemetery.

Named after a small local lane, the cemetery was founded by British soldiers in July 1917. 289 Commonwealth servicemen (86 unidentified) are buried or commemorated here, and there are special memorials to ten casualties whose graves in the cemetery were destroyed by shell fire.

This cemetery contains the remains of around 4,200 French soldiers, 600 of whom were interred in a mass grave. It is the largest French cemetery in Belgium, and a sculpture of the Pietà, by French sculptor Jean Fréour, is located at the front, forever mourning over the fallen.

This is one of the largest British cemeteries in the region of Flanders Fields  and stands in what was once the gardens of Rosendael Castle. The castle buildings served as a headquarters and a medical aid post, and several small cemeteries were started in the grounds.

Begun at the north end of a small plantation of larches in April 1915, it was used by troops holding the sector, particularly the 46^th (North Midland) Division and the 1^st Dorsets, until April 1918. It contains 856 burials and commemorations. 321 of the buried are unidentified. 

Woods Cemetery was begun by the 1^st Dorsets and the 1^st East Surreys in April 1915. Its irregular shape is due to the burial conditions when the front line was just beyond the wood. Used until September 1917, the cemetery contains the remains of 326 men, 32 of them unidentified. 

This cemetery contains 76 graves. Among the buried, most of whom died between April and July of 1915, are officers and men of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. Zillebeke contains many cemeteries, as frontline trenches ran through it during the greater part of WW1.

The cemetery suffered severely from shell fire and, after the Armistice, the position of the individual graves could not be found or reconstructed, so the headstones are now arranged symmetrically around the Cross of Sacrifice. Begun in March 1915, 98 graves can be found here. 

Made after the Armistice in November 1918, this ossuary (mass grave) lies at the foot of the western slopes of Mount Kemmel. At the centre of the cemetery is a white stone obelisk which bears the names of the 5,294 soldiers who are buried here, of whom only 57 were identified.

Lone Tree Cemetery is close to the Lone Tree Crater, one of the nineteen which were made immediately before the infantry attack at the Battle of Messines in June 1917. Nearly all of the 88 graves in this cemetery are of soldiers who fell on the first day of the battle.

A round tower serves as a memorial, which transcends religious and political differences, in honour of the Irishmen of all denominations who died during WW1, including the Catholic and Protestant Irish troops who fought side by side during the Battle of Messines. 

On a main communication line between Allied bases, this became Belgium’s second largest Commonwealth cemetery, with 9,901 Commonwealth graves, including that of Staff Nurse Nellie Spindler, one of the few women to be buried in a WW1 cemetery, and 883 of other nationalities.