Ypres Attractions

The principal industries are textiles, textile machinery and food processing. Tourism also plays a significant role in the town's economy. The name Ypres is closely associated with some of the most bitter battles of the First World War, at the end of which the town had been almost completely destroyed.

Founded in the 10th C., in the Middle Ages Ypres, together with Ghent and Bruges, was one of the three most important towns in Belgium because of its prosperous cloth making, reaching the peak of its heyday in the 13th and 14th C. with a population of 40,000. The Cloth Hall, the largest and most beautiful building of its kind in Belgium, symbolizes the wealth and power of that period. However, its decline began in 1316 when many of the town's citizens fell victim to a major epidemic. When the town took sides with the King of France against Ghent, which was allied to England during the Hundred Years' War, it was besieged in 1383. It withstood the siege but the massive destruction of the surrounding area and the suburbs forced many of the weavers to leave.

In the 16th C. it was devastated by the iconoclasts and Duke of Alba's troops, conquered by the Geuzen and the troops of Alexander Farnese and finally, in the 17th C., was taken by the French following many sieges. Under the French Ypres was fortified by Vauban and taken over by the Habsburgs. Not until 1852 were the fortified walls razed and turned into walkways.

Despite all these volatile events Ypres retained most of its ancient buildings, evidence of its former splendor, until the First World War. The inferno broke out in November 1914 in the first Battle of Ypres. Ypres, lying at the junction of important roads, found itself in the middle of the Ypres Salient, the arc of the Allied front, which was bombarded by German and Austrian troops for four years and remained unbroken in the second battle of 1915, in the third of 1917 and during the Kemmel offensive of 1918 even though poison gas was used for the first time in history in April 1915 near Steenstraat to the north. The Allied counter-offensive of 1918 signaled the start of Belgium's liberation from German occupation. During the four years of fighting almost 500,000 soldiers on each side lost their lives; 170military cemeteries at Ypres and in the surroundings commemorate this mass slaughter. Throughout this time the town stood in the line of fire and was subject to continuous bombardment by artillery so that by 1918 it was reduced to a heap of rubble. It has since been rebuilt according to the original plans, and the damage caused by the air raids in 1940 has been restored. The last building to be rebuilt was the town hall (Nieuwerck).