The Ypres League was a British World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 veterans and remembrance society. It was founded on 28 September 1920 to act as a brotherhood for veterans of the battles of the Ypres Salient

Ypres Salient

The Ypres Salient is the area around Ypres in Belgium which was the scene of some of the biggest battles in World War I.In military terms, a salient is a battlefield feature that projects into enemy territory. Therefore, the salient is surrounded by the enemy on three sides, making the troops...

, to remember those who died there, and to aid pilgrims traveling to the battlefields. It later became an incorporated society, based in London. It produced a quarterly newsletter and a guide book to Ypres, and provided a variety of services to its members, including specially designed membership certificates. It also worked to successfully erect a memorial church at Ypres. International branches were established, and the League celebrated its tenth anniversary in 1930. Publication of its newsletter continued well into the 1930s, and branches were still active in the 1940s.

Founding members

The founder of the League was a Canadian Ypres veteran, Colonel Beckles Willson. By December 1920, King George V

George V of the United Kingdom

George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....

 had agreed to become the League's patron. By 1925, there were three patrons: the King, Edward, Prince of Wales

Edward VIII of the United Kingdom

Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and Emperor of India, from 20 January to 11 December 1936.Before his accession to the throne, Edward was Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay...

 and Princess Beatrice

Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom

The Princess Beatrice was a member of the British Royal Family. She was the fifth daughter and youngest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Juan Carlos, King of Spain, is her great-grandson...

. Beatrice, the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria, was herself a mother bereaved by the fighting at Ypres, as her son, Prince Maurice of Battenberg

Prince Maurice of Battenberg

Prince Maurice of Battenberg, KCVO, was a member of the Hessian princely Battenberg family and the extended British Royal Family, the youngest grandchild of Queen Victoria...

, had been killed in action in 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres

First Battle of Ypres

The First Battle of Ypres, also called the First Battle of Flanders , was a First World War battle fought for the strategic town of Ypres in western Belgium...

.

The League's President, the Earl of Ypres

John French, 1st Earl of Ypres

Field Marshal John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres, KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG, ADC, PC , known as The Viscount French between 1916 and 1922, was a British and Anglo-Irish officer...

, had been the first commander of the British Expeditionary Force during the war, and presided over one of the League's first committee meetings. Other officials of the League in 1925 included several who had been generals during the war: Earl Haig

Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig

Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, KT, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCIE, ADC, was a British senior officer during World War I. He commanded the British Expeditionary Force from 1915 to the end of the War...

, Viscount Allenby

Edmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby

Field Marshal Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby GCB, GCMG, GCVO was a British soldier and administrator most famous for his role during the First World War, in which he led the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in the conquest of Palestine and Syria in 1917 and 1918.Allenby, nicknamed...

, Lord Plumer

Herbert Plumer, 1st Viscount Plumer

Field Marshal Herbert Charles Onslow Plumer, 1st Viscount Plumer, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, GBE was a British colonial official and soldier born in Torquay who commanded the British Second Army in World War I and later served as High Commissioner of the British Mandate for Palestine.-Military...

, and Sir William Pulteney Pulteney

William Pulteney Pulteney

Lieutenant-General Sir William Pulteney Pulteney, GCVO, KCB, KCMG, DSO was a British general during the First World War.-Military career:...

. The committee also included Viscount Burnham

Harry Levy-Lawson, 1st Viscount Burnham

Sir Harry Lawson Webster Levy-Lawson, 1st Viscount Burnham GCMG, CH, TD, JP, DL, was a British newspaper proprietor and a Liberal Unionist politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1885 and 1916 when he inherited his peerage.-Biography:Levy-Lawson was born at St...

 as a representative of the Anglo-Belgian Union.

Memorials and commemoration

Over a quarter of a million men from British and Dominion forces died in the Ypres battles, and one of the League's primary objectives was to establish a lasting memorial to those who fought in the area. In 1924 the League proposed the erection of a memorial church at Ypres. Fundraising by the League led to the building of Saint George's Memorial Church, Ypres

Saint George's Memorial Church, Ypres

Saint George's Memorial Church, Ypres, Belgium, was built to commemorate over 500,000 British and Commonwealth troops, who had died in the three battles fought for the Ypres Salient, during World War I....

, consecrated in 1929. Other memorials established or contributed to by the League included the Demarcation Stones, a line of 118 red granite pylons marking the line of the Western Front

Western Front (World War I)

Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...

. The League paid for seven of these markers to be erected in the Ypres area. The League also held annual commemorations on 31 October, known as Ypres Day, a date chosen to mark the turning point in the First Battle of Ypres

First Battle of Ypres

The First Battle of Ypres, also called the First Battle of Flanders , was a First World War battle fought for the strategic town of Ypres in western Belgium...

 in 1914.

One of the early commemorations of Ypres Day, on 31 October 1921, saw a group of 800 pilgrims organised by the League travelling to Ypres. The tenth anniversary of the League was marked in 1930 by a parade that included Princess Beatrice laying a wreath at the Cenotaph

Cenotaph

A cenotaph is an "empty tomb" or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been interred elsewhere. The word derives from the Greek κενοτάφιον = kenotaphion...

. The wreath-laying at the Cenotaph by Princess Beatrice was repeated in 1935 to mark the League's 15th anniversary.

Publications and services

The League's publications included a quarterly newsletter, The Ypres Times (first published in October 1921, and still being published as late as 1938), and books such as The Immortal Salient (1925), a historical record of the battles and a guide for pilgrims to Ypres. An account of the horror of the conditions on the Ypres Salient, written by the war correspondent Philip Gibbs

Philip Gibbs

Sir Philip Gibbs was an English journalist and novelist who served as one of five official British reporters during the First World War. Two of his siblings were also writers, A...

, was used for the League's information leaflets. Planned publications included the Ypres Book of Valour. The League also had a marching song, called Tramping along to a little tin whistle and an old toy drum, a version of which was published in 1926.

Other services offered by the League included framed certificates of membership for veterans of the conflict and bereaved relatives of the dead. The scroll certificates, designed by Bernard Partridge, were intended as a memorial of honour. The League, together with the St Barnabas Society, also established and maintained a Pilgrimage Centre and rest room at Ypres, and raised funds to help bereaved and impoverished relatives of dead soldiers to visit Ypres and the surrounding battlefields. The League also worked with the Imperial War Graves Commission to compile registers of those buried or lost in the Salient, and to establish historical records and information for pilgrims and its members.

Membership of the League was offered on either a life or annual basis, with reduced and junior fees also available.

International branches

In the early 1920s, the news of the founding of the League, and the intention to establish branches overseas, appeared in newspapers in Dominion countries whose forces had served in the Salient, including Australia, New Zealand and Canada. This led to the founding of several international branches of the League, but the US branch would not be established until a decade later. In March 1931, the League's representative in the USA presented the Ypres Medal to officers of the 27th Infantry Division that had participated at the Fourth Battle of Ypres. This was the first time the award had been presented to Americans, and the US branch of the League was launched a few days later at a dinner in New York that was attended by 500 people.

Further reading

• The Ypres League and the Commemoration of the Ypres Salient, 1914—1940, Mark Connelly, War in History, Vol. 16, No. 1, 51-76 (2009)

External links

• The Ypres League, 1925 information leaflet produced by the League (www.aftermathww1.com)
• Cover picture for a score of 'Tramping Along' (Science and Society Picture Library)