Menin Gate exit simply cut through the remains of the ramparts and crossed a moat. The gateway was by this time known as the Menenpoort, or Menin Gate in English, because the road leading through the gateway led to the small town of Menen. Ypres occupied a strategic position during the First World War because it stood in the path of Germany's planned sweep across the rest of Belgium, as had been called for in the Schlieffen Plan. By October 1914, the much battered Belgian Army broke the dykes on the Yser River to the north of the City to keep the
New Zealand Division died on the Western Front. The overwhelming majority of these fatalities, around 12,400, were men from the New Zealand Division. The memorials, designed by Samuel Hurst Seager, are located at Passchendaele, Messines, Le Quesnoy and the Somme. Each memorial includes the words "From the Uttermost Ends of the Earth". In contrast to other Dominions, the names of New Zealand soldiers with no known grave, of which there are about 4,180, are not listed on the Memorials to the Missing at Menin Gate and Thiepval. Instead, it was the policy of the New Zealand government to establish smaller Memorials to the