Menin Gate to the east of the city. The German army eventually surrounded the city on three sides, bombarding it throughout much of the war. The Second Battle of Ypres marked a second German attempt to take the city in April 1915. The third battle is more commonly referred to as Passchendaele, but this 1917 battle was a complex five-month engagement. The fourth and fifth battles occurred during 1918. British and Commonwealth soldiers often passed through the Menenpoort on their way to the front lines with some 300,000 of them being killed in the Ypres Salient. 90,000 of these soldiers have no
Ode of Remembrance the "Last Post". It is mostly read by a British serviceman. The recital is followed by a minute of silence. Like the Menin Gate, the Australian War Memorial incorporates the Ode into its Last Post Ceremony, where it is read by a member of the Australian Defence Force and is followed by a minute of silence and a bugler playing the Last Post. In 2018, at the centennial of the signing of the Armistice, plans were made to ring carillons and church bells across the British Commonwealth at local sundown, in reference to the line, "at the going down of