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
Bedford House Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery The cemetery as a whole has 47 "special memorials". In the form of stone obelisks or just headstones with special notations, they record the names of soldiers whose graves were lost in later fighting or could not be found after the war. As these are known casualties (not "missing"), they are included in the total figure for burials in the cemetery and are not recorded on the Menin Gate. The entire cemetery was designed by Wilfred Clement Von Berg. Enclosure No 4 holds the grave of Second Lieutenant Rupert Price Hallowes, a Welsh soldier who was awarded both the Military