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
King's Somborne War Memorial focus for the national Remembrance Sunday commemorations, as well as the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing—the largest British war memorial anywhere in the world—and the Stone of Remembrance which appears in all large Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries and in several of Lutyens's civic war memorials. The King's Somborne memorial is one of fifteen War Crosses by Lutyens, all sharing a broadly similar design; another, Stockbridge War Memorial, is situated in the nearby town of Stockbridge. Prior to the outbreak of war, Lutyens established his reputation designing luxurious country houses for wealthy clients. Like many of his war memorials, the