Remembering the 3rd battle of Ypres.

This weekend we remember one of the most terrible conflicts in which Britain was involved during the 20th century: the third battle of Ypres, also known as the battle of Passchendaele, is generally considered by historians to have lasted from 31st July 1917 to 10th November 1917.

Nobody has ever agreed exactly how many people were killed and wounded but it would appear to have been a little over half a million (around 260,000 on each side.) Huge armies fought in dreadful conditions over a landscape which had been turned to a quagmire of mud and lunarised by heavy artillery. Those of us who have been lucky enough never to be within a hundred miles of a battle can have no conception of what it was like, but we can understand that it was horrible.

The last few survivors of the battle died of old age within the past decade.

The cost of the battle, and the sacrifice of those who took part, must not be forgotten.

Rest in Peace.

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