The causeway over the moat looking towards the Rijselspoort (Lille Gate), Ypres. [DVA]

At the end of Rijselstraat the road leaves the town under the Rijselspoort (Lille Gate) and crosses a causeway over the moat. To either side are the ramparts of Ypres built over earlier medieval walls by King Louis XIV's great military engineer, Sébastien Le Prestre, Marquis de Vauban. He was responsible for the fortification of more than 300 cities and towns in France, neighbouring countries and overseas between 1667 and 1707 including Ypres. Here the enthusiast for fortifications can find features such as the 'bastion', the 'tenaille', the 'casemate' and the 'coutrine'.

View across the moat to Ypres Ramparts Cemetery and the Rijselspoort (Lille Gate), Ypres. [DVA]

During World War I, shelters were dug into the ramparts to house large numbers of resting soldiers and other rear line units. Between August and November 1917, in the 'Third Battle of Ypres' Australian divisions often temporarily had their headquaters in the ruins when their infantry, artillery and other support units were in the front line. Australia' official photographer, Captain Frank Hurley, described how he 'secured several pictures of our forces camped in small dugouts excavated in the surrounding ramparts'. Indeed, in Ypres all wartime living quarters tended to be underground to get away from the regular German shelling and the ramparts, with their thick walls, were an obvious spot in which to dig a shelter. One wit produced the following advert which appeared in the soldiers' newspaper, The Wipers Times on 12 February 1916:

Under Entirely
New
Management

Hotel
Des Ramparts

No Expense Has been
Spared By The New
Management In The
Re–Decorating And
Re–Fitting of This
First–Class Hotel

Specially Recommended
To Businessmen.

From the Rijselstraat to the right of the Rijselspoort a side lane leads up ramparts. A little way along is one of the most beautifully situated war cemeteries in the whole area—Ramparts Cemetery where the grass runs down to the water's edge. Here lie 198 soldiers of the 'Great War' buried on dates which span the whole of the fighting in the Ypres Salient

Headstone of Lieutenant Walter Welch, Royal Field Artilery, Ramparts Cemetery (Lille Gate), Ypres. [DVA]

Down near the water, in Row I, Grave 4, is Lieutenant Walter Welch, Royal Field Artillery, who died on 30 October 1914 as the Germans battled to break through British lines to the east during the First Battle of Ypres. Corporal Samuel Walker, Royal Engineers, died on the day the Anzacs stormed ashore at Gallipoli, 25 April 1915, which was three days after the opening of the Second Battle of Ypres when the Germans first used poison gas on the Western Front against French forces holding the north–eastern section of the 'Salient'. Not surprisingly, a number of graves feature dates between August and November 1917, the months of the great British offensive known as the Third Battle of Ypres, or more popularly 'Passchendaele'. And here too are men who died in 1918—such as Sapper Oliver Smith, Royal Engineers, in Row J, Grave 28—as the Germans mounted their last great offensive in this area in April 1918.

Autumn, Ramparts Cemetery (Lille Gate), Ypres. [DVA]

This cemetery also reflects the imperial nature of the so-called British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium between 1914 and 1918. Apart from the English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh soldiers there are Canadians, New Zealanders and Australians here. In December 1917 the New Zealand Maori (Pioneer) Battalion fought at Ypres and ten of their number lie in Ramparts Cemetery. One of them is Lance Corporal Edward Angel in Row J, Grave 2, who, as his parents told the Imperial War Graves Commission for recording in the cemetery register, 'Also served at Gallipoli'. At the end of World War I, Sir Apirana Ngata, a Maori politician much involved in the raising of the Maori Battalion, wrote a song to welcome the battalion home and to remember those who never came back:

Headstone of Lance Corporal Edward Angel, New Zealand (Maori) Pioneer Battalion, Ramparts Cemetery (Lille Gate), Ypres.

The cemetery register reveals that Angel also served at Gallipoli.

[DVA]

Ngä mate tini!
Ngä mate tini, kei Paranihi,
Haria mai rä.
Kia tangihia ki te marae!
Te Hui aroha mou e te Wiwi
Ngau nei te aroha me te mamae.

The many who died,
the many who died in France
bring them to us (in spirit)
let us mourn them on this marae!
to this gathering of love for you
(who fought with) the French.
Love and sorrow bite deep.

There are 11 Australian graves at Ramparts, all of men who worked in support roles in salvage, headquarters, field ambulances, engineers and transports. Lance Corporal William Mawson, in Row B, Grave 11, was made Lance Corporal on 9 November 1917, the day of his death. He was killed putting up barbed wire towards Westhoek Ridge, five kilometres to the east. Buried closely together in Row C, Graves 5–7, are Privates Frederick Grainger, Robert Charles and Percy Haffenden of the Australian Salvage Corps. It was the job of the salvage men to scour the battlefield for useful recyclable material and these three were doing their job near Hell Fire Corner on the Menin Road on 16 September 1917 when they were killed. Private Constantine Aroney told the Australian Red Cross of Charles's death:

He was hit by a shell at 11 am whilst looking for salvage and was badly knocked about … [he] has a wife and daughter living near Melbourne. I saw his grave near Lille Gate at Ypres, also assisted to bury him and marked the grave with a cross bearing full details. A Church of England Minister … read the burial service.

Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau file, Private Robert Charles

Another witness described Charles as an 'oldish man', 1.7 metres tall, fair, thick set and red faced.

Today the ramparts of Ypres provide a place to walk, jog, or just sit. Fishing is a popular on the opposite bank of the moat. The moat is also famous for its white swans who, in 1917, could be seen swimming around the ramparts towards what is now Ypres’ most famous war monument, the Menin Gate:

The swans from the Lille Gate sailed around this morning. The cob, a great beauty, appears to have been wounded, one of the digits of his left wing looks as if it had been broken and set badly. The birds have become legendary. Their appearance at the Menin Gate foretells a peaceful day, their disappearance, no one knows whither, portends a bombardment.

Captain J C Dunn, The War the Infantry Knew 1914–1919, original edition 1938, Abacus, 1998, p.412

Australian soldiers in dugouts along the ramparts, Ypres, October 1917 [AWM E01139]

When you have finished your walk through Ieper you might like to visit the 'In Flanders Fields' presentation in the Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall). This fine display takes the visitor through the story of the battles around Ieper between 1914 and 1918 from both a local and an international perspective—see the museum's website.