Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty ImagesMore than 800,000 soldiers on both sides of the war died in the blood and mud of the Ypres salient between 1914 and 1918. “I died in hell – they called it Passchendaele,” the soldier and poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote of the carnage that raged from 31 July until 10 November 1917. One hundred years on, we still stand together, gathering as so many do every night, in remembrance of that sacrifice.”Facebook Twitter Pinterest (LtoR) Queen Mathilde of Belgium, King Philippe of Belgium and West-Flanders province governor Carl Decaluw. In a gesture repeated every evening since 1928, bar a period of occupation during the second world war, the local buglers sounded their lament to those who were lost. That was followed by a specially written War Horse story, with a focus on Passchendaele, performed by its author, Michael Morpurgo.

Source: The Guardian July 30, 2017 18:51 UTC