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The Ypres Times.
A FEW YEARS AGO.
A Quiet and Sleepy Town.
By ALASDAIR MACGREGOR.
No name rekindles more precious memories than that of Ypresa town which in mediaeval
times was the industrial centre par excellence of the old world, and where all the great
western merchants were wont to rendezvous. But this pristine grandeur had long since
passed and gone, and the old-world Flemish city had become indolent and sleepy amid
the shadows of its antiquity. Before the war Ypres was really one of the loveliest and
dreamiest towns in all Europe, situated in an almost forgotten corner in the fertile plains
of Western Flanders. Like Bruges, it had silently crept into decay. Its munificence
and sumptuousness had gone. It was Ypres la Morte. Nothing seemed surer than
that Ypres would never again make history. But here is one of the most striking examples
of history repeating itself, for Ypres did make history again. And in so doing the last
traces of its splendour vanished so swiftly and so completely, and for ever. For those
The Cloth Hall: Interior of the Salle PanelsOctober, 1914.
of us who were fortunate enough to see it before its destruction, there remains in the
memory the perfect picture of its silence which was seldom disturbed except, perhaps,
by the occasional rattle of some old cart or brougham over the cobble-stones of its narrow,
winding streets, or by the chimes from the ancient Belfry which re-echoed of bygone days.
And then there are recollections of the moss-grown portes and ramparts, which cast
their long shadows across the mirrored waters of the canals and moats. One remembers,
too, the clusters of venerable buildings, which basked in the sunlight of a glorious
summer day or slumbered peacefully amid the mystic restfulness of the gloom. Could
any picture have been more complete That was Ypres before the war.
But times had changed, and the earliest impressions of entering Belgium under
somewhat different conditions were ever so piquant. Day was just breaking as we crossed
the frontier near the little hamlet of Abeele, and soon it was possible to discern the tops
