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Langemark-Poelkapelle (Municipality, Province of West Flanders, Belgium)

Municipal flag of Langemark-Poelkapelle - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 4 November 2006

Presentation of Langemark-Poelkapelle
Municipal flag of Langemark-Poelkapelle

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Presentation of Langemark-Poelkapelle

The municipality of Langemark-Poelkapelle (7,774 inhabitants on 1 January 2007; 5,253 ha) is located 10 km north of Ieper. The municipality of Langemark-Poelkapelle is made since 1976 of the former municipalities of Langemark (including Bikschote since 1970) and Poelkapelle.

Langemark-Poelkapelle is unfortunately mostly known because of the First World War. Like most of the villages in the region limited by Ieper, Westrozebeke, Passendale and Houthulst, the villages of Langemark-Poelkapelle were completely destroyed, so that even the roads were no longer visible. Most of its inhabitants fled to France and it was once believed that nobody could ever settle back in the region.
After the fall of Antwerp on 9 October 1914, the Belgian troops withdrew, along with their British and French allies, behind a line made of the Yser and the Ieper-Yser canal. On 7 October, the Germans nearly reached Ieper but they were stopped on the Katsberg and repelled to the canal. They seized Ieper on 14 October. Poelkapelle, Madonna and Bikschote were occupied by the Germans, whereas Langemark and Sint-Juliaan were not. During the "First Ieper Battle", the German Kinderregimenten (Childrens' regiments) attacked Langemark, to no avail. The frontline stabilized during the winter from the canal to Steenstrate, with a wide curve around Ieper known as the Ypres Salient. On 21 April 1915, the front was settled by Belgian, French (including colonial troops), British and Canadian divisions. The next day, the Germans experimented for the first time a new weapon, the poison gas. The gas was released from some 6,000 bottles grouped in batteries of 20-40 bottles each, which represent one bottle per meter of front line. The attack cause a breach of 6 km wide in the frontline and occupied Langemark and the Pilkem ridge.

Source: Municipal website

The first attack on Langemark was the opportunity for the German propaganda to create the so-called Langemarck myth. Quoting Jonathan Harwell, Williams College:

The myth of Langemarck is based on a single report from the German High Command on 11 November 1914. This report was repeated on the front pages of newspapers across the country. It read:
"We made good progress yesterday in the Yser sector. West of Langemarck, young regiments broke forward with the song Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles against the front line of enemy positions and took them. Approximately 2000 men of the French infantry line were captured and six machine guns were captured."
This account, in all probability, was not true. Most historians agree that there was never such a singing regiment of youth. At most, students made up 20% of the regiments in action that day, and it seems unlikely that they sang anything in the heat of battle, much less a patriotic hymn. In fact, the battle did not even take place at Langemarck, but rather near the town of Bixchote; the only reason anyone has offered for the error in the account is that Langemarck sounds more Germanic than the strangely spelled Bixchote. The High Command often produced false reports, under the belief that high morale was necessary to offset the material disadvantages of the German effort, and this appears to have been one such morale-boosting effort.
Nonetheless, this myth was to prove very important for Germany after the War. Langemarck was referred to more than almost any other battle. The myth (whether it was fictional or real is not really important) mobilized the emotions associated with youth, powerful emotions in a German attempting to rebuild itself after a devastating defeat. During the Weimar Republic, Langemarck was a rallying cry for those who placed their faith in the German spirit. Meetings were held; pilgrimages were made; books, poems, even musical pieces were written. This rhetoric became increasingly associated with the conservative Right, especially the National Socialists. One writer claimed in 1932 that "National Socialism and 'Langemarck' are one and the same." The sacrificial deaths of students were seen to have their fulfillment, even their resurrection, in the party of Hitler, who himself claimed to have served at Langemarck. Soon after the Second World War began, the military issued a communiqué reporting that "the Reich war flag is waving [again] over the monument to the German youth at Langemarck, the scene of the heroic struggle in 1914." Hitler himself soon made a pilgrimage to the site, paying his tribute to those whose legacy he believed himself to represent.

The French pilot Georges Guynemer crashed in Poelkapelle in 1917, but the exact circumstances of his end are still not known. Guynemer succeeded on 4 September 1917 to Captain Heurtaux as the leader of the Cigognes (Storks) fighter squadron. He was already a legendary pilot, with 53 officialy approved victories. Guynemer had a premonition of his death ("This is bound to happen, I will not come through.") However, knowing that the hierarchy had planned to withdraw him from the frontline and employ him as an instructor, he took off on 11 September 1917 on his Spad XIII Vieux Charles for a patrol over Langemark with Bozon-Verduraz. Around 9:25, he spotted Lieutenant Kurt Wissermann's Albatros over the village of Poelkapelle and went into a dive down to it. Bozon-Verduraz spotted eight Fokkers and lured them to him in order to help his leader, but he never saw him again. The Gazette des Ardennes reported that Guynemer had been shot down on the north-west of the southern cemetary of Poelkapelle. The Germans claimed to have bury him on the cemetary of Poelkapelle; in November 1917, they retracted, saying the funeral could not have been made before of the bombing. The rumor spread and all kinds of loose explanations were given: Guynemer indeed landed behind the German lines and was kept prisoner, Guynemer crashed in the North Sea. It was even alleged that Bozon-Verduraz had deliberately shot his leader.
The mystery was solved by Air Commodore Collishaw in 1967. Collishaw found that Guynemer had been flawn over by a group of German bombers; a burst shot by one of these planes seems to have killed Guynemer and cause his dive to Wissermann's Albatros. Collishaw also learned that Guynemer's fall had had several witnesses. A German military doctor and two soldiers were warned by civilians and could pick up Guynemer's papers; they noticed that he had been hit by a bullet in the forehead, a bullet in the shoulder and several bullets in the legs. They could not do more because they were attacked by three Camel bombers involved in a British bombing of the area. The next day, the German regiment was sent to Cambrai and the transfer of the doctor's report was postponed.
In the French historiography, Guynemer is placed along with several other pilots whose body was never founded (Nungesser and Coli, Mermoz, Guillaumet, Saint-Exupéry), which significantly contributed to the legends associated with him.

After François Pernot. Catalogue of the exhibition Guynemer, un mythe, une histoire, 1997.

The German military cemetary of Langemark is known as the Studentenfriedhof (Student's cemetary). There are 44,061 soldiers resting, included c. 12,000 non identified and 3,000 students from the voluntary corps, who gave the name of the cemetary.
The Welsh poet Ellis Humphrey Evans (1887-1917), better known under his Bardic name of Hedd Wyn (in Welsh, "white peace" or "blessed peace") is honoured in Langemark by a plaque awarded by the municipalities of Langemark-Poelkapelle and Ieper. Evans was killed on 31 July 1917 at the battle for Pilkem Ridge, the same days as the poet Francis Ledwidge. He spent most of his life as a shepherd in the farm of Ysgwrn. He won four Eisteddfod Chairs for his poems. An eisteddfod (from Welsh eistedd, sit) is a traditional Welsh literature, music and performance festival, dating back to the XIIth century and revived in the XVIIIth century. Evans was posthumously awarded the Bardic Chair at the 1917 National Eistedfood for his poem Yr Arwr (The Hero), written in the awdl verse form; the Western Mail reported:

Instead of the usual chairing ceremony the chair was draped in a black pall amidst death-like silence, and the bards came forward in long procession to place their muse-tribute of englyn or couplet on the draped chair in memory of the dead bard hero.

And Evans remained known as "the Bard of the Black Chair". The bard's story was related in the movie Hedd Wyn (1992, nominated for Oscar) by Paul Turner

Source: BBC - North Wales Arts

Ivan Sache, 4 November 2006

Municipal flag of Langemark-Poelkapelle

The municipal flag of Langemark-Poelkapelle is vertically divided red-blue with the municipal coat of arms overall.
According to Gemeentewapens in België - Vlaanderen en Brussel, the flag was adopted by the Municipal Council on 18 June 1987, confirmed by the Executive of Flanders on 13 October 1987 and published in the Belgian official gazette on 16 September 1988, as Twee even lange banen van rood en van blauw met op het midden het gemeentewapen.

The municipal website gives more details on the arms, which are officially described as:
Gedeeld 1. gegeerd van acht stukken van goud en van lazuur met een hartschild van keel, een schildhoofd van goud met een gaande leeuw vergezeld boven rechts van de hoofdletters C.I.L., het geheel van sabel 2. gevierendeeld 1. en 4. in keel een dubbele adelaar van zilver 2. en 3. gedwarsbalkt van zes stukken van keel en van goud (Per pale, I Gyronny eight pieces or and azur an escutcheon gules a chief or a lion passant surmonted dexter with the letters C.I.L. all sable, II Quarterly 1 and 4 gules a double-headed eagle argent 2 and 3 fessy six pieces gules and or).
The left part of the shield represents the arms of the ancient domain of Cleven, C.I.L. meaning Cleven in Langemark, whereas the right part of the shield represents the arms of the ancient domain of Gruijterzale, which belonged to the family Joigny van Pamele. Pamele is an ancient town that was incorporated to Oudenaarde long time ago; the lord of Oudenaarde and Pamele descended from the Counts of Loon and used their arms.
Langemark was originally granted arms by Royal Decree on 26 October 1955.

Arnaud Leroy, Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 4 November 2006