Special Last Post for Armistice Day

In Ypres yesterday, a special edition of  the daily Last Post ceremony was held to mark the 96th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Flemish minister-president Geert Bourgeois laid a wreath under the Menin Gate, in the company of West Flanders governor Carl Decaluwé, Ypres mayor Jan Durnez, speaker of the Flemish parliament Jan Peumans and ambassadors from Commonwealth countries whose war dead are listed in the monument’s inscriptions.

Exceptionally, the ceremony was held at 11.00, the hour at which the guns fell silent on November 11, 1918, following the signing of the Armistice. The Last Post ceremony has been held every evening at 20.00 since 1928 – with the exception of during the Second World War occupation, when it was moved to Brookwood Cemetery in England. 

Later in the day, there were remembrance ceremonies in Saint-Charles de Potyze cemetery in Ypres, at the Tyne Cot cemetery in Zonnebeke and at the Langemark German cemetery in Poelkapelle, as well as a commemoration concert in Sint-Maarten’s cathedral.

In Brussels, King Philippe took part in the traditional November 11 ceremony at the monument to the Unknown Soldier, which was followed by a 21-gun salute and a minute of silence. Wreaths were also laid by representatives of the parliament, the government and the judiciary, as well as police, military, Nato and foreign troops in Belgium.

The king spoke to some of the surviving veterans of other wars who were present. The last Belgian veteran of the First World War, Cyrillus-Camillus Barbary, died in 2004 at the age of 105.

Later in the day, a ceremony of remembrance was held in the federal parliament, attended by 500 children from the various provinces and by war veterans.

The day before Armistice Day was also an occasion for commemoration in Zonnebeke, West Flanders, where the annual ceremony was held to mark the anniversary of the end of the Battle of Ypres, which took place on November 10, 1917.  At the same time, a new monument was unveiled at Tyne Cot cemetery to the British Bedfordshire regiment.

photo: Sandro Delaere/BELGA