Ypres then and now 11 November 1917: Soldiers stand at the ramparts in Ypres, Belgium, during the first world war. The town was reduced to ruins during the four years of the war as it held a strategic position on the route of the German advance into France, the Schlieffen Plan. December 2013: the scene today. In 1920, the decision was made to rebuild Ypres exactly as it was before the war with its medieval and renaissance architecture reconstructed and its remaining fortifications restored.
