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‘They took us through Ypres to Vlamertinghe and when we got there, the whole street as far as your eye could see was nothing but stretchers and blankets and walking wounded with blankets over their shoulders and half a dozen doctors working flat out.’ Private J. Vaughan, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (Imperial War Museum)

Sun-dappled trenches at Sanctuary Wood, much visited by tourists – but, according to veterans, approximating the front line of 1915

Memorial on the Bellewaerde Ridge and behind it the ground on which Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry made their stand

Three types of early machine-gun photographed before the war. Left Gardner, centre Maxim and on the right the Nordenfeldt, which so captivated the Kaiser (Imperial War Museum)

Spring 1915. Well-constructed front line dug-outs in the ‘quiet’ sector near Tlugstreet’ Wood (Imperial War Museum)

Winter in Flanders. Men of the London Rifle Brigade behind the breastworks at Tlugstreet’ Wood (Imperial War Museum)

Neuve Chapelle. Front line trench at Mauquissart looking towards Aubers Ridge (Imperial War Museum)

Neuve Chapelle. ‘I can’t tell you what it’s like to have these shells whistling over one’s head and bursting nearer and nearer. The noise is terrific and the shock of the explosions is terrible.’ Captain George Hawes, 3rd (City of London) Bttn. German bombardment falling behind British line (Imperial War Museum)

The pre-war 5 inch breech-loading gun the 11th Howitzer Battery took to France. On left Major ‘Steinthal’ who was suspended from command while his German antecedents were investigated and who returned as Major Petrie.

Artist Norman Tennant’s drawing of the episode when the ‘nasty little short-arsed’ Major who took Steinthal’s place put him on a charge for ‘cruelty to a horse’

An artist’s impression of the battlefield of Neuve Chapelle

Neuve Chapelle. For want of anything better haystacks were burrowed out to serve as makeshift observation posts and also, as in the photo, Divisional or Brigade headquarters (Imperial War Museum)

Memorial to Arthur Agius’s friend Cyril Crichton erected on the spot where he was killed at Port Arthur, Neuve Chapelle

Neuve Chapelle. The German machine-gun post that decimated the Scottish Rifles, photographed after its capture… (Imperial War Museum)

… and the bodies of the men mown down by its lethal fire (Imperial War Museum)

Site of the once-infamous Layes Bridge redoubt

This was the shell-scarred crucifix from Neuve Chapelle churchyard, now inside the church

A German dug-out later erected on the site of the strongpoint that thwarted the troops at Neuve Chapelle. The village is in the background

German ‘stinkpioneren’ experimenting with gas before the attack at Ypres on 23 April (Imperial War Museum)

British gas equipment similar to that used at Loos, ready for discharge in 1916 (Imperial War Museum)

The Regular Army. Troops of the 2nd Lancashires in a mine crater blown during the battle for Aubers Ridge (Imperial War Museum)

Kitchener’s Army. Officers in the making (Imperial War Museum)

Panorama of Ypres from the German lines, marked with artillery ranges (Imperial War Museum)

Ypres, April 1915. ‘There were empty spaces in the streets, and heaps of rubble where a house once stood. The central tower of the great Cloth Hall blackened by fire, lacked two of its four spires…’(Imperial War Museum)

Ypres, July 1915. The safest billets for miles. The soldiers live like troglodytes in the casemates and passages in the old ramparts (Imperial War Museum)

Ypres, 1915. ‘All of us are deeply dispirited. After battling for six months against all these adversities, we must now resign ourselves to abandoning all our belongings. What will be left when we return?’ Aimé van Nieuwenhove (Imperial War Museum)

Ypres, 1915. Dead horses in the Cloth Hall Square. ‘I have got permission to stay with ten men burying the dead, interring horses. We are virtually alone.’ Father Camille Dalaere (Imperial War Museum)