8 Aug '14

Tourism Flanders launches Flanders Fields Post abroad

Summary

Flanders' tourist agency has published The Flanders Fields Post, a newspaper with information on the First World War and visiting sites in the region, in the style of the old Wipers Times

Based on Wipers Times

Tourism Flanders has launched a First World War newspaper in locations across the UK, Ireland, the US and Canada. The Flanders Fields Post is based on the historic The Wipers Times, a satirical newspaper created by British captain Frederick J Roberts during the war.
 

Titled after the British soldiers’ nickname for Ypres, The Wipers Times tried to put a bright spot into British soldiers’ lives through articles peppered with dark humour, poking fun at officers and advertisement such as “for sale: front line”. Twenty-three editions were published between 1916 and 1918.

The Flanders Fields Post, which plans just one edition, is presented in the same style but with information about the war and visiting sites in Flanders. The papers were handed out on the streets last Monday, in honour of the 100-year anniversary of the invasion of Belgium, by costumed paperboys hollering at passers-by: “Hundred years World War One! Get your free copy of The Flanders Fields Post!”

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First World War

Claiming the lives of more than nine million people and destroying entire cities and villages in Europe, the Great War was one of the most dramatic armed conflicts in human history. It lasted from 1914 to 1918.
Flanders Field - For four years, a tiny corner of Flanders known as the Westhoek became one of the war’s major battlefields.
Untouched - Poperinge, near Ypres, was one of the few towns in Flanders that remained unoccupied for most of the war.
Cemetery - The Tyne Cot graveyard in Passchendaele is the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world.
550 000

lives lost in West Flanders

368 000

annual visitors to the Westhoek

1 914

First Battle of Ypres

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