Why was Flanders important in World War 1??

Answer 1

If you're asking why Flanders was important in WWI, it was because the area was generally flat with one long ridge occupied by the German army. If that ridge could be breached by the Allies, they could attack the German industrial complex at Ruhr. If the allies could take out the German industrial complexes, they could stop the manufacture of more weaponry. The fact that the battle was aimed at the highest elevation in Flanders also gave the Allies better visibility of the German advances.

Answer 2

It was not only important in WWI, but in many other wars before that. It has been called by one leading historian 'The Fatal Corridor'. It is flat and leads, with little difficulty, straight into Central Europe. The term encompasses not only southern Belgium but parts of Northern France - where the Battle of Agincourt was fought. Lord Grey, the British emissary at the Congress of Vienna knew its importance and wanted a bulwark state there to protect Britain. He was proved right for, during that very Congress, the Battle of Waterloo was fought in Flanders.

Answer 3

Flanders was the area near the northern end of the continuous trench systems which ran from the Swiss border to the sea.

It was at the northern end that battles invlolving British troops took place (French divisions held the central and southern regions). The battles which are significant in British history from 1914 to 1918 happened in Picardie and Flanders; almost at the end of the war American troops were fed into the Argonne area in this sector.

Answer 4

because this always was and is the most direct route to the coastal ports in the channel ( Calais, Dunkirk , .. )
The only natural obstacle that the Germans didn't succeeded in taking where the low hills around yper and the water barrier at the ijzer river. This where the last obstacles after that it was just a plain landscape whit no possibility to stop a army so the Germans could easily cut off the army's deeper in France once they had the seaports
Therefore that many old towns in that region where fortify starting in the early middle ages until the WWI city's like Mons, Rijsel, Yper ( with his Vauban walls around the city center ) Menen, Veurne because it was a important invasion route in to France and the other direction also of course

Answer 5

FLANDERS was the term given to belgium at the time of the war britain entered the war because belgium / flanders was invaded and the trenches went from the german border and through flanders region i.e. southern belgium

Answer 6

There is an American cemetery called "Flanders Field". There were intense battles there during the war. Lt-Col John McRae wrote the poem "In Flanders Field" in 1915 after witnessing the death of his friend.

Answer 7

It was where many of the important battles on the Western Front were fought