YPRES HONOURED.

Otaki Mail, Volume XXVIII, 19 April 1920, Page 4

YPRES HONOURED.

THE MILITARY CEOSS. Recently it was announced that the King would shortly pay a .visit to Belgium, and that he would confer the Military Cross on the city of Yprcs. In doing so the King will follow the precedent which he established last year in decorating Dunkirk which, as an advanced base of the Dover Patrol and ■if the Royal-Air Force, in addition to its important role as a Trench naval and aviation base, suffered grievously from bombardment by German aeroplanes and long-range guns. The custom of conferring military decorations on French and Belgian towns which i.ave played important parts in war is a somewhat novel one to the British mind, possibly because of our long immunity from invasion. One of the last DiUcial acts of President I'oiucare ouring a visit to Belgium last January was the decoration of Ypres with the Croix do Guerre.- Its defence forms so glorious a part oi" the British history of the war that the terms ft' its

'.'citation" by the Trench Minister of War are of special interest to British leader-. It is as follows: "The town of Ypres: Au heroic, town which, without losing either courage or confidence, received valiantly the hardest, and most murderous blows. Xu the course of the bitterest struggle, it has paid with its ruin for tin; victorious resistance of its defenders." In view of it- war record Ypres is indeed worthy of decoration by the King.