More pictures from the Armistice Centenary commemorations in Mons, as our own coverage of the 2014-2018 events marking the 100th anniversary of the First World War comes to an end.
Others can be found in our reports from the opening of the George Price Memorial at Ville-Sur-Haine, the new tribute to the last Canadian and Commonwealth soldier killed in action – and the remembrance service held at St Symphorien Military Cemetery, both on November 10.
On Armistice Day itself, Sunday November 11, the Grand’ Place was the setting for two parades marking the centenary of the 1918 ceasefire ending the Great War.
Mons was where the British Expeditionary Force clashed with the German Army clashed for the first time on the Western Front in August 1914. The return of Allied troops came just as the Armistice was being agreed, with Canadian soldiers entering the city to liberate its people after more than four years of German occupation.
For the Centenary, many buildings in the centre of Mons were draped in Canadian flags – and the red and white ‘Maple Leaf’ was beamed into the Hotel de Ville (town hall) as part of a spectacular son-et-lumière show.
Prayers at St Symphorien Military Cemetery, at the conclusion of the remembrance service hosted by Canada.
Corporal Reinhold Dietrich, a German soldier who died on 28 October 1918, was among those commemorated with a wreath-laying during the service. Tributes were also placed at the graves of John Parr – the first British soldier killed in WW1,on 21 August 1914; George Ellison, the last British soldier to die in action on 11 November 1918; and George Price, the last Canadian, shot two minutes before the Armistice took effect.
The Last Post is sounded at the George Price Memorial, on a newly-landscaped site bordering the Ville-sur-Haine Canal, where the last Commonwealth soldier fell at 10.58am on 11 November 1918.
Princess Astrid of Belgium laid the first wreath, followed by Canada’s Governor General, Julie Payette, and the Belgian Prime Minister, Charles Michel.
As the sun set, the British and German Ambassadors to Belgium, Alison Rose and Martin Kotthaus, stepped forward together to place their wreaths.
George Price’s nephew, George Barkhouse, stands alongside the memorial after the ceremonies.
Armistice Day in Mons
Bells rang across the city in celebration of its liberation 100 years ago, and the moment the guns of the Great War at last fell silent.
The morning of November 11 opened with an ecumenical service at the Collegiate Church of St Waudru. Afterwards, Peter Dowd, Member of Parliament for Bootle – Mons’ UK twin town on Merseyside – placed a poppy cross at the memorial to the one million dead of Britain and its then empire in 1914-18.
Mons War Memorial in the Place du Parc, with the flame of remembrance lit.
Pipers recreate the 1918 parade of the Royal Highlanders of Canada pipe band through Mons. An act of remembrance was held in the Grand’ Place, commemorating George Price and the moment the Armistice came into effect at 11 o’clock on the morning of 11 November 1918.
The parade entering the Grand’ Place, halting briefly before taking up positions in front of the Hotel de Ville.
A replica Mark IV British tank from Poelcapelle, in Flanders, was stationed in the Grand’ Place for the day’s events.
Re-enactors enter the Grand’ Place for the Liberation Parade, the finale of the Armistice Centenary weekend.
The assembled parade of Belgian, Canadian, British, French and German troops on the Grand’ Place.
All images: Centenary News