As poppies bloom amidst the shattered ruins of Ypres, units of British cavalry advance towards an area of heavy fighting during the Second Battle of Ypres, spring 1915.

At 17.00 hrs on the sunny afternoon of 22 April 1915, French troops manning the Allied front lines near Ypres noticed something strange in no-man’s land; a misty cloud of green tinged vapour was rising from the German trenches and, carried by a gentle breeze, was rolling ominously towards them. It turned out to be chlorine gas, a poisonous asphyxiating substance being deployed as a weapon for the very first time. Within minutes the French troops were falling back, eyes stinging, coughing and soon vomiting as the moist green droplets found their way down into lungs forming deadly hydrochloric acid.

This savage attack marked the beginning of the bloody Second Battle of Ypres, one of the most costly battles of the Great War. Yet despite breaking through the Allied salient, the success of their initial gas attack surprised even the Germans who failed to follow up their might-have-been rout. As British and Canadian reinforcements successfully fought to stem the advancing Germans, the ensuing battle ground on for another month. Despite their repeated use of gas the Germans would eventually gain just a few miles before events concluded once again in stalemate.

In his poignant drawing Heading to the Front artist Richard Taylor has selected a moment during the Second Battle of Ypres as a tribute to all those Allied soldiers who fought during the Great War. The city of Ypres, within range of German artillery, lies mostly in ruins yet beside the road poppies bloom, their blood red petals in stark contrast to the drab khaki of the British 2nd Cavalry Division heading towards the fighting. In a field hospital nearby a Canadian medical officer called John McCrae was penning the beginnings of a soon- to-be famous poem:

‘In Flanders fields the poppies blow
between the crosses, row on row,
that marks our place; and in the sky
the larks, still bravely singing, fly
scarce heard amid the guns below.’