Battle of the Lys

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Western Front
Frontiers – Liège – Antwerp – Great Retreat – Race to the Sea – Neuve Chapelle – 2nd Ypres – 2nd Artois – Hill 70 – 3rd Artois – Loos – Verdun – Hulluch – Somme – Arras – Vimy Ridge – 2nd Aisne – Messines – Passchendaele – Cambrai – Lys – 3rd Aisne – Belleau Wood – 2nd Marne – Château-Thierry – Hamel – Hundred Days

Portuguese forces in trenches at the Lys, 1918.

British and Portuguese captured by German forces in the Flanders region (1918)

British 55th (West Lancashire) Division troops blinded by tear gas during the battle, 10 April 1918.

The Battle of the Lys (also known at the 4th Battle of Ypres and the Battle of Estaires) was part of the 1918 German offensive in Flanders during the First World War, originally planned by General Ludendorff as Operation George but scaled back to become Operation Georgette, with the objective of capturing Ypres. Starting on 9 April 1918, the battle lasted until 29 April.

In one of the greatest failures in the military history of Portugal, the 2nd Portuguese Division, approximately 20,000 men commanded by General Gomes da Costa (later President of Portugal), lost about 300 officers and 7,000 men, killed, wounded and prisoners, resisting the attack of four German divisions, with 50,000 men of 6th German Army, commanded by General Ferdinand von Quast, in the first day of the German offensive.