Kemmelberg

thumb|The Kemmelberg, as seen from the west thumb|1918 painting of the Kemmelberg by Richard Carline, depicting battles of World War I The Kemmelberg (, ) is a hill formation in Flanders, Belgium. It is located less than a kilometre from the village of Kemmel, part of the municipality of Heuvelland in the province of West Flanders. The Kemmelberg is the highest point in the province with an altitude of , this is the geodetic point with mark Ch63.1, as measured by the National Geographical Institute (NGI) in Brussels in October 1951 via optical levelling. ==History== The earliest settlements on the Kemmelberg date to 2,500 ago, when Celtic tribes of the Hallstatt culture populated the area. The hill takes its name from Camulos, the Celtic god of war.

During World War I, it was the location of one of the war's most ferocious battles, the Fourth Battle of Ypres, because of its strategic importance. On 25April 1918, German imperial forces, hoping to force a breakthrough to the North Sea, started attacking the French troops on the Kemmelberg with gas grenades. At 6 a.m. the German Alpenkorps seized and captured the Kemmelberg, causing Allied troops to withdraw from all the hills in the region. Thousands of French soldiers were killed. Several streets and army barracks in Germany were named after this event (Kemmel-Privatweg in Magdeburg, Kemmelkaserne in Murnau). Friedrich Sixt von Armin and Prince Franz of Bavaria were commanders, but Karl Höfer was celebrated as the hero of Kemmelberg — the Held vom Kemmelberge. It was recaptured during the Battle of the Peaks of Flanders in late September 1918, as a precursor to the Armistice of 11 November 1918.