Wervik's position on the Western Front meant it was fought over in both world wars, and the town carries that history quietly. There are war memorials in the town, and Wervik South Military Cemetery — maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission — holds the graves of soldiers who died in the fighting around here. The cemetery is typical of those that dot this entire stretch of Flanders: rows of identical white headstones in a carefully kept lawn, each one a particular name and date. The broader Ypres Salient battlefield begins roughly 15km to the east, and the flat, river-laced landscape between here and Ypres gives a sense of what the armies were fighting across — open ground, shallow drainage channels, and very little natural cover.