This year special ceremonial events are being held to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War I. They will take place in both Paris and in Ypres, the Belgian town that was the scene of so much death and devastation during the 1914-18 war.

On Remembrance Sunday the Royal Family will gather at the Cenotaph war memorial in Whitehall, London, with war veterans for the traditional ceremony.

There will be a two minute silence at 1100 GMT.

The veterans will parade past the memorial and march down Whitehall into Horse Guards Parade. The Cenotaph ceremony will be matched by thousands around the country at local war memorials.

80th armistice anniversary

The Queen will also attend the 80th anniversary ceremonies in France and Belgium

World War I ended at 1100 GMT on 11 November 1918. The historic armistice was actually signed much earlier in the morning but those gathered decided that by 11 o'clock the news of peace would have had time to reach all the men along the front.

On 11 November Queen Elizabeth II and the French President Chirac will attend the special 80th anniversary armistice ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

There will be a two minute silence and then thousands of troops will march down the Champs Elysee in World War I uniform. The Queen will also unveil a statue of Winston Churchill marking the former British prime minister's role in World War II.

Later in the same day the Queen will fly to Ypres where she will meet King Albert of Belgium and the Irish President, Mary McAleese. A ceremony will be held to dedicate a new memorial made out of Ulster Stone, called the Peace Tower, to the 50,000 Protestant and Catholic Irishmen who are buried nearby.

At the Menin Gate, the war memorial that carries the names of 55,000 men whose bodies were never found, there will be a special act of remembrance.

The Allies defended Ypres against enemy attacks in World War I

The gate is named after the Menin Road, which was the main road leading east from the Flanders town. It was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting during the first and third battles and became a lasting symbol of national sacrifice.

The Queen and King Albert will lay a wreath and listen to the last post at the memorial before meeting the veterans, who will have travelled far to attend the ceremony.

The battles of Ypres

There were three battles at Ypres, or "Wipers" as it was popularly known among the British, during World War I.

In 1914, from 19 October to 21 November, the ruins of the Flanders town were grimly defended by the BEF, the (British Expeditionary Force) known as the Old Contemptibles. In the first German offensive on the Ypres salient the BEF lost more than 58,000 men, 80% of its force.

Historians estimate up to 10 million were killed in World War I

In spring of 1915 the Germans began another offensive in which chlorine gas was used for the first time, and again losses were high.

The third battle of Ypres in 1917 is also known as Passchedaele. It resulted in more than 400,000 British casualties and 300,000 German casualties.