Université Lille 3
Première année de Master Enseignement de l'anglais
The Commonwealth WarThe Commonwealth War
Graves in the North of FranceGraves in the North of France
Mémoire préparé sous la direction de M. Philippe VERVAECKE
Présenté et soutenu par Benoit DAMBRINE
Année universitaire 2011/2012
Acknowledgements
I would first like to thank Philippe Vervaecke, lecturer at the University of Lille 3,
for his time and suggestions in the making of this master's dissertation.
Several people and organisation played an important role by helping me gather all the
information needed to write on this subject: Alexandra Baye from the Commonwealth War
Graves Commision of Beaurains, who is the Communication and Public Relation Assistant
of this organisation's office in the France Area, Nathalie Legrand, from the Centre de
Documentation of the Historial de la Grande Guerre in Péronne who gathered for me the
cemetery registers that were archived. David Avery, a British amateur historian also helped
me by sending me pictures of the Imperial War Graves final verification form. During my
visits to the Archives Départementales of the Nord and the Pas-de-Calais and the different
libraries in Lille 3 I always found a very helpful and available staff who gave me great
advice on where to find the information I was looking for.
I would also like to express my gratitude to Juliette Lebrun, Pierre-Antoine Willoquaux and
my parents, Maryse and Hervé Dambrine, for their help and support in the adventure that
writing a master's dissertation is.
It is also an honour to write about the men who fell and gave their young life far
from their home to defend our country.
- LEST WE FORGET -
(Front page picture: the entrance of the Duisans British Cemetery. Credits: author's own
collection)
Summary
Acknowledgements................................................................................................................2
Introduction............................................................................................................................4
I. The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission............................................8
A. The British Empire in the Great War......................................................................8
B. The creation of the Imperial War Graves Commission........................................13
C. The decisions taken at the end of the War............................................................14
II. The Cemeteries and Memorials in the North of France...................................................18
A. The implantations.................................................................................................18
B. How a cemetery is made......................................................................................21
C. The graves of the fallen soldiers..........................................................................27
D. The families of the soldiers..................................................................................40
E. The records...........................................................................................................44
III. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission today and tomorrow. ...........................46
A. Finding missing soldiers......................................................................................46
B. The Ceremonies....................................................................................................48
C. The tourism of the battlefields and the war graves..............................................50
D. The future of the Commission.............................................................................52
Conclusion............................................................................................................................54
Bibliography.........................................................................................................................56
Appendices...........................................................................................................................62
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Introduction
If you happen to be driving in the North of France on the road D937, a road that
goes from Arras, the county town of the Pas-de-Calais, to Souchez, a small town near the
old coalfields, you will go through a few villages and on the way you will see an incredible
number of war memorials and cemeteries. It starts in the village of Neuville Saint Vaast
where in the entrance there is a German cemetery, further and on the other side of the road
lay a British military cemetery backing on to a French one. A few blocks away stands a
French War memorial to the dead, followed by a private First World War museum. The
road leads on to the countryside, where right next to the D937, are facing two memorials: a
Polish and a Czech WW1 memorial. From this point you can clearly see at a distance the
destroyed abbey of Mont St Eloi, along with the destroyed church of Ablain Saint Nazaire,
both bombed during the Great War and never rebuilt, being now testimonies of the past. If
you look north, what will probably strike you first is Notre Dame de Lorette, one of the
biggest French military cemeteries, that stands on a hill above Souchez. If you look east,
you will not miss the shape of the two gigantic white stones splitting the woods of Vimy,
this shape is the one of the Canadian Memorial of Vimy Ridge, a must-see site for anyone
interested in the history of the First World War in the North of France. You are now
entering the town of Souchez and the first human construction at the entrance of the town
is the large British cemetery of Cabaret Rouge. A few meters after one finds the new
French memorial to the soldiers of the Pas-de-Calais who fell during the Algerian War.
Next to it is found the memorial to the 77 th division of the French Army led by the General
Barbot, who fought along the Canadians to defend Vimy Ridge. In a radius of ten
kilometres lie approximately 200,000 war graves.
You have now crossed many constructions meant to honour the men who died
during the wars and you have only travelled eight kilometres. It shows how much damage
the two world wars have done in the North of France, in terms of destruction and
casualties. The reason is simple: the German Army invaded France in 1914 and 1940, both
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times by going through the flat region of the Flanders, where moving an entire army was
fast and easy. After the wars, cemeteries were built throughout the North to bury the
casualties and French people living in the North are very aware of the cost of the war as
they are reminded of it each time they drive or walk by a military cemetery. But while there
are a few French and German cemeteries along the Western Front, there are exactly 14251
Commonwealth cemeteries found in the North, the Pas-de-Calais and the Somme regions.
Those cemeteries are also scattered along the Western Front where the Commonwealth
forces fought during the First World War, drawing a line passing through Armentières,
Lens, Arras, Bapaume and Cambrai. In the area of Arras, where you can find the most
important concentration of Commonwealth cemeteries in the world, people say that
wherever you are in the countryside, there is always a cemetery in sight.
But why are there so many Commonwealth cemeteries compared to the other
nations who took part in the conflict? This particularity resides in the fact that any soldier
of the Commonwealth who died in the field of action or because of wounds inflicted during
the fight was to be buried where he died. There was no repatriation of the bodies and there
was no exception to the rule, a rule that gave birth to an impressive number of cemeteries
sometimes found in very remote areas. Those cemeteries are under the care of the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which was formerly the Imperial War Graves
Commission, a worldwide organization founded in 1917 by Sir Fabian Ware which has the
goal of maintaining the graves of the Commonwealth soldiers who are buried where the
Queen's forces fought: in Turkey, Italy, South Africa, India, Hong Kong, the Falkland
Islands, and many other places in the world. But most of its job lies on the remains of the
battlefields of the Western Front, or more precisely, the North of France and a bit of
Belgium. Exactly 574,9452 war dead of the Commonwealth are buried in Northern France
and are under the care of the Commission. Many books have been written on the history of
the Commonwealth War Graves Commission or on a particular battle in which the British
Army was involved, very often written by British historians for British people. But nothing
has been written on what I intend to talk about in this dissertation: The Commonwealth
War Graves in the North of France.
1 “Listing of Cemeteries” Excel file given by the Commonwealth War Graves Commision of Beaurains. 2 Commonwealth War Graves Commission Annual Report 2010-2011
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Indeed, I intend to cast a another look on the matter, by someone about the same
age as the soldiers who fell on the battlefields and who, while growing up, has always seen
those cemeteries as part of the natural landscape, just like trees, roads and railways.
Writing this dissertation is probably a way to give an answer to all the questions I have
been asking myself about the Commonwealth War Graves in the part of France where I
grew up, and I will try to answer most of the questions one could ask on the matter: After
the creation of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, what response could be given
to the burials and registering of the dead soldiers? When creating the cemeteries, what
form should the cemeteries and memorials take to honour the dead? Almost a hundred
years after the beginning of WW1, what is the mission of the CWGC3 and what is done to
honour the soldiers who gave their life?
The particularity I have to answer those questions is the geographical proximity I
have with the subject itself: I am surrounded by cemeteries, the France Area office of the
CWGC is three kilometres away from where I live and lays near the old fighting front on
the outskirts of Arras. This research is therefore both a field research and an academic
research, with the chance of having access to precious primary sources not used before.,
like the visitor's books, the epitaphs found the graves, the engraved regiment and national
badges in each cemeteries and many others. Studying this subject gave me the opportunity
to travel around the region, visiting memorials and cemeteries, attending ceremonies,
meeting people who had a direct link with the cemeteries (British gardeners working in
France, Canadian families on a trip to a relatives graves, etc.) , being taken on a tour of the
office and workshop of the CWGC in Beaurains, etc. Now that the material needed for this
research has been gathered, here is how I will explain the well-known fact that those
cemeteries in the North of France are the result of an immense and arduous work from the
CWGC, who did their best to give the fallen soldiers a moving and immaculately
maintained place to rest to show the future generations the price that was paid for freedom.
3 Abbreviation of “Commonwealth War Graves Commission”, which will be used throughout the text.
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In Chapter I, I will deal with the creation of the CWGC in the aftermath of the war,
as it was the solution to the no-repatriation policy that caused problems for the families and
for the care of those new cemeteries who started appearing behind the trenches as soon as
the war started. The decisions taken at the end of WWI will also be discussed, decisions
such as the debate over the architecture of the cemeteries, the way to help the families in
finding out more about their buried relatives or even the international agreements with the
countries inside the Commonwealth and the countries where the battle took place,
countries such as France, the most damaged of all.
In Chapter II, we will first deal with the implantation of the cemeteries in the
particular case that the North of France is, then we will focus in detail on the creation of
cemeteries and memorials on a technical level , along with the history behind the graves of
the soldiers, each one being similar to the others and unique at the same time. The visits of
the families and their work of mourning and remembrance are to be studied. The way the
records were archived and made public will also be closely looked at, in its evolution
throughout the years and its relation with the families of the soldiers.
In Chapter III, we will give an outlook of the CWGC and its cemeteries in the
North of France almost a century after the war, as new casualties are being found and new
cemeteries are being built, like the Fromelles Australian Cemetery. Of course the older
cemeteries are not left unattended and they are witness of a close care all year round, and
are often places of commemoration during national and international anniversaries. The
tourism and tours created around those famous places of the First World War are a sign of
the importance of those cemeteries and memorials for people from all the countries
involved in the conflict. Finally, we will end by the question of the future of those resting
places and the CWGC.
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I. The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
A. The British Empire in the Great War
1. The casualties of the Empire
The United Kingdom entered the war with the help of conscripts, of many
volunteers and the participation of six other members of the British Empire, namely:
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa and India. When those
nations took part in one of the bloodiest conflicts humanity has ever seen, they were
principally involved in the fights in France and were witnesses of the horror of the trenches
of the Western Front.
Those members of the Empire bravely fought and many gave their lives sometimes
very far away from their home. Here are a few details of the actions and casualties of each
nation:
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Illustration 1: Map of the the Western Front with repartitions of the different armies. Credits: www.greatwar.co.uk
The United Kingdom
In the First World War, the United Kingdom lost exactly 440,697 men in the
battlefields of Northern France. The first regiment that left for France was the British
Expeditionary Forces, in August 1914. After a few weeks, the casualties were such that this
regiment stopped to exist and was replaced by other regiments of conscripts and volunteers
who had just finished their training. The United Kingdom was involved in major battles of
the First World War: Loos, The Somme, Arras, Cambrai, and smaller ones. Most of the
time they were helped by at least another member of the British Empire.
Canada
There are 39, 714 Canadian soldiers who gave their life in the North of France,
being the second highest number of war dead of the Empire on the Western Front. The
Canadian story in WW1 started when the first Infantry Regiment arrived in January 1915.
The fought at Neuve-Chapelle but quickly moved to Ypres. In 1916 they took part in the
Battle of The Somme. In August 1917, most of the Canadian Regiments met for one of
their most famous battle: the taking of Hill 70, in Vimy Ridge, a place where the Canadian
memorial now stands. They also fought in Amiens, Arras, Villers-Bretonneux and Cambrai.
Australia
This enormous island on the other side of the world lost 33,205 Australian soldiers
during the First World War, now buried in the ground of the North of France. The
Australian Imperial Force (A.I.F) first fought overseas before arriving in France in April
1916. They took part in the first Battle of The Somme, nearby in Pozières and also further
in the North, in Arras. Their most famous engagement was at Villers-Bretonneux in April
1918. A memorial was erected there for the memory of the Australian soldiers who fought
thousands of miles away from their homeland.
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New Zealand
This small island near Australia lost 7,534 of her sons in the conflict in France and
as the Australians, those sons also fought overseas to secure some German territories
outside of Europe. The New Zealanders arrived in France at the same time as their
Australian neighbours: in April 1916, also to fight in the first Battle of The Somme. The
New Zealanders were then involved in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette and Morval. They
left to fight in Belgium in 1917 and came back to take Bapaume in 1918.
Newfoundland
This state only became a Canadian province in 1949. At the outbreak of the war
they very quickly created a regiment, the Newfoundland Regiment. Out of this regiment,
804 men died and are buried in France. They were first sent to Gallipoli (Turkey) and then
joined the Battle of The Somme in July 1916. They fought the end of the war in Belgium.
South Africa
This member fought as the Union of South Africa but then became the Republic of
South Africa when they left the Commonwealth in 1961. In 1914, its army gladly joined to
fight alongside with the British Army even though the last Anglo-Boer War just ended
twelve years before.
As many oversea countries, they first fought in Egypt and then were disembarked in
Marseilles in April 1916 to take part in the Battle of The Somme, in Delville Wood (where
the South African memorial now stands) and in Warlecourt. They moved north in 1917 to
fight in Arras. In 1918, the were part of the Battle of Le Cateau and reached their final
objective before the end of the war: to cross the River Selle. But this objective had a price
and now 3,461 South African men lay in the cemeteries of the North of France.
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India
India, being part of the British Empire, also fought in WW1 and a consequent
number of Indian soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice in the fields of Northern France:
exactly 8,065. They arrived in Europe as early as October 1914 and fought in Belgium
until March 1915 where they came to France and took action in Neuve-Chapelle (where
you can see the Indian Memorial now). They also fought in Loos and the Indian Cavalry
Corps remained in France until 1918.
2. The need for the families to know
The First World War was at its beginning believed to be a quick war that was going
to end by Christmas 1914. It did not. It lasted four years. Four years of slaughters that
brought each year its load of dead soldiers. Here is a chart of the repartition of soldiers
commemorated in the North of France by the year of their death.
Year of death Soldiers commemorated
1914 15125
1915 51388
1916 168467
1917 119477
1918 173874
1919 4131
In the first month of the war, more than a dozen thousand men had already died in
the North of France and a year later this number rose to 66,000. The no-repatriation policy4
of the British Empire caused the regiments to bury their dead in a hurry, behind the
trenches, and to mark their graves with a simple wooden cross (Appendix A p.64). This
4 See part B.2 The philisophy of the Commission
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was done when the bodies could be found or were not trapped in the middle of the no
man's land. The captain was responsible for taking record of the dead soldiers and their
place of burial but as some men were never found or identified, or the captain himself did
not take a record of the missing, any information on the death or the burial of a relative was
extremely hard to find for the families. Rudyard Kipling, the famous author of The Jungle
Book , received a note in 1915 stating that his beloved 18-years old son Lieutenant John
Kipling went missing during the Battle of Loos in September 1915. Kipling moved heaven
and earth to find out if his son was dead or still alive. In despair, he wrote a poem called
“Have you news of my boy Jack?”, copied below:
"Have you news of my boy Jack?"
Not this tide.
"When d'you think that he'll come back?"
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
"Has any one else had word of him?"
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
"Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"None this tide,Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind -Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.
Then hold your head up all the more,This tide,
And every tide;Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide.
Rudyard Kipling, 1915
Rudyard Kipling was not the only parent or relative to feel this way and something
had to be done as no organisation was responsible for the last resting places of the soldiers.
This is where Fabian Ware, a forty-five year old leader of a Red Cross unit, came and
played a major role in the creation of what is now an international organisation: The
Imperial War Graves Commission 5.
5 Former name of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. “Imperial” was judged inappropriate in 1960
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B. The creation of the Imperial War Graves Commission.
1. The founders of the Commission
Fabian Ware first arrived in France, in Lille, in September 1915. He was too old to
fight but wanted to help his country in the conflict and joined the Red Cross. He soon
realized that no organisation were responsible for the care and the record of the graves of
the soldiers and feared that they might disappear as the war goes on. This is how Ware's
unit started taking care or recording any cemetery they might encounter. In 1915, Ware's
unit was officially recognized and became the Graves Registration Commission. A new
unit was created in Paris and helped the families in answering the hundreds of inquiries
they received asking for information or photographs of the graves of their relatives. In
1917, 12000 photographs had been sent to the families.
But the task was such that Ware believed that an official commission should be
created, an organisation that would represent the Empire's immense effort of war and that
would treat equally each soldier and maintain their graves and cemeteries. With the
support of the Prince of Wales, Fabian Ware presented a memorandum to the Imperial War
Conference in May 1917. It ended by this sentence :
“THE DECISION which is asked of the Imperial Conference is as to whether the Governments of
which it is composed will approve of the creation either of an Imperial Joint Committee, or of a
statutory body of Commissioners, of which the Secretary of State for War (Chairman), the High
Commissioners for the Dominions, the Secretary State for India, The Secretary of State for the
Colonies on behalf of the Crown Colonies, or other duly accredited representatives […].
FABIAN WARE, Brigadier-General, Director of Graves Registration and Enquiries
WAR OFFICE 7th March, 1917.” 6
This memorandum was approved and by Royal Charter the Imperial War Graves
Commission was created.
6 From The National Archives – WO 32/9433
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2. The philosophy of the Commission
The policy of no-repatriation was applied by the participating governments to
ensure social equality between the men and allowed the Commission to honour them
together where they fell, as comrades. Not bringing the bodies home also had a practical
reason and avoided the travel of hundreds of thousands of coffins by boat. This policy was
reinforced by the values and aims of this new Commission which were laid out in 1917 and
still stand today. Those fundamental principles are the following:
• Each of the dead should be commemorated individually by name either on a
headstone over the grave or by an inscription on a memorial if the grave was
unidentified.
• Headstones and memorials should be permanent.
• Headstones should be uniform.
• There should be no distinction made on account of military or civil rank, race or
creed.
C. The decisions taken at the end of the War.
1. Architecture
Now that the Commission was created and its principles made public, the question
of the relation with the French and Belgian government over the properties on which the
cemeteries and memorials (Appendix B p.65) would stand and their architecture rose .
About the acquisition of lands, F. Ware answered in a memorandum dated 13 October 1917
called “MEMORANDUM on the Acquisition of Burial Grounds in France and Belgium”7
in which he states:
“The French Law of 29th December 1915, which, under your instructions, I negotiated
with the French Government provided for the acquisition in perpetuity (at the cost of the
French Nation) of the land required for the burial of French and Allied soldiers.”
Fabian Ware, Brig-General. D.G.R.&.E.
7 From the National Archives - WO32/9434 toWO32/9433
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This gift from the French nation was a small relief for the loss of half a million men
of the British Empire in the Flanders.
Now that the problem of the acquisition of the lands was solved, there was still a
big debate over the architecture of the future Imperial cemeteries and memorial. What form
should they take? What should the headstones be like? How much would it cost the
governments of the nations who fought? From the very beginning, the Commission sought
perfection and unity in the commemorative graves of the soldiers. For this, they decided to
hire three of the most famous architects at the time: Sir Edwin Lutyens, Sir Herbert Baker
and Sir Reginald Blomfield. They worked together and in 1917 sent a memorandum8
written by Lutyens to the Commissions stating that there should be “one kind of main
monument”, with a Stone of Remembrance, facing Westward, on which would be written
some words of dedication, along with a Christian “Cross of Sacrifice”, representing the
faith of the majority of soldiers and conceived by Blomfield. The “Great War Stone”,
being now the Stone of Remembrance was to represent the soldiers who had a different or
no religion, Rudyard Kipling was asked to take part in the process and gladly did by
choosing an excerpt from Ecclesiasticus (Sirach 44:14) to be engraved on the Stone of
Remembrance : “THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE” (Appendix C p.74). The
shape of the headstones caused great debates, as some were in favour of a Christian cross
and some in favour of a flat stone. The latter was chosen as it is more respectful of
everyone's faith, less complicated to maintain and allows more inscriptions on it9. Three
cemeteries were built to have an idea of which one the Commission was going to choose
and the Cemetery of Forceville, surrounded by small walls, with a Cross of Sacrifice and a
Stone of Remembrance, where plants and trees were carefully planted around the alley was
selected by the Commission. After a few modifications, Forceville became the standard to
follow to build the rest of the cemeteries, with the difference that the Cross of Sacrifice
was to be present in sites of over 40 burials and the Stone of Remembrance was to be built
in sites of over 400 burials.
8 Same archive as above9 French Military Cemeteries use Christian crosses for most of the soldiers and flat stones for Muslim and
Jewish soldiers.
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2. Finance
Building the 1425 cemeteries and memorials found in the North of France was an
enormous task and represented the majority of the Commission's worldwide work.
Rudyard Kipling wrote that this task was“The single biggest piece of work since the
Pharaohs, and they only worked in their own country.” This gigantic project was of course
not free and was supposed to cost millions of pounds. Financial cuts were made on
unnecessary details and the Commission aimed for great quality with cheap materials. The
financing of the Commission were discussed and the Imperial War Conference passed a
resolution10 on June 17, 1918 stating that the cost of the construction of cemeteries and
memorials was to be divided between the different members of the British Empire who
fought during the War “in proportion to the numbers of the graves of their dead.”. Here is
a chart of the percentages that each member pay each year.
10 From KIPLING Rudyard. The Graves of the fallen. London : H.M. Stationary Office, 1919. Page 37.
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Illustration 2: The Cross of Sacrifice (left) and the Stone of Remembrance (right) in a cemetery.
Government Percentage
United Kingdom 78,43
Canada 10,07
Australia 6,05
New Zealand 2,14
South Africa 2,11
India 1,2
Total 100
Percentages of contributions being made by partner governments.
CWGC Annual Report 2010-2011.
Another enormous task with the construction of the cemeteries was the indexing
and archiving of the records of the dead. Those records held the name, date of death,
regiment, rank number, family address and of course the name of the cemetery in which the
soldier is buried. The goal was to be able to answer any enquiry the families had. If an
enquiry did not lead to an answer because the soldier was not buried in a cemetery, it meant
that the body of the soldier was not found or identified. For those men, memorials were
built and their names were engraved on it. There were so many dead soldiers in this
situation that the Commission had to build a great number of memorials between 1923 and
1938.
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II. The Cemeteries and Memorials in the North of France.
A. The implantations.
1. Worldwide and in the North of France
There are 25,271 cemeteries and memorials in the entire world under the care of the
CWGC. Out of these, 2,942 are in the North of France, representing a total of 11.6% of the
number of cemeteries and memorials in the world. Let's not forget that the CWGC cares for
the graves of the dead in almost every country in the world, exactly 150 countries. A large
number of cemeteries are of course found in the United Kingdom itself and actually
represent about half the number of cemeteries in the world. Even though 11.6% might
seem a small number compared to the rest of the Commission's burial locations, those
11.6% commemorate the name of 576,734 soldiers of the British Empire out of the
1,709,030 soldiers under the care of the Commission, which means that 11.6% of the
cemeteries and memorials hold 33.7% of the total of soldiers who fell. The reason is
simple: there are some extremely large cemeteries and memorials in the North of France
and here are a few examples: The Thiepval Memorial holds the names of 72,205 soldiers,
the Arras Memorial 34,793 and there are 15 cemeteries and memorials in the North of
France that contains more than 4000 casualties. In the United Kingdom, the biggest
memorial is the Tower Hill Memorial of London with 35,752 names and there are less
cemeteries that hold more than 4000 casualties, there are 6 of them. So why such a big
difference? The CWGC buries a soldier as a war casualty if he died during battle or from
wounds caused in battle. Therefore, a great number of wounded soldiers during the first
and the second world war were repatriated to be cured in the United Kingdom and most
died of their wounds. In this case the soldier was buried in his home town, often in the
churchyard of a small village. This explains the 6,250 churchyards in the United Kingdom
that contains only 1 or 2 graves under the care of the Commission, being therefore
cemeteries of the CWGC. As a comparison, the average Commonwealth cemetery in
France holds about 30 graves.
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2. The particular case of the North of France
There is still an impressive number of cemeteries and war dead in the North of
France, but if you go around Lille, Douai or even Abbeville, you will not see many or even
not see one at all. Why? Because there were not battles around those cities or it was
occupied by the German army. The Queen's soldiers were buried behind the lines or where
they fell. Here is a map of the repartition of the cemeteries in the North of France and in
Belgium:
From this map we can see that there is a big concentration of cemeteries along the
front line especially in Belgium, in Arras and in the Somme, where major battles took
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Illustration 3: Map of the Cemeteries and Memorials in the North of France. Credits: Philip Longworth in “The Unending Vigil” (see bibliography)
place. There are also a few cemeteries elsewhere in the North of France. Those cemeteries
were usually places where there were Commonwealth reinforcement camps and hospitals.
For example, the Etaples Military Cemetery held an hospital that was remote from the front
lines and accessible by train from the battlefields. The men buried there died from the
wounds and injuries caused while fighting. Those more remote cemeteries and the
Commission's policy on who deserved to be buried in a military cemetery are responsible
for the official dates of the conflict given by the Commission: from the 4th of August 1914
to the 31 of August 1921 for the First World War and from the 3rd of September 1939 to the
31 of December 1947 for the Second World War, as many soldiers still died from wounds
after the conflict ended.
The very last soldier who died as a casualty from the First World War and who is
buried in France is the Sergeant Alfred Harman who died on August 19 1921 and is buried
in Les Baraques Military Cemetery in Sangatte. This cemetery was home of the last
Commonwealth forces who left France in 1921. WW2 is also delimited with unusual dates
by the Commission, those dates are different for the same reason that the dates of WW1.
WW2 was also fought in France and a little bit in the North of France where from
1939 the British Army fought in the Battle of France before the British Army fled from
Dunkirk and France signed the armistice with Nazi Germany in 1940. When Hitler invaded
France and took control of the “occupied zone”, the Commission was worried about what
would happen to the cemeteries and the memorials which had just been built. Hitler
himself answered the Commission by saying that no cemeteries or memorials would be
destroyed. He even toured on June 2 1940 the Vimy Memorial (Appendix D p.76) and the
nearby cemeteries of the Commission to show that they had not been destroyed by his
army. Hitler chose the Vimy Memorial as he himself fought against the Canadians there
during the battle of Vimy Ridge.11 Even if this war left the cemeteries and memorial
unbroken it caused the death of thousands of Commonwealth soldiers, either before and
during the Battle of France, during the occupation especially through aerial battles or even
after the landing in Normandy in the ally effort to push the German army out of France.
Those casualties were for the main part added to already existing cemeteries like the
Faubourg D'Amiens Cemetery and Memorial in Arras. In places where Commonwealth
11 Hitler also visited the nearby German military cemetery of Neuville St Vaast, where a path has been specially designed for him to take, a path that avoided the few graves of Jewish German soldiers of the First World War.
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soldiers fell that did not have a Commission cemetery nearby because no soldiers had died
there during the First World War, new cemeteries had to be created, like the Dunkirk
Memorial which holds the name of 4518 soldiers who died between 1940 and 1945. But
this case remained exceptional as there were existing cemeteries in many places in the
North , either on the left of the WW1 front line where there were hospitals, on the front line
itself of course and in the German lines taken at the end of 1918 during the German retreat.
Seeing it from this point of view, it is easy to understand the saying that in the
North of France, wherever you look you always see a British cemetery. Inhabitants of the
North of France are used to be surrounded by those reminders of the First World War: they
see the cemeteries on their way to work, they visit the museums with foreign friends, they
find bullets and shells in the ground while gardening or farming and seeing the bomb-
disposal experts working is not an exceptional event. Most of them also know a few things
about the Commission cemeteries as they are neighbours to them. But they probably don't
know what each part of a cemetery means.
B. How a cemetery is made.
1. The organisation
The size of a cemetery depends on the number of burials it contains and the
presence or not of a memorial to the missing. The largest memorial in Northern France,
standing at 45 meters high is the Thiepval Memorial with 72,205 names . The largest
Commission cemetery is the Etaples Military Cemetery with 10,816 burials. In such places,
immense memorials were built for the thousands of men commemorated there. In smaller
cemeteries, like the ones you find in the countryside, the elements constituting the
cemeteries are more simple but you always find the same elements in cemeteries
depending on their size: In every cemetery, you have the rows of graves surrounded by a
small brick and white stone wall. You are welcomed by the name of the cemetery engraved
on the stones and sometimes a metal plaque on which is written the history of this cemetery
(which battle took place there, what regiment was involved, etc.). You always have a
register, hidden in a small bronze niche. This register contains the names and information
about each soldiers in the cemetery. The niche also contains the visitor's book, on which
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the families and visitors can write a comment about their visit on the grave of a relative or
on the cemetery in general.12 In sites of over 40 burials, you have a Cross of Sacrifice
standing at 3 meters high, much higher for large cemetery such as the Faubourg d'Amiens
cemetery in Arras. In site of over 400 burials, you can add the Stone of Remembrance to it.
In some cemeteries, the Commission has built shelters out of bricks and white stones.
Those shelters are for the use of the visitors as a place to protect themselves from bad
weather or as an area to rest and think. The shelters are often used to host the register niche
and information about the cemetery, like the engraved plaque stating that “THE LAND ON
WHICH THIS CEMETERY STANDS IS THE FREE GIFT OF THE FRENCH PEOPLE
FOR THE PERPETUAL RESTING PLACE OF THE SAILORS SOLDIERS AND AIRMEN
WHO ARE HONOURED HERE”. This plaque can be found in English and in French. In
cemeteries that do not have a shelter it is found on the wall at the entrance. Inside the
cemeteries lie the most important constituents of a CWGC site: the graves of the soldiers.
Each soldier is buried under a headstone, and the headstones are carefully aligned in a row.
Those rows are made to be not too long and are usually cut by a path or small trees. A few
sets of rows form a plot. This system allows an easy search for graves in the cemeteries:
the plots are divided by Roman numerals, rows by letters and headstones by numbers in
order of appearance in the row. For example if you search for Arthur G. Hunt in Duisans
British Cemetery, you will find him at “VI.C.15” , meaning plot number 6, row C 13 ,
headstone number 15 from the left to the right of the cemetery. In cemeteries such as
Duisans British Cemetery, which is a burial site a few kilometres away from the actual
front line, the dead were added as they fell and the plots are divided by years: the first plots
are from the beginning of the war while the others are from the following years. The very
last graves are from the Second World War. Smaller cemeteries usually correspond to a
certain battle by a certain regiment in a short period of time: the Quebec Cemetery in
Chérisy contains 183 Canadians soldiers who died between the 26th of August and the 10th
of September 1918. For those cemeteries, the bodies were buried at the same time and
none has been added afterwards. The chronological system of plots does not apply in this
case. When a soldier was not found, his name was added to one of the memorials and the
names on memorials are either organized by alphabetical number (Vimy Memorial) and
searching a certain name is done easily directly on the memorial, or they are organized by
12 Those visitor's book will be studied in the fourth part of this chapter.13 This letter can be found on the side of the headstone at the beginning of each row.
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nationalities and regiments (Vis-en-Artois Memorial). In this case, the enquiry for a name
tells on which panel the name can be found (ex: Panel 5) and in more complex memorials
(Thiepval Memorial for example) it gives an indication such as “Pier and face 5D”.
Illustration 4: Plan of the Faubourg D'Amiens Cemetery in Arras. www.cwgc.org
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Soldiers are often separated by nationalities in memorials but the system is
different for cemeteries that hold more than one nationality. We have seen that six other
nationalities fought along with the United Kingdom in the Commonwealth forces: Canada,
Newfoundland, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia and India. In the cemeteries, all
those nationalities are mixed up except the Indians, who are usually in an outside row near
the walls. Why so? The reason is that the cemeteries are organized by faith: the main plots
are for the soldiers of a Judeo-Christian faith (Protestants, Catholics, Jewish) and for
soldiers with no known faith. This is why Muslims and Hindus (two of the principal faiths
of the Indians) were buried apart from the ones they fell with. Even those faiths are divided
by rows: there are the Muhammadan Row, the Hindu Row and the Sikh Row. The
separation of soldiers by religion was done when possible and therefore not always applied.
In cemeteries where it was possible, the Chinese Labour Corps, a division of Chinese
workers who helped in digging the trenches and other forms of labour were also put aside
because of their difference of faith and also because of their status as civilians and not
soldiers.(Appendix E p.77) There were also a few German soldiers who have been buried
along with their enemies, the soldiers of the Commonwealth. The German soldiers are in
the main plots with people from their religion. Seeing the grave of a German soldier
between the graves of two British soldiers, lying there for eternity, in a peaceful land and
knowing that they all receive the same amount of care from the Commission is a beautiful
sign of peace (Appendix F p.79). There are also examples of a few other nationalities
buried in some cemeteries: Americans and French for example. Civilians and women are
also commemorated in some of the Commission's cemeteries as they died from the war
(nurses from the Red Cross, Priests of the “Church Army”, members of the YMCA, Postal
services,etc).
2. The atmosphere
All those nationalities are commemorated in cemeteries and memorials carefully
and thoughtfully built, following the plans of renowned architects who worked hard to
make the cemeteries and memorials a respectful resting place for the soldiers. Sir Frederic
Kenyon, Lieutenant-Colonel and director of the British Museum wrote in 1918 that:
“There is no reason why cemeteries should be places of gloom” 14. From as early as 1917,
14 In How the Cemeteries Abroad Will Be Designed, The Kenyon Report, part 1. 1918
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the Commission tried to plant flowers, grass and trees in the cemeteries to brighten up the
first sites. After the war, when the Commission started to build the cemeteries as we know
them now, Sir Edwin Lutyens, the main architect of the Commission asked for Gertrude
Jekyll's help with the gardening of the sites. She was responsible for the look and the
atmosphere present today in the cemeteries: an impression of a “cottage garden” in the
British tradition. Each headstone has a perennial plant in front of it, sometimes roses and
the grass is always kept perfectly trimmed. The lawns of the CWGC are impressively
beautiful, even during the winter. It is just a proof of the dedication and excellent work that
is done in the sites of the Commission, a work that is not done by itself: the CWGC in
Beaurains (Appendix G p.80) has a staff of 450 employees, from which the main part are
gardeners, who are dedicated to making the cemeteries get this “park” atmosphere that
suits so well the sites. The staff today is composed of gardeners, engravers and
administrative workers. At the end of the war, the task was so great that Fabian Ware had to
hire a lot of workers to make the headstones, carve them, build the cemeteries, plant the
different flowers and trees, and of course: work on the records of the dead soldiers. He
started with only a group of eight and almost no money and by 1921, had hired about 1,300
employees. The majority of them came from Great Britain and lived in barracks near the
area where they were working, by any weather, with every cemetery having its own
specificities.
3. The names
Each cemetery is indeed different even though they are built on the same scheme:
they have different stories, are of different size and the access can be quite difficult15. Their
names are of course different too, and can tell us more about their individual stories.
Most of the cemeteries and memorials, about 90% of them, have the same name as the city
or street on which they are found, to give a few examples there is the Vimy Memorial, the
Etaples Military Cemetery, the Duisans Military Cemetery, the Faubourg d'Amiens
Cemetery, from the street of the same name in Arras, and many more. Then, there are some
that are related to the nationality or the regiment of the men who died there, like the
Quebec Cemetery in Chérisy, the Anzac Cemetery of Sailly-Sur-La-Lys (ANZAC means
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps), the Toronto Cemetery in Démuin, the London
15 Still today, some cemeteries are only accessible by foot or with a four-wheel drive.
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Cemetery and Extension in Longueval where the 47th London Division fought, the
Highland Cemetery in Roclincourt where Scottish soldiers fell, the Nine Elms Military
Cemetery in Thélus, from the name of the London District, etc. Another interesting name is
the one of the Unicorn Cemetery in Vend'huile that comes from the divisional sign of the
50th Division: a red unicorn's head. Now, some cemeteries have names that have no direct
link with any of the criteria we just saw, here are a few interesting example about the
history of the names of some cemeteries16:
Beehive Cemetery, Willerval: This name comes from a German machine gun
emplacement behind which the German soldiers would hide all together, like in a beehive.
The nickname given by the British soldiers became the name of the cemetery in which the
victims of the machine gun are buried.
Thistle Dump Cemetery, Longueval: This cemetery is mainly composed of Scottish
Highlanders (Thistle). The use of the word “dump” comes from the fact that the soldiers
would fall instantly from heavy shell fire when they attacked.
Sunken Road Cemetery, Fampoux: The war increased the depth of the sunken lane
between Fampoux and Bailleul, giving its name to a cemetery.
Lichfield Crater and Zivy Crater, Thélus: Those two mine craters were used by the
Canadians as mass graves for the burial of bodies found after the Vimy Ridge battle of
1917.
Cabaret Rouge Cemetery, Souchez: Before being destroyed a cabaret stood there,
recognisable by its bricks of a strong red colour.
L'Homme Mort Cemetery, Ecoust-St-Mein: This name is actually the one of a hamlet
about three kilometres away from the cemetery. One might think that the cemetery was
named from the name of the closest hamlet or village but no, as both villages of Saint
Léger and Vraucourt are only one kilometre apart from the cemetery, it is more a sign of a
strange soldier humour on the question of choosing a name for this cemetery,
Dud Corner Cemetery, Loos: After the war, an impressive number of unexploded shells
was found there.
Happy Valley Cemetery, Fampoux: This name was sarcastically given by the British
16 Major GIBSON Edwin, Courage Remembered. London ,HMSO, 1989. Page 202-215
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troops who fought there because they actually had a chance not to get killed and “only” be
injured, which was a one way ticket home after being healed.
C. The graves of the fallen soldiers.
1. The engraved history of the soldier
Each cemetery is built on the same scheme and from far away they might just all
look the same but if we take a closer look, we can see that many things are different from
one cemetery to another: we talked about the name, the size, the different elements, but all
the headstones look the same. What differs with the headstones is the information they
bear: a headstone in a CWGC cemetery is the personal history of the soldier buried
underneath. (Appendix H p.81)
As we can see on the picture
on the right, a headstone bears
different kinds of information.
Starting from the top, there is the
regimental or national badge, always
round and representing the regiment
or nation to which the soldier
belonged. Then is found the service
number of the soldier followed by its
rank. His name with the initial of the
middle name is found below, then
comes the regiment of the soldier and
when known, the date of his death
and his age when he died are
engraved below. In the middle part of
the headstone is found the religious
sign: a cross for the Christians, a
David star for the Jews, and nothing
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Illustration 5: A grave in the Dainville British Cemetery. Credits: author's own collection.
for the atheists, humanists or agnostics. At the very bottom is engraved an epitaph chosen
by the family of the soldier. Muslims and other faith such as Hindus and Sikhs have a
different organisation on their headstones: the engraving “THE FOLLOWING HINDU
SOLDIER OF THE INDIAN ARMY IS HONOURED HERE” and their military identity
(just as a British soldier) are written under a representative sign on their faith: it can be a
sentence written in Hindi, in Arabic, in Gurmukhi17, or even a emblem like the the bell for
the Buddhists, a traditional symbol of wisdom.(Appendix E p.77)
All the graves of the soldiers who fought in the Commonwealth forces have the
same shape and are made of the same material. The headstones are basically rectangles
with a slightly curved top side, measuring 813mm of height, 381mm of length and 76mm
of depth. Other nationalities who fought in the First World War and who are
commemorated by the Commission in the North of France are of different shapes: French
headstones are just plain crosses with the name and the date of the death of the soldier on
it. The Chinese, who helped digging trenches and working on military material support,
have headstones the same shape as the Commonwealth ones, but their names are written in
Chinese and most of the time are not translated. German headstones are almost the same as
the Commonwealth ones but instead of a curved top side, it is a pointing top. The name of
the German soldier is written below an iron cross, symbol of the German army. Polish
graves in the North are usually from the Second World War and have a more oval shape at
the top of the headstone. The name of the Polish soldier is found at the top and below lies
the symbol of Poland: the eagle with a crown. This shape difference makes it easy to spot
the different nationalities in a cemetery.
3. The badges
But if the soldiers of the Dominions have the same headstone with the same
organisation, how can we easily differentiate them? The answer is easy, they all have
different badges on top of their headstones. Each dominion has its own badge while the
United Kingdom has a different badges for every regiment. We just saw that India has a
special way of being commemorated on headstones by the CWGC and therefore is not
included in the illustration below, an illustration that shows the five “permanent” badges of
the Commonwealth armies and an example of a British one:
17 The Sikh alphabet.
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Each badge of the dominion has a significance and depicts a particularity of each
country. The Australian badge, for example is the so-called “Rising Sun” badge, a
reference to the fact the sun never sets on the British Empire. This badge therefore shows a
great particularity of Australia: its geographical distance with the United Kingdom, but at
its creation, it was not intended to represent a sun: what people see as a sun is in reality an
ensemble of bayonets around the crown. On its right, the South African badge is more
obvious: the motto UNION IS STRENGTH with its translation in Afrikaans both encircle
the head of a springbok, a small antelope that was the national symbol of South Africa
during the white minority rule until the end of the Apartheid. The Canadian badge
represents the maple leaf, a national Canadian symbol also found on the Canadian flag
today but not during the First World War. The New Zealand graves bear under its name an
unofficial symbol of the country: the silver fern, an endemic plant of New Zealand.
Newfoundland is characterised with a caribou head, the animal being the symbol of
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Illustration 6: Headstone badges of the Commonwealth armies. Credits: Author's own collection
Newfoundland. The image of the Caribou is also used in bronze statues at four different
Newfoundland memorials, the most famous one being the Beaumont-Hamel Memorial in
the Somme. The badge on the United Kingdom given here as an example is the badge of
the Royal Lancaster Regiment.
Those badges correspond to the army, the infantry and
the artillery that was fighting in the trenches. The First
World War was not only fought in the trenches but also in
the air and at sea. The Air Force and the Navy are also
commemorated by the Commission in the North of France
. There were three Air Forces: The Royal Air Force, The
Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Australian Air
Force. Even though they are from different parts of the
Commonwealth, they share the same badge, unlike the
different armies, as explained earlier. The base of the
badge is the one of the Royal Air Force: an Eagle
encircled by the RAF motto: PER ARDUA AD ASTRA
meaning “Through adversity to the stars”, topped with the
crown and separated by a sprig of laurel. From this, the
Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Australian Air
Force simply added the adjectives “Canadian” and
“Australian” to the badge. The story of the badge for
several dominions is repeated again with the Navy: The
Royal Navy, The Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal
Australian Navy share the same badge: a simple rope and
anchor symbol.
The casualties of the British army account for about 80% of the total casualties of
the Commonwealth forces in the North of France. It is therefore logical that the United
Kingdom does not have just a unique badge for all its soldiers like Canada for example, but
a multitude of badges for each regiment. All regiments have a different badge and the
soldiers were usually proud of the regiment they were fighting with. This spirit of fraternity
is reminded on top of their headstones. During the First World War, the British Army sent
exactly 216 different regiments to the front, from the smallest Yeomanry with less than a
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Illustration 7: Headstone badges of the Air Force and the Army. Credits: Author's own collection
hundred men to the biggest regiment, which was the London Regiment during the First
World War, with 92 battalions. All those regiments of the British Army have a special
badge to be carved on top of their headstones (Appendix I p.82), and if you add the badges
of the other nations, of other faiths, of other wars with other regiments in other countries, it
gives the CWGC a catalogue of more than a thousand signs that can be carved on the
headstones. In those signs is found one of the most prestigious awards that can be received
in the Commonwealth forces: the Victoria Cross. In the North of France, the Victoria Cross
was awarded to 153 soldiers from different parts of the Commonwealth. This award was
given for “most conspicuous bravery, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-
sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy.18" and is now engraved
on the headstones of those soldiers.
3. The missing
Those soldiers are part of the ones who were lucky enough to be identified in order
to receive the right information on their headstones, but sometimes, bodies were found and
identifying them turned out to be an impossible task. If a body was found but absolutely no
information could be found about it, the soldier was buried with on its headstone the
inscription: “A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR”. If the nationality was found, this
message became: “A BRITISH (or Canadian, Australian, etc) SOLDIER OF THE GREAT
WAR”. If the regiment or battalion was found, they added it to the sentence, as the rank, if
found too. All those levels also bear the epitaph “KNOWN UNTO GOD”, invented by
Rudyard Kipling. If all the “missing” of the Great War have their name on a memorial of
the CWGC, it means that the unidentified bodies have a grave, with no name on it, and a
name on a memorial, with no grave under it. Some other soldiers almost became part of the
“missing” even after being buried by the Commission: some cemeteries were bombed by
the German shells a short time after they were built, destroying the fragile wooden crosses
(which were to be replaced by headstones). This bombing of cemeteries happened at the
end of the First World War and a little bit during the Second World War. Graves who have
been bombed are either replaced by a small memorial inside the cemetery, bearing the
names of the soldiers' graves which were destroyed. Otherwise, headstones were built near
the wall of the cemetery and on top bear the inscription “BURIED NEAR THIS SPOT” or
18 www.nationalarchives.gov.uk Military Honour and Awards
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“BELIEVED TO BE BURIED IN THIS CEMETERY”. R.Kipling also added an epitaph at
the bottom of those destroyed graves: “THEIR GLORY SHALL NOT BE BLOTTED
OUT”, a sentence from the Ecclesiasticus (Sirach 44:13). In some cemeteries, the
soldiers are buried extremely close to each other, making the Commission put the
headstones in a continuous row with no space between them. Some soldiers are so close
that they have to share a headstone, with the round badges forming an horizontal “8” and
the information of each soldier piling on top of the other.
4. The epitaphs
The very last information found on a headstone, at the bottom, is the epitaph. About
45% of the graves found in this part of France bear one and the percentage is higher for
officers. The epitaph was to be chosen by the family of the soldier; they were sent a form
asking what sentence they would like to put on the grave of their deceased relative
(Appendix J p.92). The sentence was to be no longer than 66 characters, including the
spaces, because of the space available at the bottom of the headstones. The epitaph was
also at the expense of the family and the fee was of 3 pounds and a half per character. The
form also asked if they wanted a Christian cross to be engraved on the headstone or not.
The price seems small today but at the time it was quite a certain amount of money and
some families just could not afford it. Due to this problem, the Canadian government
decided not to tax the families and to take care of the bill, as the Canadian soldiers buried
in France already gave enough. New Zealand simply decided that if some families could
not afford an epitaph on their headstones, then no New Zealanders should have one,
following the principle of equality that was claimed by the CWGC but not respected here.
The United Kingdom and the other dominions decided to keep it the way it was planned.
Therefore, the headstones without any epitaph are either due to a financial problem, a
failure to trace the next of kin or the will not to have an epitaph on the headstone.
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The personal inscriptions chosen by the families come from the parents or the wife
of a soldier, who lost what was dearest to them. They are very moving and carry different
emotions in just a maximum of 66 characters. To help the families in their choice, the
CWGC gave a list of examples of epitaphs for soldiers. Many chose to go with an example
from the list. Here are a few epitaphs taken from the list that can be found on several
headstones:
REST IN PEACE HE DIED THAT WE MIGHT LIVE
EVER FONDLY REMEMBERED IN LOVING MEMORY
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN PEACE PERFECT PEACE
Other epitaphs are the creation of the families and depict different feelings that the
families felt: grief, duty, patriotism, pacifism or even anger, to name a few. Here are some
epitaphs found on headstones throughout the North of France. They are organized by the
feeling they convey or the goal they have as a sentence written forever on a grave
somewhere in France.
Grief:
From the parents
REMEMBRANCEA FLOWER THAT NEVER FADES
WHEN WATEREDBY A MOTHER'S TEARS
THERE IS A COTTAGE HOMEIN ENGLAND
WHERE HIS MOTHER SITS ANDWEEPS
YOUR MOTHERDOES NOT CEASETO THINK OF YOU
FOR A SINGLE MOMENT
TILL CHILD AND MOTHERMEET AGAIN
MY ONEMY ALLMOTHER
RACHEL BOUCH
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Not many fathers wrote about their son and when they did, duty, pride and
patriotism was included in it. Mothers gave more powerful epitaphs, forgetting about the
war and focusing on the loss of what they cared the most about in the world: their son.
From the wives and children
BILLY DEAR WE MISS YOUBUT IT'S HONOUR ON YOUR NAME
REST IN PEACE TILLWE MEET AGAIN. EMMA & BOYS
SADLY MISSEDBY HIS LONELY WIFE MARY
A BROKEN HEARTEDCHILD AND WIFE
WILL EVER MOURN HIS PRECIOUS LIFE
There are significantly fewer epitaphs from wives than from parents. The reason is
simple: the average age of the soldier during the First World War was 20 years old, many
were even younger because they lied about their age when they enlisted to fight in France,
there are graves of soldiers who were 16, 15 or even 14 when they died in this conflict.
Faith:
AND THE ARMIESWHICH ARE IN HEAVEN
FOLLOWED HIMUPON WHITE HORSES
- From Revelation 15:14
PSALM 144-
A simple epitaph which mentions a psalm starting with “Blessed be the LORD my
strength, which teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight...”
CHRISTIANSNEVER SEE EACH OTHER
FOR THE LAST TIME
Many epitaphs referring to faith are extracts from the Bible, others deal with the
question of eternal life as a hope against the reality of never seeing each other again.
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Duty:
MY ONLY BELOVED CHILDYOU HAVE DONE YOUR DUTYI AM WAITING TO MEET YOU
MOTHER
THE CLARION CALLEDHE OBEYED
HIS DUTY NOBLY DONE-
(The Lance Corporal James Holland was executed for cowardice)
Duty was one of the main reason, with patriotism, for the volunteers to enlist or for
the conscripts to have motivation to fight.
Patriotism:
I WAS BRITISH ONE WHO HAS HELPED
TO WRITE AUSTRALIA'S HISTORYIN BLOOD
HE DIED TO HELPTHE MAPLE LEAF TO LIVE
NO KING OR SAINTHAD TOMB SO PROUDAS HE WHOSE FLAG
BECOMES HIS SHROUD
AUSTRALIA IS PROUDOF HER HERO
WHO WAS ONLY A PRIVATETHAT'S ALL
Those men went to fight mainly for their country, as a patriotic act. This patriotic
act is a subject of pride among the families of the soldiers and the conflict played a big part
in writing the rather recent history of those young nations and therefore helped building a
national identity19.
19 As of May 2012, the 20 Canadian dollars bill has the Vimy Memorial drawn on it.
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Anger and pacifism:
SOME DAYGOD'S VOICE WILL SPEAK
AND TELL US WHY
WOE TO THE WORLDSHOULD HE DIE IN VAIN
AN ONLY SON'TO WHAT PURPOSE
IS THIS WASTE?'S.MATT.26.8
FOR PEACEHIS SOUL WAS YEARNING
AND NOW PEACELAPS HIM ROUND
IF THIS IS VICTORY, THENLET GOD STOP ALL WARS
HIS LOVING MOTHER
There was a hidden feeling of waste of young lives in the families after the
slaughter of the First World War, a slaughter that for them, could not be justified by
patriotism, duty or any other reason.
Appeal to stranger:
OH WHY ARE WE DEADWE YOUTH?
ALL YE THAT PASS BYFORGET NOT
STOP TRAVELLERA HERO LIES HERE
LOOK ON US THOU WHO PASS BYFROM OUR DEAD HANDS
THY FREEDOM CAME
GO STRANGERTELL OUR PEOPLE WE LIE HEREHAVING OBEYED THEIR WORLD
ALL YOU WHO PASS PRAY FOR HIS SOUL
This “appeal” to the stranger is of course the words of the relative who, by
“talking” with the people visiting the cemeteries, tries to tell them something regarding
their son or husband. Mixed with a multitude of headstones with simpler epitaphs, those
ones quite attract the eye and make us think about the reaction the families expected the
visitors to have.
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Mentioning France – distance with the grave
AN AUSTRALIAN'S GIFT TO FRANCE
LET NO FOEMANDESECRATE HIS SOIL
HE SLEEPS NOT IN HIS NATIVE LAND
BUT 'NEATH SOME FOREIGN SKIES
AN ENGLISH FLOWERIN A FRENCH GARDEN
FORGET THEM NOTO LAND FOR WHICH THEY FELL
MAY IT GO WELL WITH ENGLANDSTILL GO WELL
Those epitaphs are not only referring to the visitors coming to the cemeteries but
also to the country in which they are buried. Most families will never see the grave of their
relative buried somewhere in France and some ask for the good care of the grave that they
might never be able to maintain themselves, others ask the people of France to be aware of
the loss of beloved husbands and sons who died in a country on the other side of the planet
from where they used to live.
First person speech:
FORGET ME NOT DEAR LANDFOR WHICH I FELL
I CONSIDERED IT AN HONOURTO DIE FOR MY COUNTRY
There are not many examples of first person speech, as the families had to put
themselves in the shoes of the soldiers and give a sentence coming from the soldier and
being addressed to the visitors, not an epitaph from the family addressed to the deceased ,
as the last words they would have told him. The fewness of this kind of epitaph shows that
the principle of making the soldier “speak” was not very popular.
Youth:
YOUTH HAD SCARCELY WRITTENHIS NAME ON HER PAGE
AGE 17 YRS.1 MON. 10 DYS. IN THY KEEPING
OUR FATHER
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ANSWERED HIS COUNTRY'S CALLOCT. 1914. AT THE AGE OF 16
Mentioning the very young age of some soldiers was not just an indication, it was
to show what this war had done: it had killed boys who were not even men yet. As said
earlier, some of the soldiers were as young as 14 when they enrolled, saying they were 18
years old to the officer in charge of registering the volunteers, who “blindly” believed
them. The luckiest ones were denounced by their parents before they left for France. Most
of the other ones now have a CWGC headstone above their head.
Famous quote:
IT IS A FAR, FAR BETTER THINGTHAT I DO
THAN I HAVE EVER DONE-
From Charles Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities.
NATURE MIGHT STAND UPAND SAY TO ALL THE WORLD
THIS WAS A MAN!-
From William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Act5, Scene 5.
THAT THEIR DUSTMAY REBUILD A NATION
AND THEIR SOULSRELIGHT THE STARS
-From Songs Before Sunrise by A.C
Swinburne.
THEY SHALL GROW NOT OLDAS WE THAT ARE LEFT GROW OLD
-From the poem For The Fallen by Laurence
Binyon.
Some families decided to go with a famous quote from English literature, with
sentences often taken out of their context but that suit the soldier's grave. The 1914 poem
For The Fallen by Laurence Binyon also inspired many families. Other parts of this poem
can be found as epitaphs, like: “At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will
remember them.”
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Double epitaphs (brothers or son/father):
ALSO IN MEMORY OFSERJT. WILFRID H.HOLROYD
NORFOLK REGIMENTMISSING OCT. 13TH 1915
-Those two brothers died the same week.
Wilfrid has no known graves and is commemorated on the Loos Memorial to the
Missing.
I KNOWWHERE YOU ARE DEAR LAD
BUT HARD TO SAYYOUR BROTHER IS MISSING
- This young lad's brother is commemorated on the Nieuport Memorial to the Missing.
ONE OF SEVEN BROTHERSWHO SERVED
THREE OF WHOM REST IN FRANCE
THY WILL BE DONE-
In Dartmoor Cemetery, two graves carry the same epitaph: this one, of the Sergeant LEE, 44 years old, and next to him, the one of his
son, the Corporal Frederick LEE. Both died the same day.
As shown by those examples, the War gave some families more than one relative to
mourn and family ties are reminded in epitaphs, or are more discreet, like the very tragic
one of Mrs. Frances LEE (last example), who lost everything: her son and her husband, on
the 5th of September 1916.
Unclassifiable:
SAME MESSAGE
This epitaph is found on Guy Davenport's grave in Vaulx Hill Cemetery, near
Bapaume. The story behind it is not of an answer to a letter or message the soldier might
have sent before he died, unknown to us but known by the soldier and the person
concerned. What really happened here is that the widowed Mrs. Davenport was asked for
the “personal inscription” she would like to put on her husband's headstone. The form was
relayed by the Australian Army, got mixed up with the Imperial War Graves Commission
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and in this confusion the Commission asked again Mrs. Davenport what words she would
like to put. Mrs. Davenport, not knowing that her file had been lost or never received, she
replied to the Commission those words: “Same message”20.
D. The families of the soldiers.
1. The visits of the families
After the war, the families were able to visit the grave of their relative,
commemorated by either a new Commission headstone or by a wooden cross, in
cemeteries that have not been officially built by the Imperial War Graves Commission. The
families would soon be able to see from their own eyes the grave of their son or husband
and to mourn, knowing and having visited the place where he rests. The War Office and the
Secretary of State for War, being Winston Churchill at that time, decided to help the
families in their trip to France21. They were helped with a 50% reduction on boat trips from
any port of the United Kingdom and the Dominions and also enjoyed a 50% reduction of
train fares by the French Railway Company. Those reductions were paid by the Army
Funds, who planned on 40% of the families of the dead soldiers visiting the cemeteries in
the North of France. This kind of journey greatly helped the families in their mourning. But
a different kind of traveller was found visiting the cemeteries: tourists. As early as 1919,
after the end of the war, tourists came to see for themselves the ruins of the North of
France, the famous battlefields and also the cemeteries and memorials being built. This
kind of tourist was not seen well by the families of the soldiers as they associated this trip
with other leisures activities. Some of those tourists were not only there for the “sight” ,
they had a member of their families who had fought in France and wanted to see the reality
of what they were told when those men were lucky enough to go back home safely.
20 JONES Trefor. On Fame's Eternal Camping Ground: A study of First World War epitaphs in the British
cemeteries of the Western Front. Trowbridge: Cromwell Press Ltd, 2007. Page 196.
21 National Archives. Reference CAB/24/103
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2. The visitor's books.
Almost a hundred years after the First World War, the cemeteries and memorials of
the CWGC are still visited by many people, even though the percentage of people having a
relative commemorated there dropped drastically. The visits of the families help with the
act of remembrance and when they leave a cemetery or a memorial after visiting it, some
people leave a word in the visitor's book, that can be found with the register at the entrance
of every site of the commission. The visitor's book are a very interesting source of
information because it can give us data on the number of people who visited a cemetery,
their nationality, and what they had to say about it. Studying what some of the first visitors
of the cemetery and very close member of the families of the soldiers would have also been
interesting to study but unfortunately, the archives have been destroyed and the oldest
pages of the visitor's book available are from 1992. Still, from these contemporary
commentaries we can see that the people visiting the sites are for a great majority British
on a “Remembrance Trip”, from those British people, only a few have relatives buried in
France. There are also people from other parts of the Commonwealth like Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, etc. The last part of visitors are from Belgium, the Netherlands,
Germany, and an incredibly high number of people from the USA, whom we might thought
would be more interested in the history of the landing in Normandy of June 6 1944, but
also visits the battlefields of the First World War. Of course, in those visitors there is a large
part of local people, French people. From time to time, the pages are taken, replaced by
empty ones and studied carefully in the CWGC Office, to check for any commentary
concerning their work. As I discovered, those papers are not archived for a long time and
the reason is simple: if every year, a book of 20 pages is filled in each of the 2,942
cemeteries and memorials in the North of France, and that the Commission is now 95 years
old, the number of pages to archive is astronomical.
People usually give an observation of what they think about the cemetery, have a
thought for the soldiers or about the war while a few give a dedication to a relative that
died during the conflict. To see the differences and common points between the
commentaries given, two kinds of visitor's books will be studied: some from very visited
cemeteries and memorials like the Faubourg d'Amiens Cemetery and Memorial and some
from less famous and more remote cemeteries like the Duisans British Cemetery.
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Near the famous battlefields of the First World War stand immense cemeteries and
memorials of the CWGC, well-known in the Commonwealth countries. In Arras, buses full
of tourists and pupils on a field trip in France stop everyday in the Faubourg d'Amiens
Cemetery and Memorial, which commemorates exactly 38,530 soldiers of all nationalities
involved in the First and Second World War. Most of the people stopping there have no
family link with the soldiers remembered there and in this kind of site, only 5% (C.Winter;
2011) of the visitors leaving a note in the visitor's book mention a specific soldier. Others
give a quick commentary on the remembrance they pay to the soldiers: “God Bless you
all!” , “Thank you” , “Too young to have died”, “I will remember” , write about the war:
“Why?” , “We are thankful that we are able to walk freely here”, “Stop wars for ever!” ,
“What can you say?”, “Let's hope Katie22 never has to see a war” or simply thank the
Commission for the work they have done and still do in the cemeteries: “Well kept”, “Well
maintained”, “Thank you for keeping this cemetery so beautiful”. While studying the
pages archived from major sites of the commission, I could sometimes find the
commentaries from the same persons, who travelled from sites to sites. Their commentary
was usually always the same with a word for the Commission or for the soldiers. With the
visitor's book being available for everyone visiting a site, we might expect some form of
vandalism from non-respectful visitors or teenagers on a school trip they don't care about,
but I have not witnessed any behaviour of that sort in the commentary, as the commentaries
are always very respectful to the soldiers or the Commission. The only exception was a
commentary from a British man who wrote: “I hope French people don't forget our lads
died here!”. As a French student writing on the subject I do believe I am in the good place
to answer and say: No, we do not forget. And, as a matter of fact, some French people gave
a comment in the visitor's book, mostly about the war or about the maintaining of the
cemetery. Some commentaries from French people give advice on what is to replace or to
change in the cemetery, as if they were a little responsible for this cemetery, being on their
land. Others thank the soldiers for what they have done: “Merci mes amis” (Thank you my
friends), “Thank you Canada, la France reconnaissante” (Thank you Canada, France is
grateful). Even French children comment in the visitor's book and give a true and touching
outlook on the cemeteries, without forgetting to mention their names:
“C'est très beau mais très triste” (It is very beautiful but very sad. - Théo, 7 years old)
22 Obviously his daughter.
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“J'apprend l'histoire de l'Europe” (I learn the history of Europe. - Marie, 10 years old)
The visitor's book in the smaller and remote cemeteries are radically different: over
60% (C.Winter;2011) of the commentaries in the visitor's book refer to specific graves and
pay a tribute to the man buried underneath. The smaller the cemetery is, the higher the
percentage of specific commentaries in the visitor's book is. The reason is simple: some
cemeteries are found in the very countryside of Northern France, in places inaccessible
with a car and only contain less than a hundred graves. No tourists would go there unless
they had a specific goal: the grave of a relative. Here are a few examples of the
commentaries they give: This sort of pilgrimage can also be explained with the
“nationalities” of the cemeteries: some only have Canadians graves while some only have
Australian or South-African graves for example. The nationality of the persons
commenting in the visitor's book (almost exclusively people from the country of origin of
the soldiers) show that this pilgrimage is different from a typical remembrance trip in the
North of France: in Memorials like Vimy, which only commemorates Canadians soldiers,
you can see in the commentaries that there are the same range of nationalities as evoked
earlier with visitors in the major sites of the Commission. The persons who mention a
soldier in their commentary tend to give the same kind of tribute in the pages of the
visitor's book. Here are a few examples found in cemeteries:
“Paid pilgrimage to my uncle's grave Alex Mann. Killed 12.10.1916. May he rest in
peace.”
“Great and great-great nephews of CP. L . A . Douglas, 23 Bn Australian Infantry. Grave
G.7. Thank you for the excellent conditions of the cemetery.”
For this last example, the three persons who signed their names were all part of the Royal
Australian Artillery. Other dedications are less formal and more personal, such as this
example: “Last time Sam. Thank you. (visit no.15)”.
But the visits of the families and the finding of a relatives grave would not be
possible if the records of the CWGC had not existed.
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E. The records.
1. A need for the families.
Rudyard Kipling gave a good example of the distress of the families when in need
to know about what happened to their son or husband. The Commission had the duty of
giving the families all the information they had about a certain soldier to the families who
enquired, sometimes to know if this soldier was dead or still alive, or to know where he
was buried. Indexing hundred of thousands of records of deceased soldiers is not an easy
task and many people were hired by the Commission to sort and archive, the records along
with answering any enquiries or questions the families had. In 1922, the Record
Department of the Commission was strong of 132 clerks. Their task was not only to
answer the families and index “simple” records containing only the name, date of death
and place of death of the soldiers, they went further than this. Each soldier had a personal
record containing the same information found on its headstone except the epitaph (added
later) plus information about his family such as the name of the parents, of the widow for
those who were married, the home town and anything else that the Commission could
extract from the form the soldier filled when they enlisted. Soldiers who were awarded the
Victoria Cross had a paragraph added to their record telling about the heroic event that led
this soldier to be awarded with the highest distinction in the Empire.
2. Searching for casualties.
At the very beginning, any enquiry was made by sending a letter to the
Commission, who would answer as quickly and as completely as they could. Help
regarding the site where the soldier is commemorated was also given, in the form of an
explanation on how to get there, how to travel to France and a reminder of the discounts
that was voted by the War Office. This system, while quite expensive for the Commission,
was kept until another mean of communication was democratized: the telephone. Enquiries
could still be made by mail but the families could now give a call and be answered quicker
than by mail. But as this communication arrived quite late in British homes, the families
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calling for an enquiry in the 1960's-1970's were not the same as the widows or parents who
wished to visit a grave right after the war: they were mourning while the latter where for a
majority doing a work of remembrance towards an uncle or a grand-father for example.
Although, they were still families who had to save money for several decades before they
could afford to travel to France to see a grave. Some families never went to see the grave of
their relatives. The use of the phone also allowed some next-of-kin to easily ask about the
care given in a particular cemetery or any information that could make them fell closer to a
lost parent, buried many miles away from home. When the first personal computers
arrived, the CWGC did not hesitate and started computerizing the records of the soldiers.
This allowed them to search for a record more easily and to archive them in less room than
the office filled with a million and a half records of soldiers under the care of the CWGC.
When the enormous task of computerizing every record was finished, the database, called
“The Debt of Honour”, was made available to the public by putting computers in famous
memorials and places where people pay remembrance such as the Thiepval Memorial for
example. This file was found to be extremely practical, as researches could be made by any
piece of information like the rank, the regiment, the battalion, the nationality, the cemetery,
the last or first name, and many others. It also allowed a search of cemeteries and
memorials to give data concerning each cemetery such as the list of casualties, the history
of the cemetery or even indications on how to go to a specific cemetery. Now, this very
useful tool is available on the internet, which means everywhere in the world, at any time,
for free. The fact that the CWGC always improves its services show show a great
adaptation of a public service ran like an international company, with a high regard and
interest in what the Commission call their “customers”23. Almost a hundred years after the
First World War, the Commission still has a lot of work between improving its services,
maintaining the memorials and cemeteries, publishing information on their work and
educational documents for pupils, organizing ceremonies, etc. But sometimes, the
Commission has to change its organisation proven efficient for many years because of
unexpected events, most of the time, missing soldiers were found.
23 CWGC Annual Report 2010-2011
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III. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission today and tomorrow.
A. Finding missing soldiers.
1. Archaeology of the First World War
A good part of the North of France was completely destroyed after the First World
War and if there are so many missing soldiers it is because they have been buried by the
enemy and not reported, or buried by the explosion of a shell or just never found. There are
more than a hundred thousand soldiers whose bodies were never found and whom are still
buried somewhere in the North of France. Their names are commemorated in the different
Memorials to the Missing found here.
French laws makes any entrepreneur wishing to built a new building ask for an
archaeological search throughout the site, if the site was previously a field. Those
preventive searches in France often give birth to Gallo Roman villages been discovered or
any other archaeological sites, but in the North of France, what is usually found are
remains of the First World War: trenches conserved in the mud, tanks found in a river, and
sometimes, the graves of missing soldiers. Major G.L.Philips, the Imperial War Graves
Commission Australian Representative in France already stated in 1927 that: “A great
number must still be in the ground and too deep to be located by ploughing or probing.”.
He was right, there are, still today soldiers, of any nationalities, buried in unknown places
in the North of France. When they are found, they are either by themselves, alone in the
earth or in common graves which had never been found. Sometimes entire trenches were
blown up by a mine and the bodies are too scattered to ever be found. About twelve
soldiers are found, every year, in the North of France. Knowing that there are potentially
670,000 bodies scattered along the Western Front, with about 120,000 being soldiers of the
Commonwealth show the extremely thin chance of ever finding all the missing soldiers.
But if those soldiers are somehow buried and commemorated on a memorial, why then
search for them almost a hundred years later? The answer is that archaeologists do not
search for them, they just happen to find them while doing preventive archaeology, and
when they find a common grave or wild burial, they work on the bodies to first identify the
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soldiers as much as they can and try to learn about why they are buried there (Appendix K
p.93) . Some bodies still bear valuable information about the conflict and the different
battles in which they took part. Once done, the archaeologists do not leave the bodies in
their previous state: they have been unearthed, it is now time time to give them a proper
burial and a decent grave. The Commission takes it from there.
2. The role of the Commission.
For the past ten years, many soldiers of the Commonwealth have been found in the
North of France and are now buried in cemeteries like Point-du-Jour Cemetery in Athies or
even Monchy-le-Preux Cemetery. In 2008, 250 sets of remains were found by an Oxford
archaeologists team near Fromelles, where the Australians fought during WW1.This team
worked for two years on revealing the bodies of the soldiers and slowly trying to identify
them. Modern methods were used to identify them, such as x-rays or DNA sampling.
Those scientific data were used along with the records of the Commission and the
knowledge available on the different battalions and companies that fought near Fromelles.
Families who might have a link with one of the soldiers found in Fromelles were
encouraged to come forward and give a DNA sample. 94 successful identifications were
made and many are still being worked on as this dissertation is being written.
When the unveiling of the soldiers was done, the Commission had the task to find
new burials for the 250 soldiers found. Adding them to other cemeteries nearby was not
possible: they had to create a new cemetery, a task that the Commission had not done in
fifty years. The chosen site was a little further away that the actual site of the finding but it
offered a better access and a better view. This is how, in July 2010, was completed the
Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery.
A funeral ceremony was to be held for the soldiers of the Royal Regiment of
Fusiliers and of the Australian Army. The service took place on February 21 2011 and was
the same that would have been read as those who were buried during the First World War.
Ceremonies are an important part of remembrance and are held every year in almost
each cemetery and memorial of the CWGC in the North of France.
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B. The Ceremonies.
1. Annual ceremonies
In each cemetery there is an annual commemoration that takes place on the 11 th of
November, the date the armistice was signed between the belligerents. But in small
cemeteries there cannot physically be a CWGC ceremony every year. The solution is to
couple those ceremonies with the ones taking place in each village at the local Monument
aux Morts (Monument to the Dead). Let's take the example of a small city near Arras:
Dainville, where there is a CWGC site: the Dainville British Cemetery. In Dainville, every
year, on the 11th of November, two ceremonies take place with the participation of the
town council, the veterans, the local schoolchildren and British people from the twin city of
Whistable, near Dover. The first ceremony is at the Monument aux Morts, where a speech
is given and the children sing a song from the French soldiers of the First World War: La
Madelon. After this ceremony the crowd moves to the nearby Dainville British Cemetery
where another speech is given and the children sing another song, but from the British
soldiers this time. The song is It's a long way to Tipperary, a very famous British Army
song. Most cemeteries are built in small villages and with this system, the CWGC is sure
that almost every cemetery will be honoured at least once a year.
2. Special ceremonies
In larger cemeteries the 11th of November is of course a day where ceremonies take
place, but in the form of a rather important event as those ceremonies and memorials hold
more names and are more visited than smaller ones. These sites are the witness of big
ceremonies held every year for the armistice but are also places where other anniversaries
take place: the anniversaries of the Battles. For example, the Thiepval Memorial holds
every year a ceremony on the 1st of July to commemorate the beginning of one of the
bloodiest battles of the First World War: the Battle of the Somme, which began on July 1 st
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1916. Other sites nearby also hold ceremonies on this day: The Newfoundland Memorial of
Beaumont Hamel and the Ulster Tower Memorial24. The Delville Wood Memorial follows
this concept and hosts a ceremony every year around the 10 th of July, date of the
anniversary of the Delville Wood Battle, which took place in July 1916. The Delville Wood
Memorial is a South-African Memorial and such commemorations become more a national
commemoration rather than a Commonwealth event. A good example of this
nationalisation of the ceremonies and anniversaries is the Vimy Memorial, which every
year honours the Canadian soldiers who fell during the Battle of Vimy Ridge. This
ceremony is held every year on the 9th of April, the anniversary of the Battle that took place
there between the 9th of April and the 12th of April 1917. The South-Africans have a
special ceremony, the Canadians too, the Britons are more dedicated to the date of the
armistice of 1918, but what about the Australians and the New Zealanders? The national
Memorial Day of both countries is Anzac25 Day and is on the 25th of April, the date
corresponding to the first battle the Australians and New Zealanders fought in Gallipoli, in
Turkey, the 25th of April 1915. In the North of France Anzac Day is celebrated with a dawn
service at the Australian Memorial of Villers-Bretonneux, a village in the Somme that was
freed by the Anzacs, by a pure coincidence, on the 25th of April 1918. The ceremony goes
on all day with other speeches and service given in different Anzac Memorials such as the
one in Bullecourt (Appendix L p.97).
Because the CWGC and the governments of the countries involved organize rather
large events for the anniversaries of the battles, it is expected from them to organize even
larger events to celebrate a “special” number such as the 90th , 95th or even 100th
anniversary of each and each battle. In the past ten years there has been many occasions to
celebrate those battles in a special way. For example, about two months before the
publication of this dissertation, on the 9th of April 2012, 5000 Canadian students travelled
to Vimy Ridge to celebrate the 95th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge (Appendix M
p.98). Five years before, in 2007, Elizabeth II, Queen of England and head of the
Commonwealth of Nations, visited the Vimy Memorial along with French Prime Minister
Dominique de Villepin, in a ceremony for the 90th Anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
About 20,000 persons attended the ceremony and half of them were Canadians. During this
24 A ceremony also takes place at the Lochnager Crater on July 1st but it is a private site and not a CWGC site.
25 Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
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day, the Queen also visited the Arras Memorial, on the same site as the Faubourg d'Amiens
Cemetery in Arras.
There are not only “planned” ceremonies that take place in the CWGC cemeteries
in the North of France, as seen earlier, the newly built cemetery of Fromelles was home of
a service and a commemoration right after its construction. As bodies of soldiers continue
to be found, burial ceremonies keep being held in some cemeteries. For example, the
Fromelles Cemetery will host a ceremony for the nine soldiers recently found buried near
the site. The service will take place on July 20 2012.
In the crowd of the persons attending the different ceremonies are found people
from all over the world: local residents of course, British, Canadians, Australians and many
others. Those persons come in the North of France to pay respect and remembrance to the
fallen soldiers of course, but after almost a hundred years after the War, the grief gave
place to a heavy sense of remembrance. This remembrance usually takes the form of a trip
in Belgium and in the North of France by families from countries of the Commonwealth.
As shown earlier with the extracts from the visitor's books, some people wish to visit
several sites and learn more about the conflict when they are in France.
C. The tourism of the battlefields and the war graves.
1.Planning a trip to the memorials, cemetery and warsites.
Every year, many people visit the sites of the CWGC. They mainly go to find a
relative's grave and on the way will stop at different memorials and historic sites of the
First World War, will visit museums, go on guided tours, etc. Everything is done to
facilitate their journey throughout the North of France: the direction to each cemetery is
given thanks to a very recognisable green sign with the name of the cemetery written in
white letters, in the most famous sites such as the Somme and Arras for example, there are
circuits organised for the visitors. In the Somme it is called the Circuit of Remembrance. It
goes from Péronne to Albert or vice-versa and is indicated by signs recognisable thanks to
the poppy on it. This route goes through the main memorials and cemeteries of the Somme:
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it starts with a visit of the Historial de la Grande Guerre26 of Péronne and continues with
the visit of Longueval (Australian Memorial), Delville Wood (South-African Memorial),
Thiepval (Commonwealth Memorial), Beaumont Hamel (Newfoundland Memorial), The
Ulster Tower (Northern Ireland Memorial) and ends in the town of Albert. In each site a
guided tour can be organized or a MP3 player given to know more about the history of the
site. Planning such a trip to the North of France is not difficult but can be quite stressful for
people who fear they won't find accommodations or will lose a lot of time because they do
not know the language. They must not worry, a high majority of accommodations around
the CWGC sites realized where their customers came from and adapted to it: they speak
English, offer British breakfast in hotels and have names like “Le Canberra” in
Bullecourt27 or “Le Canada” a hotel restaurant decorated with red maple leaves, found in
Neuville Saint Vaast, a village right outside of the Vimy Ridge Memorial.
Other solutions exists for the visitors who wish not to worry about anything.
2. Organized tours on the battlefields of France
People who do not want to plan out their trip in the North of France prefer to turn
themselves towards professionals of the tourism of the battlefields. With their experience,
knowledge and low fares in hotels and restaurants they take every year several buses full of
tourists wishing to visit the main sites of the Great War. It is a rather cheap way to travel
and discover the Great War in the North of France if you don't mind being with a group
and are fine with the fact that you might not be able to see the grave of a relative, as the bus
cannot take a detour for each of the passengers wishing to stop in a particular cemetery. For
those who mind, there are also more expensive but more private tours, with small groups
and a personal guide for example. The most expensive ones are private tours, with a guide
that takes you and only you wherever you want. All you have to do is enjoy the trip.
A great number of people from different countries visit the sites of the CWGC each
year, even almost a century after the war. But will it be the same in another century?
26 “History Museum of the Great War”27 In Bullecourt is found the Australian Memorial called “The Digger”, homage to the Australians who dug
the trenches.
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D. The future of the Commission
1. The modernization of the Commission.
The Commission today is a strong, well-oiled international organisation funded by
the countries involved in the war. The maintenance and care of the cemeteries and
memorials have a certain cost. But when dealing with remembrance and honouring the
soldiers who fell for their country in a foreign land, the cost of the maintenance is not a
debatable subject. Furthermore, the modernization of the techniques improves the work of
the Commission and reduces the cost of the maintenance. As an example, at the beginning
of the building of the cemetery, each headstone had to be carved by hand, a long work that
necessitated many carvers. Today, the headstones made are only replacement of old ones
that became unreadable and only exceptionally, new headstones for soldiers recently found.
And those headstones are carved thanks to a computerized machine that carves a headstone
in a few minutes with an extreme precision. Even replacing panels at the memorials
became an easy task. The use of new tools also helps in maintaining and cleaning better,
faster and for a cheaper price.
The launching of the internet website of the Commission also helped the finances
due to the fact that searching for a relative can be done easily on the website, and not on
the phone or by mail any more. Each cemetery in the file “A Debt of Honour” is also
linked with its location on Google Maps®.
Even if the Commission cares for the graves of soldiers, and is not an international
private company, they still find a way to innovate and modernize their system, the records,
their communication with the visitors, etc.
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2. Remembrance
Another example of innovation from the Commission are the DVDs and the leaflets
they edited, some are made for general information, some are more precise while some are
educational tools to be used in school by children. Through the use of a DVD and a story,
children can be made aware of what the First World War was and what the Commission
does to keep honouring the dead who paid the ultimate sacrifice. Remembrance is
something that needs to be taught and many pupils go on field trips with their school to
visit the Commission's sites. Canadians are extremely proud of the Vimy Ridge Memorial
and as shown in April 2012, young Canadians do not hesitate to spend a lot of money to
cross the ocean and pay a tribute to the soldiers fallen there. What is happening is that the
sites built for the families of the soldiers to visit are now national sites of memory of the
slaughter that the Great War was. People pay a tribute to all the men who died when they
visit a site, not only to one man any more, a man that was for most a great or a great-great
uncle.
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Conclusion
Half a million men. Half a million men fighting for the Commonwealth died in the
North of France. In four years of war, the countries of the Commonwealth involved paid a
high price their entry in this global conflict.
At the outbreak of the war, the British and the members of its Empire who fought
alongside decided that they would do everything to honour their dead in the best way
possible. It started in 1917 with the creation of the Imperial War Graves Commission by
Sir Fabian Ware and still goes on today. Thanks to their values and the principles they
applied, the families of the soldiers were made sure that their sons and husbands would
have the resting place they deserve: buried where they fell, between comrades, without any
distinction of race, age or rank. Those principles were applied partially through the design
of the cemeteries and memorials to the missing: park-like cemetery, with rows of white
headstones surrounded by small of white stones and red bricks, sometimes shadowed by a
weeping willow or an oak tree, with the Stone of Remembrance and the Cross of Sacrifice
watching over them. The missing soldiers were not forgotten, and instead of an empty
grave they were given a place on one of the majestic memorials that stand high in the sky
of Northern France. Today, the beauty and serenity that lies in those cemeteries and
memorials shows once again the hard work and care given by the workers of the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The families of the soldiers were the first
witnesses of the harmony of the design that each site gave and more than 90 years after
their creation, they still look as peaceful and well-maintained. Still today, the 2,942 sites of
the Commission found in the North of France are not forgotten and thanks to what is
engraved on each headstones, the soldiers are remembered too. Visits from the families and
other people played a important role in the act of remembrance, an act clearly expressed
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during the different ceremonies that take place every year. Remembrance for the fallen
soldiers of the Great War is still as strong today as it was before, even though the grief is
gone.
Remembrance in the future will therefore be more a mass communion of the
incredible number of young life wasted in a useless war rather than an individual
commemoration from each family, for the soldiers who still have relatives. This is why the
commemorations and acts of remembrance will still continue even a hundred years from
today, because the fallen soldiers of the First World War are the symbol of the horror of the
war and the damages conflicts can create. Those war cemeteries are today not just simple
cemeteries, they are symbols of peace.
Those symbols of peace are not hidden, they are clearly visible and when I drive
around Arras or Lens, I encounter many cemeteries and I always tell myself “People fought
here. People died here. It was a living Hell.”. But trying to imagine what this small village,
this valley, this hill, used to be like during four years of war is an extremely difficult task.
We cannot imagine the horrors of the Great War, but we are reminded all the time that it
happened here by the number of places dedicated to the war scattered all over the Western
Front, places such as military cemeteries of different nations, memorials, museums, etc.
But there are reminders of the Great War that are still hidden, buried in the fertile soil of
the Flanders and Artois: missing soldiers, buried trenches, unexploded shells, bullets, guns,
and many other items. For example, I recently found a cap badge of the Royal Engineers
Corps while gardening ( Appendix N p.99), a lucky found, but it could have been a shell,
which would have maybe exploded when hit by the spade... The number of items left in the
ground by the First World War is incredible and archaeologists working in the North of
France are almost certain to find bodies or objects from the Great War when studying a
site. What is left underground raises many questions: what should we do with the shells
found ? We cannot keep on stocking them forever. The bodies discovered are buried in
military cemeteries today but what will happen to them in a century or two when they are
found? But mainly, the question is: what else can we learn that we do not already know
about the First World War from those buried items? Probably a lot.
Page 55 of 95
Bibliography
Primary sources:
Documents from the British National Archive:
– CAB/24/95 CHURCHILL Winston. Memorials on Battlefields. The Prime Minister
Cabinet, November 1919.
– CAB/24/103 CHURCHILL Winston. Travelling concessions for relatives visiting
graves of the fallen in France and Belgium. The Prime Minister Cabinet, April 1920.
– CAB/24/105 W. BURDETT COUTS War Graves. Statement of Reasons in support of
the Imperial War Graves Commission. House of Commons, April 1920.
– CAB/24/172 The War Office The Imperial War Graves Commission. The Prime
Minister Cabinet, February 1925.
– CAB/24/236 The War Office Anglo-German-French War Graves Agreements. The
Prime Minister Cabinet, July 1936.
Monographs:
• KIPLING Rudyard. The Graves of the fallen. London : H.M. Stationary Office, 1919.
• Guides illustrés Michelin des champs de bataille (1914-1918) Arras, Lens, Douai et les
batailles d'Artois, Clermont-Ferrand: Michelin, 1920.
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Cemeteries and memorials in Belgium and
Northern France, Clermont-Ferrand: Michelin, 2008.
• La Voix Du Nord. La leçon de mémoire des jeunes Canadiens. April 10 2012. N*21284.
Page 2-3.
• Leaflets and intern procedure documents from the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission Office, Beaurains, 2012.
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Secondary sources:
• AMERY Colin, RICHARDSON Margaret, and STAMP Gavin. Lutyens, the work of the
English architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) : Hayward Gallery London SE1, 18
November 1981-31 January 1982.
• DESFOSSES Yves, JACQUES Alain and PRILAUX Gilles. Great War Archaeology.
Rennes: Editions Ouest-France, 2009
• Major GIBSON Edwin. Courage Remembered: The Story Behind the Construction and
Maintenance of the Commonwealth's Military Cemeteries and Memorials of the Wars of
1914-18 and 1939-45. London : HMSO, 1989.
• GRAILLES Bénedicte Mémoires de pierre : les monuments aux morts de la première
guerre mondiale dans le Pas-de-Calais. Arras. Archives départementales du Pas-de-Calais,
1992.
• JONES Trefor. On Fame's Eternal Camping Ground: A study of First World War epitaphs
in the British cemeteries of the Western Front. Trowbridge: Cromwell Press Ltd, 2007.
• KIPLING Rudyard. War Stories and Poems, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.
• LONGWORTH Philip. The Unending Vigil: the history of the Commonwealth War
Graves Commission. Barnsley: Pen and Sword Military. 1985.
• RIVE Philippe. Les monuments aux morts de la Première guerre mondiale, Paris :
Mission permanente aux commémorations et à l'information historique, 1991.
• SUMMERS Julie. Remembering Fromelles: A new cemetery for a new century. CWGC
Publishing, 2010.
Page 57 of 95
• WINTER Jay Souvenir de la Grande Guerre dans l'histoire culturelle britannique depuis
les années soixante, Paris: Issor-Credhess, 2006.
Master's dissertation:
• PIETRZAK Karine. Le monument commémoratif du Canada à Vimy. Villeneuve d'Ascq,
2001.
Periodical:
• WINTER Caroline. First World War Cemeteries: Insights from Visitor Books. Tourism
Geographies: An International Journal of Tourism Space, Place and Environment Volume
13, Issue 3, 2011. pp 462-479.
Internet sources
• BAKER Chris. “The British Army of 1941-1918”. The Long Long Trail – The British
Army in the Great War. 1996 <http://www.1914-1918.net/army.htm>
• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission. “Casualties database”,
<http://www.cwgc.org/search-for-war-dead.aspx>
• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission .“Cemetery search”
<http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery.aspx>
• DUFFY Michael. “Battlefield maps – Western Front”, FirstWorldWar.com, August 22nd
2009
<http://www.firstworldwar.com/maps/westernfront.htm>
• HEARD Terry and WHITTAM Brent. “Regimental Badge Archive”. WW1 Cemeteries.
1998
<http://www.ww1cemeteries.com/regimentalarchive/regimental_archive_mainpage.htm>
Page 58 of 95
• MCCANN Mick. “Photographs of the Fallen”. British War Graves.
<http://www.britishwargraves.co.uk/page35.htm>
• McMaster University Libraries “World War 1 Military Maps & Aerial Photography,
France and Belgium”, April 1st 2009.
<http://library.mcmaster.ca/maps/ww1/ndx5to40.htm>
• MORGAN Tom. “The Commonwealth War Graves Commission – Area France”. The
Hellfire Corner. August 1996.
<http://www.fylde.demon.co.uk/cwgc.htm>
• The Great War 1914-1918 “WW1 Battlefield of the Western Front”
<http://www.greatwar.co.uk/places/ww1-western-front.htm>
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Table of contents
Acknowledgements................................................................................................................2
Summary.................................................................................................................................3
Introduction............................................................................................................................4
I. The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission............................................8
A. The British Empire in the Great War......................................................................8
1. The casualties of the Empire................................................................8
2. The need for the families to know......................................................11
B. The creation of the Imperial War Graves Commission........................................13
1. The founders of the Commission.......................................................13
2. The philosophy of the Commission...................................................14
C. The decisions taken at the end of the War.............................................................14
1. Architecture .......................................................................................14
2. Finance...............................................................................................16
II. The Cemeteries and Memorials in the North of France...................................................18
A. The implantations...................................................................................................18
1. Worldwide and in the North of France...............................................18
2. The particular case of the North of France ........................................19
B. How a cemetery is made........................................................................................21
1. The organisation.................................................................................21
2. The atmosphere..................................................................................24
3. The names..........................................................................................25
C. The graves of the fallen soldiers.............................................................................27
1. The engraved history of the soldier....................................................27
3. The badges.........................................................................................28
3. The missing........................................................................................31
4. The epitaphs ......................................................................................32
D. The families of the soldiers.....................................................................................40
1. The visits of the families....................................................................40
2. The visitor's books..............................................................................41
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E. The records..............................................................................................................44
1. A need for the families.......................................................................44
2. Searching for casualties......................................................................44
III. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission today and tomorrow. ...........................46
A. Finding missing soldiers........................................................................................46
1. Archaeology of the First World War..................................................46
2. The role of the Commission. .............................................................47
B. The Ceremonies......................................................................................................48
1. Annual ceremonies.............................................................................48
2. Special ceremonies.............................................................................48
C. The tourism of the battlefields and the war graves................................................50
1.Planning a trip to the memorials, cemetery and war sites...................50
2. Organized tours on the battlefields of France....................................51
D. The future of the Commission...............................................................................52
1. The modernization of the Commission..............................................52
2. Remembrance ....................................................................................53
Conclusion............................................................................................................................54
Bibliography.........................................................................................................................56
Table of contents...................................................................................................................60
Table of illustrations.............................................................................................................61
Appendices...........................................................................................................................63
Table of appendices..............................................................................................................64
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Table of illustrations
Illustration 1: Map of the the Western Front with repartitions of the different armies.
Credits: www.greatwar.co.uk..................................................................................................8
Illustration 2: The Cross of Sacrifice (left) and the Stone of Remembrance (right) in a
cemetery................................................................................................................................16
Illustration 3: Map of the Cemeteries and Memorials in the North of France. Credits:
Philip Longworth in “The Unending Vigil” (see bibliography)...........................................19
Illustration 4: Plan of the Faubourg D'Amiens Cemetery in Arras. www.cwgc.org............23
Illustration 5: A grave in the Dainville British Cemetery. Credits: author's own collection.
27
Illustration 6: Headstone badges of the Commonwealth armies. Credits: Author's own
collection..............................................................................................................................29
Illustration 7: Headstone badges of the Air Force and the Army. Credits: Author's own
collection..............................................................................................................................30
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Table of appendices
Appendix A: Burial of British soldiers on the battlefield. .........................................64
Appendix B: Some memorials of the Commission in the North of France................65
B.1: The Thiepval Memorial................................................................................66
B.2 The Vimy Ridge Memorial............................................................................66
B.3 The Ulster Tower ..........................................................................................67
B.4 The Arras Memorial and the Faubourg d'Amiens Cemetery........................69
B.5 The Newfoundland Memorial of Beaumont Hamel......................................70
B.6 The South-African Memorial of Delville Wood............................................72
B.7 The Vis en Artois Memorial ..........................................................................73
Appendix C: The Stone of Remembrance in the Thiepval Memorial........................74
Appendix D: Adolf Hitler at the Vimy Memorial......................................................76
Appendix E: Graves of soldiers of different religions and nationalities....................77
Appendix F: Commonwealth and German grave side by side. .................................79
Appendix G: Entrance of the Commission's office in Beaurains...............................80
Appendix H: Organisation of a headstone.................................................................81
Appendix I: Badges of the British Army (non-exhaustive list)..................................82
Appendix J: Personal inscription form.......................................................................92
Appendix K: British soldiers found near Arras..........................................................93
Appendix L: ANZAC Day ceremony in Bullecourt...................................................97
Appendix M: Canadian students at the Vimy Memorial, April 2012.........................98
Appendix N: Cap badge of the Royal Engineers.......................................................99
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Appendix A: Burial of British soldiers on the battlefield.
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Credits: Imperial War Museum
Appendix B: Some memorials of the Commission in the North of France
B.1: The Thiepval Memorial
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Credits: author's own collection
B.4 The Arras Memorial and the Faubourg d'Amiens Cemetery
Credits: author's own collection
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Appendix C: The Stone of Remembrance in the Thiepval Memorial
Credits: author's own collection
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Appendix E: Graves of soldiers of different religions and nationalities
Credits: author's own collection
Chinese grave Indian grave (Hindu)
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Appendix F: Commonwealth and German grave side by side.
Credits: author's own collection
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Appendix G: Entrance of the Commission's office in Beaurains
Credits: author's own collection
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Appendix I: Badges of the British Army (non-exhaustive list)
Credits: author's own collection and some from http://www.ww1cemeteries.com/regimentalarchive/regimental_badge_archive1.htm
1st Royal Dragoons 1st (The King's) Dragoon Guards
1st Life Guards 2nd Life Guards
2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen's Bays)
2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys)
3rd (The King's Own) Hussars
4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards
5th (Princess Charlotte of Wales's) Dragoon
Guards
5th (Royal Irish) Lancers
10th (The Prince of Wales's Own Royal)
Hussars
13th Hussars
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16th (The Queen's) Lancers
17th (The Duke of Cambridge's Own)
Lancers
18th (The Queen Mary's Own) Hussars
Alexandra, Princess of Wales' Own (Yorkshire
Regiment)
Army Cyclist Corps Army Pay Department Army Ordnance Corps Army Service Corps
Army Veterinary Corps Coldstream Guards Corps of Military Police Corps of Royal Engineers
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Grenadier Guards Guards Machine Gun Regiment
Honourable Artillery Company
Irish Guards
Labour Corps Leicestershire Yeomanry ('Prince
Albert's Own')
Lothians and Border Horse Yeomanry
Machine Gun Corps
Northamptonshire
YeomanryNorthumberland
Yeomanry (Hussars)Oxfordshire Yeomanry
(Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars)
Prince Albert's (Somersetshire Light
Infantry)
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Princess Charlotte of Wales's (Royal
Berkshire Regiment)
Princess Louise's (Argyll and Sutherland
Highlanders)
Princess Victoria's (Royal Irish Fusiliers)
Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service
Royal Army Medical Corps
Royal East Kent Yeomanry (The Buffs)
Royal Field Artillery Royal Guernsey Militia
Royal Horse Artillery Royal Marine Light
InfantrySeaforth Highlanders
(Ross-shire Buffs, The Duke of Albany's)
South Irish Horse
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The Bedfordshire Regiment
The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)
The Border Regiment The Cambridgeshire Regiment
The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)
The Cheshire Regiment The Connaught Rangers The Devonshire Regiment
The Dorsetshire Regiment
The Duke of Cambridge's Own
(Middlesex Regiment)
The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry
The Duke of Edinburgh's (Wiltshire
Regiment)
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The Duke of Wellington's (West Riding Regiment)
The Durham Light Infantry
The East Lancashire Regiment
The East Surrey Regiment
The East Yorkshire Regiment
The Essex Regiment The Gloucestershire Regiment
The Gordon Highlanders
The Herefordshire Regiment
The Highland Light Infantry
The Inns of Court Training Corps
The King's (Liverpool Regiment)
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The King's (Shropshire Light Infantry)
The King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment)
The King's Own (Yorkshire Light
Infantry)
The King's Own Scottish Borderers
The King's Royal Rifle Corps
The Lancashire Fusiliers
The Leicestershire Regiment?
The London Regiment (Artist Rifles)
The London Regiment (Rifle Brigade)
The London Regiment (Post Office Rifles)
The London Regiment (Prince of Wales' Own Civil Service Rifles)
The London Regiment (Queen's Westminster
Rifles)
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The London Regiment (London Scottish)
The London Regiment (Kensington Battalion)
The London Regiment (London Irish Rifles)
The London Regiment (7th Battalion)
The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment
The Manchester Regiment
The Monmouthshire Regiment
The Norfolk Regiment
The Northamptonshire Regiment
The Northumberland Fusiliers
The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light
Infantry
The Prince of Wales's (North Staffordshire
Regiment)
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The Prince of Wales's Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians)
The Prince of Wales's Own (West Yorkshire
Regiment)
The Prince of Wales's Volunteers (South
Lancashire Regiment)
The Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment)
The Queen's Own (Royal West Kent
Regiment)
The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders
The Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's Own)
The Royal Fusiliers
The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers
The Royal Irish Regiment
The Royal Irish Rifles The Royal Munster Fusiliers
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The Royal Scots Fusiliers
The Royal Sussex Regiment
The Royal Warwickshire Regiment
The Royal Welsh Fusiliers
The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment)
The South Staffordshire Regiment
The South Wales Borderers
The Suffolk Regiment
The York and Lancaster Regiment
Tyneside Scottish (from Northumberland
Fusiliers)
Welsh Guards The Green Howards
Those pictures represent some of the badges that can be found carved on graves in the North of France.
Page 89 of 95
Appendix K: British soldiers found near Arras
Credits: “Great War Archaeology”, DESFOSSES Yves. 2009.
Notice the persistence of leather in the fact that the soldiers still have their boots on.
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Appendix L: ANZAC Day ceremony in Bullecourt.
Credits: author's own collection
Warren Snowdon, Australian Minister for Veterans' Affairs, at the ANZAC
Day ceremony in Bullecourt, 2012.
Page 92 of 95
Appendix M: Canadian students at the Vimy Memorial, April 2012.
Credits: Pascal Bonniere, La Voix du Nord
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