1646 – Issue 3

had no direct connection to their demise and this aggravated the process of mourning. On 28 June 1919 the war finally ended formally following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. To celebrate this a number of temporary structures were erected for a Victory Parade in London on 19 July 1919. One of these temporary structures was a wood and plaster Cenotaph (derived from the Greek word kenotaphion meaning empty tomb) designed by Edward Lutyens and erected in Whitehall. It was not proposed until just two weeks before the event and was constructed, at speed, by movie set technicians. During the parade 15,000 soldiers and 1,500 officers marched past and saluted. The Cenotaph, with its secular, solemn appearance, laurel wreaths and simple inscription, ‘The Glorious Dead’, quickly captured the public imagination and came to serve as a substitute for a grave that could not be visited. Beginning almost immediately after the Victory Parade and continuing for days afterwards, the public came by train and bus from all over the country to lay flowers and wreaths around its base. Within a week, an estimated 1.2 million people paid their respects. According to The London Times, ... no feature of the victory march in London made a deeper impression than the Cenotaph. The whole tradition we now follow was not manufactured or choreographed in detail by government. It was the result of an outpouring of grief at the loss of so many young men and the absence of resting places near their families and homes. Indeed when it became clear that some sort of ceremony should be held a year after the end of the war the whole idea had little support from senior politicians and the King. It was thought that just a two minute period of silence on 11 November would suffice and that would be that. However, things did not go to plan. As reported by the Manchester Guardian the day after: The first stroke of eleven produced a magical effect. The tram cars glided into stillness, motors ceased to cough and fume, and stopped dead, and the mighty-limbed dray horses hunched back upon their loads and stopped also, seeming to do it of their own volition. Someone took off his hat, and with a nervous hesitancy the rest of the men bowed their heads also. Here and there an old soldier could be detected slipping unconsciously into the posture of ‘attention’. An elderly woman, not far away, wiped her eyes, and the man beside her looked white and stern. Everyone stood very still ... The hush deepened. It had spread over the whole city and become so pronounced as to impress one with a sense of audibility. It was a silence which was almost pain ... And the spirit of memory brooded over it all. The response to the national wave of emotion displayed in 1919 resulted in an official realisation that something more permanent was needed in time for the 1920 anniversary. A wood and plaster copy of Lutyens’ Cenotaph was re-constructed in Portland Stone. Meanwhile, while serving on theWestern Front, army chaplain Reverend David Railton had seen a grave marked by a rough cross, which bore the pencil- w r i t t e n l e g e nd ‘An Unknown British Soldier’. He believed that at least one man should be brought home and, in early 1920, proposed that an unidentified British soldier from the battlefields in France be buried within Westminster Abbey “amongst the kings” to represent the many hundreds of thousands who had been slain. The stage was set for Armistice Day 1920 which most of those involved in its planning believed would, again, be a ‘one-off’ ceremony to commemorate the dead and welcome home the ‘Unknown Warrior’. A ceremony was devised around the new Cenotaph which included the catafalque bearing the soldier pausing before entering Westminster Abbey. The ceremony, when it took place was anything but a ‘one off’, it became the national event we know today. Millions of people visited London following the arrival of the soldier and the King laid a wreath on his coffin before walking behind him into the Abbey. Lining the entrance were 100 holders of the Victoria Cross and inside the Abbey the principle guests were about one hundred women who had lost their husbands and all their sons in the war. Similar ceremonies occurred in subsequent years as memorials were erected in towns and villages across the country. The time and date were maintained until 1939, but in an effort to avoid delays in war production during World War II, the commemoration day was moved to the nearest Sunday. Sadly, new names are added to those memorials to this day. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we shall remember them. 15