First World War Cemeteries: Graves of the Great War

The landscape of Belgium and Northern France contains many reminders of the First World War. Some of the most moving are the innumerable cemeteries that are scattered over the area where the armies fought. For the British and Commonwealth soldiers (men from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and many other countries) who died on the Western Front, burial places are maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

burials

Some of the cemeteries – such as Tyne Cot in West Flanders, or Étaples in the Pas De Calais – are vast, holding up to twelve thousand graves each. Others are much smaller and a drive through the area is sure to uncover plots that hold a few hundred, or maybe just a dozen graves. The visual effect of the large cemeteries is astonishing. One looks out over an ocean of uniform white headstones, stretching on – it seems – forever. But the smaller places are just as powerful in their way, each stone marking an individual tragedy and story of grief.

PLOTS

Étaples cemetery is on the site of what was once a military base and most of the graves are of men who died of wounds in the vast hospital that used to stand there. Other plots are located where the men fell fighting. Sometimes they mark the furthest point of an attack and the headstones face in the direction that the troops were advancing before they were stopped. 

HOMECOMING

Immediately after the war, governments of combatant nations were faced with problems of how to commemorate the dead, how to do something appropriate to the scale of what had taken place. At the same time, the government had to deal with the practical problem of what to do with the remains of the dead soldiers. The sheer numbers meant that it was impossible to repatriate all the bodies to their home countries. Allowing individual families to claim the bodies of their loved ones, however, inevitably meant that only the rich would be able to bring the remains home. Therefore, the painful decision was taken not to allow any of the bodies of soldiers killed overseas to be taken back to Britain. If only the wealthy could benefit, then no one would be allowed to.

SACRIFICE

This commitment to the equality of the dead was revolutionary. Before the First World War, no one cared much about what happened to the corpses of soldiers. But Britain was changed forever by the war. No longer would it be possible to maintain a hierarchy of suffering when all ranks of society had sacrificed so much. 

HEADSTONES

Nothing symbolises this egalitarian approach more than the headstones which mark each of the graves. All the same, irrespective of the rank of the body underneath. Seventy-six centimetres tall and 38 wide, made from white Portland stone, they carry the name, rank and age of the deceased, the badge of the regiment and the date of death. For those many thousands of bodies that could not be identified, the stone bears the phrase – all the more powerful for its simplicity – “A soldier of the Great War known unto God”. The families were allowed to add a short inscription, sixty-six characters in total, of their own composition. When thousands of such stones are ranked together, row upon row, and set in a tranquil garden of a cemetery, the emotional punch is extraordinary. 

FIGHT FOR GAZA

It is not just France and Belgium that host such places. British and Commonwealth soldiers fought in many places, from East Africa to Southern Europe. No fewer than three battles were fought in Palestine for Gaza during the First World War. The final struggle took place in November 1917 and saw the Ottomans evicted from the territory.

BEYOND PREJUDICE

An unlikely connection between participants in the First World War is emblematic of the international and egalitarian nature of the CWGC project. The South African Native Labour Corps comprised black Africans recruited to serve as labourers on the Western Front. They were poor men who were forbidden to bear arms or even to fraternise with their white counterparts. Lord Kitchener, by contrast, was the grandest soldier in the British Imperial Army. Kitchener drowned in 1916 when the ship he was travelling in struck a German mine. The following year, up to six hundred members of the South African Corps died when their ship sank. All of them – African workmen and British aristocrats alike – are commemorated on the same memorial in Southampton, England. No distinction at all is made between the names, so giving them in death an equality that prejudice and the powerful forces of history would never have granted to them while they lived.

REMEMBERING THE FALLEN

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission commemorates the men and women from Britain and the Commonwealth who died in the two world wars. It cares for the graves and memorials to over 1.7 million war dead buried in over a hundred and fifty countries worldwide. France and Belgium host the largest number of graveyards, ranging from...to isolated rural cemeteries containing just a dozen burials to vast sites with thousands of individual burials. Peter Francis is the Media and PR Manager for the Commission in the United Kingdom. When he met with Speak Up, we began by asking him what happened to fallen soldiers before the First World War.
 
Peter Francis (English accent): After the Battle of Waterloo [1815], just a hundred years before the First World War, most of the dead were thrown into pits. And there was only a big memorial to the officers. There was nothing to remember the ordinary rank and file. And a few years later some of those bodies were exhumed – and I sometimes ask young people this, “What do you think that was for?” and they think “Well, to bring the bodies home, sir, or to give them a decent burial.” I’m afraid the truth is a little bit more shocking. So, they were burnt so that the ashes could be used as fertiliser, and the teeth were taken to make dentures. 

INSCRIPTIONS

All CWGC gravestones follow the same design and there are no distinctions based on class, race or religion. However, families were allowed to choose a short inscription, or compose something themselves, as Francis explained.

Peter Francis: Some are deeply powerful. First World War tend to be, perhaps, more religious. Second World War tend to get more deeply personal. My favourite, if that’s the right word, is actually for a young World War Two airman… the personal inscription is taken from his last letter home. And it says “Mother, I’m aware of the risks, but I prefer them to living in a world dominated by Nazis”. And you can’t help but look at that and just go, phew, that’s pretty powerful stuff. 

NOTES FROM THE PAST

And these cemeteries raise fascinating questions for historians, says Francis.

Peter Francis: It poses some interesting questions as well, you know. So, here in the UK for example, you might have a cemetery down in Wiltshire in which there are large numbers of Australians. Or, in Scotland we have members of the Indian Mule Corps buried there. And it tells you something about the global nature of the war effort. And… “So why are there Indian servicemen buried in my local cemetery? What were they doing here?” and what about those that stayed and then married into those local communities? You know, there’s a lot that one can build upon here. And it’s one of the reasons why, as we’ve moved into our second century of care, we’ve created a foundation, a charitable foundation designed to enable us to tell more of the stories of the people that we commemorate. Because if we don’t do that, and people don’t come and visit these places, then what are they for?