The Origins of WW1 Remembrance in Britain

With the unprecedented mass horror and death that World War One brought, it became increasingly important to remember the fallen. The problem was how best to do that. The government wished to portray the war as one of victory, whereas the population wished to see it with grief and disaster in mind. Regardless of the conflict surrounding how best to commemorate the sacrifice paid by those who served, the compromise of acknowledging the personal deaths and sacrifice of those who fought was found. It was from then on that the idea of collective remembrance was born. As Winter and Sivan suggests, the remembrance themes that stem from World War One is about gathering pieces of the past and constructing them in places where the public can collectively participate in traditions together. From then on, war would be remembered as a mix of horror and heroism together.

The Great War in modern memory was certainly the first time that soldiers were memorialised and remembered on a large scale. Before WW1 the burial of soldiers was the responsibility of the unit and the recording of them was by either the officers or chaplains. The idea of officially commemorating individuals, rather than just burying them in a mass grave, or if lucky to be identifiable, in an individual grave with a small marker, started with the creation of what would later become known as the Imperial War Graves Commission after a royal charter in 1917. The Red Cross Burial Unit as it was initially called was set up by Fabian Ware to assist in the locating of bodies, marking of graves and creating purposeful military cemeteries that would support large numbers of burials. This work of great importance would allow the unit to gain official recognition from the army, who by 1915 became part of the Graves Registration Commission.

The grave markers used by the Imperial War Graves Commission all purposefully looked similar. Each grave was decorated with a headstone made from Portland stone from Derbyshire (sorry as a Derbyshire lass, had to throw that in). This was to symbolise equality in the heroism of the soldiers’ death, regardless of rank, ethnicity or religion. If the individual could be identified, a symbol of their religion, name, rank, serial number and date of death were carved into the headstone. Where the individual was not known, an inscription was placed on the headstone saying, “known unto God”.

The work started by the Graves Registration Commission was the source for how we today view ‘unknown’ soldiers. The idea of commemorating the missing who had died in service with no known grave was a previously unheard-of practice before the Great War. With the large number of losses and mass conscription, it meant remembering the names of those involved in the conflict, whether missing or not, was of vital importance. As Wilson suggests, the point behind graves and memorials to missing and unknown soldiers is so that sites for those living who cannot commemorate their own dead as there is no known grave, is so that they have somewhere to grieve without a physical grave present.

Memorials and cemeteries during this time became national shrines for mourning and grief. This representation only came out of the First World War due to mass conscription, meaning the whole nation was affected by war, rather than just a select few in previous campaigns who volunteered. As most towns, cities and villages across the nation had had casualties, it increased the need for a place of remembrance in the hometowns of those who were lost. In a pre-WW1 setting without mass conscription, war memorials are an uncommon site. The ones that do exist are usually dedicated to the glory and bravery of such war heroes as Nelson and Wellington. The images placed on them often involve fighting and violence of some kind, showing the glory of victory in wartime.

Waterloo Place and the Crimean Memorial

It was the Crimean War that started to change the theme of memorials. The Crimean War is the first instance where memorials were dedicated to soldiers other than major generals. A plinth style memorial in Cheltenham is perhaps the first notable instance of this. Carved into it are the names of 27 soldiers and officers from Cheltenham that were killed during the conflict. However, unlike most WW1 examples, the names of the officers and other soldiers are divided onto separate sides of the memorial.

The main memorial in Britain that was a result of the First World War was the Cenotaph in Whitehall. It was built as a temporary wooden structure as a main place for memorialising soldiers during Peace Day Celebrations in July 1919. What was unforeseen was the public outpouring of grief at this place that was purposefully absent of any specific religious or national symbolism. This was so that it could signify an empty tomb and focus thoughts onto unity in remembering the suffering endured. The memorial would become the place to go for those whose loved ones had no known grave and were unable to travel to the Western Front memorials. From that moment, it was obvious that a permanent structure would have to be built in preparation for what would be the first Remembrance Day in November 1919.

Ken Welsh

The first Remembrance Day on the 11^th November 1919 would set the precedent for what has now been a century of memories and remembrance for those who fought in the First World War. However, how this was to be done was not set in stone until the actual day. The silence we now observe was carried out for the first time on that day. So much so that all of London’s transport was brought to a halt. The central focus of the mourning was in Whitehall around the still temporary Cenotaph. The heartbreak was so obvious that the only sound to cut through the silence was the sound of weeping.

Programme for the unveiling of the Cenotaph and the burial of the Unknown Warrior, Westminster Abbey, London, 11 November 1920

The thing I have never forgotten since I first studied this period in my second year at university is the story of a little boy who was there on that day with his widowed mother. During the silence, he asked her about whether his daddy was in the Cenotaph. For me, I think that emotional story humanises the grief that perhaps we can feel so distant from a century after the conflict. Now it feels as though the gratitude to those now passed for their part in the conflict overtakes the feeling of loss that was so acute immediately after the conflict. In these days when veterans of World War Two are getting fewer, it is still evident the loss and sacrifice they witnessed is within them, as seen in the recent D-Day commemorations. Still, we have the mass outpouring of grief and loss to thank for the remembrance traditions we still follow today.

It feels appropriate to end with the changed meaning of the Last Post. This simple bugle call, which is now often played so much for commemorations, was once just simply a way to mark the end of the day. Now it exemplifies mourning for war dead. It is as if this sound puts into music what the hearts of a whole nation were feeling in the aftermath of a static and mechanical war. This small piece of music signifies the images of self-sacrifice, comradeship and solidarity that has since been associated with the activity of collective remembrance.

Turner, A. W., The Last Post: Music, Remembrance and the Great War (London: Aurum Press LTD, 2014), p. XVIII.

Winter, J. M., Remembering War: The Great War Between Memory and History in the Twentieth Century (Yale: Yale University Press, 2006), p. 20.

Winter, J. and Sivan, E., ‘Setting the Framework’, in Winter, J. and Sivan, E. (eds), War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 6.

Winter, J. and Sivan, E., ‘Setting the Framework’, p. 9.

Maggio, A., ‘The Memory of War: The Role of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in the Identification and Memorialisation of Missing and Unknown Soldiers from WW1’, Limina: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies, 23.2 (2018), p. 32.

Maggio, A., ‘The Memory of War: The Role of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’, pp. 31-32.

R. Wilson, ‘The Burial of the Dead: the British Army on the Western Front, 1914-1918’, War & Society, 31.1 (2012) cited in Maggio, A., ‘The Memory of War: The Role of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’, p. 32.

https://www.cwgc.org/about-us/history-of-the-cwgc (Accessed 18/06/19)

http://hiddenhistorieswwi.ac.uk/uncategorized/2014/09/where-did-the-headstones-for-the-first-world-war-cemeteries-come-from/ (Accessed 18/06/19)

R. Wilson, ‘The Burial of the Dead: the British Army on the Western Front, 1914-1918’, War & Society, 31.1 (2012) cited in Maggio, A., ‘The Memory of War: The Role of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’, p. 32.

Maggio, A., ‘The Memory of War: The Role of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’, p. 34.

J. Winter, ‘Sites of Memory and the Shadow’, in A. Erll and S. Young (eds), Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (2013) cited in Maggio, A., ‘The Memory of War: The Role of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’, p. 33.

R. Wilson, ‘The Burial of the Dead: the British Army on the Western Front, 1914-1918’, War & Society, 31.1 (2012) cited in Maggio, A., ‘The Memory of War: The Role of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’, p. 34.

G. L. Mosse, ‘National Cemeteries and National Revival: The Cult of the Fallen Soldiers in Germany’, Journal of Contemporary History, 14 (1979) cited in Macleod, J., ‘Britishness and Commemoration: National Memorials to the First World War in Britain and Ireland’, Journal of Contemporary History, 48.4 (2013), pp. 648-649.

Davidson, A., ‘War Memorial Landscape Heritage in England’, Garden History, 42 (2014), p. 59

Davidson, A., ‘War Memorial Landscape Heritage in England’, p. 58.

Davidson, A., ‘War Memorial Landscape Heritage in England’, p. 59.

Johnson, D. A. and Gilbertson, N. F., ‘Commemorations of Imperial Sacrifice at Home and Abroad: British Memorials of the Great War’, The History Teacher, 43.4 (2010), p. 575.

Johnson, D. A. and Gilbertson, N. F., ‘Commemorations of Imperial Sacrifice at Home and Abroad’, p. 563.

Johnson, D. A. and Gilbertson, N. F., ‘Commemorations of Imperial Sacrifice at Home and Abroad’, p. 575.

Turner, A. W., The Last Post: Music, Remembrance and the Great War (London: Aurum Press LTD, 2014), p. IX.

Turner, A. W., The Last Post: Music, Remembrance and the Great War, p. X.

Turner, A. W., The Last Post: Music, Remembrance and the Great War, p. XII.

Turner, A. W., The Last Post: Music, Remembrance and the Great War, p. XII-XIII.

Davidson, A., ‘War Memorial Landscape Heritage in England’, p. 61.

Turner, A. W., The Last Post: Music, Remembrance and the Great War, p. 2.

A. Fletcher, ‘Patriotism, Identity and Commemoration: New Light on the Great War from the Papers of Major Reggie Chenevix Trench’, History, XC (2005) cited in Bartie, A., Fleming, L., Freeman, M., Hulme, T., Readman, P. & Tupman, C., ‘”And Those Who Live, How Shall I Tell Their Fame?”: Historical Pageants, Collective Remembrance and the First World War, 1919-39’, Historical Research, 90.249 (2017), p. 639.