The Unknown Warrior’s centenary
IN London’s Westminster Abbey lies the body of the Unknown Warrior, a symbolic representation of all those who paid ‘the ultimate sacrifice’ in the Great War.
After the Great War, discussions were held about plans for a permanent, symbolic memorial to honour the hundreds of thousands who had died, and to replace the wood and plaster temporary Cenotaph at Whitehall, designed by Edward Lutyens and constructed in 1919 for the first anniversary of the Armistice.
However, in August 1920, just three months before the dedication of the permanent Cenotaph, an idea was put forward by Rev David Railton MC to the Dean of Westminster: perhaps he might consider burying the body of an unknown soldier within Westminster Abbey?
The Dean’s response was positive, although King George V was initially cautious in response. Incredibly for such a concept the King, the War Office, Prime Minister David Lloyd George and his Cabinet agreed within three weeks, with Lloyd George making an announcement in the House of Commons on the plan.
Certain stipulations were agreed – the soldier must be unequivocally unknown (so that thousands of relatives could think he might be theirs), be British (identified by buttons and badge), and several bodies would be exhumed, all of which had to be from early in the war to ensure they were sufficiently decomposed and therefore unidentifiable. A final decision as to which coffin would travel to London would be made in the days before the ceremony.
But who was to make that final decision? That task fell to an officer of the North Staffordshire Regiment.
In November 1939, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the first ceremony at the Cenotaph, Brigadier-general Louis John Wyatt of the North Staffordshire Regiment finally set the record straight about how the process was undertaken in an open letter printed in the Daily Telegraph and other newspapers:
Instructions
“I issued instructions that the body of a British soldier, which it would be impossible to identify, should be brought in from each of the four battle areas – the Aisne, the Somme, Arras and Ypres, on the night of November 7th, and placed in the chapel of St Pol. The party bringing in each body was to return at once to its area, so that there should be no chance of their knowing on which the choice fell.
“Reporting to my headquarters office at St Pol at midnight on November 7th, Colonel Gell, one of my staff, announced that
the bodies were in the chapel and the men who had brought them had gone. With Colonel Gell, passing the guard which had been specially mounted, I thereupon entered the chapel.
“The four bodies lay on stretchers, each covered by a Union Jack; in front of the altar was the shell of the coffin which had been sent from England to receive the remains. I selected one, and with the assistance of Colonel Gell, placed it in the shell; we screwed down the lid. The other bodies were removed and reburied in the military cemetery outside my headquarters at St Pol.
“I have no idea even of the area from which the body I selected had come; no one else can know it.”
George V was the chief mourner as the Unknown
Warrior was laid to rest. At the unveiling ceremony at the Cenotaph the King placed his wreath of red roses and bay leaves on top of the coffin. His card read;
“In proud memory of those Warriors who died unknown in the Great War. Unknown, and yet well-known; as dying, and behold they live. George RI. November 11th 1920.”
The nave of Westminster Abbey was lined with a guard of honour of 100 Victoria Cross holders. As the coffin was lowered into the grave by eight guardsmen from 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards, the King scattered some French soil upon it from a silver shell. The ‘Reveille’ and ‘Last Post’ sounded and the open grave was covered by a silk pall.
Watch
A silent watch with “reversed arms” was kept at the four corners by servicemen representing the Army, Navy, Marines and Royal Air Force. The first of an estimated one million mourners then began to file past the grave. It was estimated at the time 100,000 wreaths were placed around the nearby Cenotaph, piled up almost to its apex.
The following November a permanent gravestone of black Belgian marble replaced the temporary York stone and the pall was removed.
On 21 October 1921 General Pershing, the Commander-in-chief of the US Army, brought the Congressional Medal of Honor to Westminster Abbey which was placed next to the King’s wreath, and is today displayed in a frame on a nearby pillar. The American Unknown Warrior was reciprocally awarded the Victoria Cross.
Ceremonies
Other countries have subsequently conducted similar ceremonies. The French tomb contains a private killed at Verdun and is buried at the Arc du Triomphe, selected from eight coffins by a Poilu soldier who placed a bunch of flowers on the fifth coffin. Italy in November 1921 held a ceremony in the Piazza de Venezia in Rome. Belgium’s Unknown Soldier was selected by a blinded veteran and was buried in 1922 at the foot of the Congress Column in Brussels.
For Canada’s Tombe Du Soldat Unconnu a body was exhumed in May 2000 from a cemetery at Souchez near Vimy Ridge and is buried at Ottawa. New Zealand’s Unknown Warrior was exhumed in 2014 (centenary of the start of the Great War) from Caterpillar Valley cemetery and buried at Wellington. Australia’s Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier was buried at Canberra in 1993 (75th anniversary of the end of the Great War). Germany’s Monument of Honour (in Berlin’s redesigned Neue Wache building) was unveiled in 1931.
At the 1923 wedding of the Duke of York (who later became George VI) to Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, whose brother Captain Fergus Bowes-lyon was killed 27 September, 1915, Elizabeth placed her wedding bouquet on the grave of the Unknown Warrior, a tradition that has continued with all royal brides since, including her daughter Princess Elizabeth in 1947, Diana Spencer, Kate Middleton and recently Meghan Markle.
There have been discussions for the centenary of the burial at Westminster Abbey that the Unknown Warrior should be awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest accolade for valour and the only medal that can be award posthumously.
A new ‘Patriot’ Class locomotive Unknown Warrior is currently under construction which will tour the country (www. lms-patriot.org.uk) Currently raising funds at the National Arboretum is Berni Wilkins with the Wreath of Remembrance, which was created from wrought iron and incorporates a horse shoe from one of the stallions that pulled the gun-carriage containing soil from the Flanders battlefields to the Memorial Garden in Horse Guards.