A land fit for heroes
Millions make pilgrimages to the beautifully kept Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries, the last resting place of thousands of young men. Yet without one man’s vision and determination, these dignified and noble places might never have existed
Discover the origins of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
The battlefields of World War I are now dotted with cemeteries – places of serenity rather than slaughter. White headstones line up like soldiers on parade, the parade ground a still and silent place of reflection and remembrance. On a summer’s day, the shadow of an English rose will fall on every stone.
The existence of these sites owe a lasting debt to one man who was determined that the great sacrifice of these soldiers would never be forgotten. Born in Bristol in 1869, Fabian Arthur Goulstone Ware was 45 when war broke out and was considered too old to fight.
A former teacher, schools administrator and newspaper editor, he was put in charge of the Red Cross mobile units to search and care for the wounded. As he travelled he came across many hasty burials in fields, in farms, in woods, even in gardens. He became troubled about the
lack of an organisation responsible for keeping records of these burials.
Saddened by the scale of the loss and deeply concerned about the future of these forsaken graves, he began to seek out burial places and keep precise records of the names and locations. “Ware had this extraordinary vision,” explains Victoria Wallace, Director General of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). “I suppose as a journalist he was a great questioner and perhaps, by nature, slightly suspicious of government. He was furiously independent and had great vision and extraordinary drive. This was a man who could quite easily have done nothing in the war. But he went to the battlefields, mustering cars to support the Red Cross. He then realised there was a great problem in what they could do with the war dead.”
In October 1914 Ware was visiting some wellmarked but unrecorded war burials in Bethune Town Cemetery with Red Cross assessor Lieutenant Colonel Stewart. It was here the idea of an organisation that would record, look after and maintain the graves was born.
Well connected, Ware persuaded the War Office that a department should be set up to deal with the ever-increasing toll. The task was given to Ware and the Graves Registration Commission was formed in March 1915.
The land held by the Allies was divided into sections for teams to search: every grave was to be marked. Hastily constructed crosses with fading details were replaced with sturdier versions with more permanent inscriptions.
The teams would make endless enquires: Ware had good contacts among French officials and churchmen. However, the best information would often come from local children, who would lead them across muddy fields to lonely corners and lost burials.
Diligently they searched for clues: buttons perhaps or initials on rusty spoons, numbers on ground sheets, inscriptions on watches, even the shade of khaki issued by various units provided valuable information. All helped give an identity back to the lost. Taking great risks, the men began identifying the fallen, even working in danger in the frontline trenches.
In March 1915 General Haig commented, “It is fully recognised that the work of the organisation is of purely sentimental value, and that it does not directly contribute to the successful termination of the war. It has, however, extraordinary moral value to the troops in the field as well as to the relatives and friends
“IT WAS HERE THE IDEA OF AN ORGANISATION THAT WOULD RECORD, LOOK AFTER AND MAINTAIN THE GRAVES WAS BORN”
of the dead at home. The mere fact that these officers visit day after day the cemeteries close behind the trenches, fully exposed to shell and rifle fire, to accurately record not only the names of the dead but also the exact place of burial, has a symbolic value to the men that it would be difficult to exaggerate.”
As the war neared its conclusion, Ware’s concern for the graves grew. Determined, he campaigned for an organisation, feeling it should be imperial rather than national, as the soldiers had come from all over the world. Finally in May 1917 the Imperial War Graves Commission (now known as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) was set up. Edward, Prince of Wales was president, with Ware as vice chairman.
Ware’s ideals were ahead of his time. Life in the trenches had been horrific, and the experience led to a strong feeling of brotherhood among the men, and Ware felt this spirit should be continued in death.
He asked Sir Frederic Kenyon, director of the British Museum, to put together a report setting out the commission’s principles, which are still held today: each of the dead would be commemorated by name on permanent headstones or memorials; headstones would be uniform, and there would be no distinction made on account of military or civil rank, race or creed; there would be no repatriation of remains, as it was something only the wealthy could afford.
This led to huge disagreements, as grieving relatives wanted to choose headstones for their loved ones. Many wanted a cross rather than a headstone and wished to use their own wording. Others wanted to build private memorials. In some circles, the commission’s attitude was seen as tyrannical.
“There was massive public opposition to the approach and it continued to be debated in parliament until 1920,” said Victoria. “It was an extraordinarily difficult thing. I don’t think there was a general expectation at the time of remains being repatriated. For the government it would have been an impossibility in terms of both morale and practicalities.”
The debate came to a conclusion in May 1920. Winston Churchill and MP William Burdett-coutts spoke eloquently for the commission and finally convinced the opposition that the memorials would commemorate the nation’s huge loss in perpetuity. Work on the cemeteries as we know them today could begin.
Funding was to come – and still does – from the governments of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and the UK. The amounts are proportionate to the number of graves. At the time no one had any real idea of how much it would cost. Between 1919-1920 the cost was £243,577 18s 11d. In 2015 to 2016 the CWGC received over £61 million.
The cemeteries were to be dignified, respectful places, but never gloomy. Each would have an altar – the Stone of Remembrance – and a huge cross – the Sword of Sacrifice.
“Ware’s vision was to pull the great thinkers of the time and some of the greatest minds in the cultural heritage sphere and use their combined creative genius to come up with something that had such a quality and such a compelling overall vision,” Victoria explained.
Sir Edwin Lutyens, Sir Herbert Baker and Sir Reginald Blomfield – famous architects of the time – set to work designing the cemeteries. Rudyard Kipling, who had lost his son in the war, was to be the wordsmith. He chose the inscriptions, “Their Names Liveth for Evermore”, while the graves of those buried without a name read, “A Solder of the Great War, Known unto God”. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew was consulted. Plants were chosen that would bloom for every season – an English country garden in a foreign field.
By the time World War I ended, the landscape looked like the world itself had died. Few trees were left standing, and the land was in chaos: a dismal, muddy wilderness cut with trenches and scarred with craters. It was vicious with rusting barbed wire and deadly with unexploded shells. Roads had been pulverised, bridges broken, railways obliterated, villages reduced to ruins – and the dead lay everywhere.
A labour corps was established to deal with the work. Using Ware’s records, isolated graves and small cemeteries could be incorporated into larger ones. Earlier cemeteries, battered by bombardments, were set in order.
The commission hired gardeners – at first ex-soldiers – who cleared and prepared the land to be fit for fallen heroes. Much of the work was carried out by units nicknamed ‘mobile gardening parties’. Lorries were loaded with tents, tools, provisions and plants, and the teams set off into the muddy wasteland for days on end. Life was tough and dangerous: work included clearing unexploded bombs from sites selected as cemeteries. Conditions were primitive, and food and provisions were hard to come by.
At first the graves were marked with wooden crosses that were eventually replaced by headstones made from Portland stone. Each was engraved with the regimental badge, name, rank and date of death. For a fee the next of kin could add a short inscription; a contribution that soon became voluntary.
Three experimental cemeteries were built: of those, Forceville in the Somme region became the template. A walled cemetery within a garden setting, it was said by those who first saw it to be noble, classically beautiful and stirring.
So what would have happened to the war dead without Fabian Ware? In previous wars the rank and file were buried in mass pits, while officers’ remains were often sent home.
“THE COMMISSION HIRED GARDENERS – AT FIRST EX-SOLDIERS – WHO CLEARED AND PREPARED THE LAND TO BE FIT FOR FALLEN HEROES. MUCH OF THE WORK WAS CARRIED OUT BY UNITS NICKNAMED MOBILE GARDENING PARTIES”
“Inevitably they would have found some way of sorting everything out,” said Victoria. “Somebody would have done something. I suspect it would have ended up staying within the army rather than becoming an independent organisation. I suspect it would have been done in a rather more workman-like way.”
After the war, Ware gave reasons behind his drive and determination. He said, “Common remembrance of the dead [of the Great War] is the one thing, sometimes the only thing, that never fails to bring our people together.”
The work took 20 years to complete. The final memorials were finished in 1938, just one year before the outbreak of World War II. There are now cemeteries and memorials in more than 150 countries, where 1.7 million service men and women who died in the two world wars are buried. The youngest was 14 years old, the oldest was 67.
The largest cemetery is Tyne Cot in Belgium. It is the site of 12,000 graves – the dead from the battles for Passchendaele – and is conversation-stopping.
The smallest cemetery is on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina in the USA, where four World War II British sailors are buried.
Big or small, it’s impossible to say which is the saddest, but perhaps the most heartbreaking are those that are tucked away where few footsteps fall. At Faffemont (Falfemont) Farm on the Somme there is the grave of three men from the London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers) killed on 10 September 1916. They are buried in a farmer’s field where they fell. There is no path, and when the crops are high, the graves are hidden from view.
Soldiers who have no known grave are named on memorials to the missing. The biggest is Thiepval, which stands 45 metres high and lists over 70,000 men lost on the Somme. In Ypres there are over 54,000 names inscribed on the Menin Gate. Each evening at 8pm crowds gather for the Last Post Ceremony which has been held here every day since 1928, except for an interlude during World War II.
When the killing of World War II began the commission was ready for the sad but vital role it had to play. When the fighting was over, 559 new cemeteries and 36 new memorials were added to the list.
So did Ware’s vision become a reality? Would people always remember? The CWGC now maintains war graves at 23,000 locations in 150 countries around the world so it’s impossible to know exactly how many people visit.
“Our best guess is around ten million visitors a year,” said Victoria. “We know for a fact that there are at least 500,000 a year who go to Tyne Cot and around 350,000 who go to Thiepval.”
Ten million annual visitors is an incredible figure. Would Ware be surprised at the huge numbers who still come to pay their respects, 100 years on? “I don’t think he would be surprised at all,” said Victoria confidently. “He took a view that this was something that was absolutely there for posterity. I think his vision was very much that this was something that future generations should continue – and would continue – to honour.”
Today visitors stand on grass as soft as velvet and admire the plants tended by the commission’s 850 gardeners. They read the
“THE LARGEST CEMETERY IS TYNE COT IN BELGIUM. IT IS THE SITE OF 12,000 GRAVES – THE DEAD FROM THE BATTLES FOR PASSCHENDAELE – AND IS CONVERSATION-STOPPING”
names and sigh at the sacrifice of a generation and feel anger at such waste. Many feel consoled by the care still given to the brave young men whose names will live forever thanks to the efforts of Fabian Ware.
Twice mentioned in dispatches and knighted in 1920, Sir Major General Fabian Ware died aged 79 on 29 April 1949 at his home in Amberley, Gloucestershire. He is buried in the Holy Trinity Churchyard, where his white Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone will always be cared for by the organisation he worked so hard to create.