New online exhibition to reveal ‘monumental task’ of honouring those who fell

Previously unseen documents from the First World War will reveal how an empire struggled to reconcile hundreds of thousands of deaths – 100 years after the guns fell silent.

Letters from grieving mothers, images of poet Rudyard Kipling visiting his son’s memorial, and a copy of King George V’s passport for his battlefield pilgrimage are among items to be displayed in an online exhibition from today.

‘Shaping Our Sorrow’ aims to serve as an illustration of the “monumental task of honouring the dead”, said the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC).

Chief archivist Andrew Fetherston said: “Our rituals of remembrance are too often taken for granted, but this exhibition is a stark reminder that commemorating one million people equally, regardless of class and rank, was unprecedented and often very controversial.”

Poignant petitions from mothers angry at the policy of non-repatriation of Commonwealth dead are set to feature heavily.

One extract from Anna Durie, writing of her efforts to bring her son William home, reads: “I was going like a criminal by night to exhume the body of the bravest officer that ever left Canada”.

The decision not to repatriate the fallen in particular caused huge debate.

Desiring to treat all the dead equally regardless of rank, the CWGC felt allowing those with wealth to be brought home while others stayed would erode comradeship that had been developed between soldiers at the front.

The online exhibition, structured around the five stages of grief, will allow viewers to scroll through the items in detail to discover the enormous struggle to create the culture of remembrance today.

It can be viewed at www. shapingoursorrow.cwgc.org/start/

Established in 1917, the CWGC exists to honour the 1.7 million men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died in the First and Second World Wars.

Its principles are that each of the dead be commemorated by name on a permanent headstone or memorial, with no distinction made on account of military rank, race, or creed.

I was going like a criminal by night to exhume the body of the bravest officer that ever left Canada

Picture: PA. A photograph of King George V’s passport for his battlefield pilgrimage.