“THE GLORIOUS DEAD” WHITEHALL CENOTAPH GUARDSMEN AS SENTINELS

To-day will be unveiled, though with no formal ceremony, that temporary monument – pending a decision as to the character of the central war memorial – which his Majesty’s Ministers have caused to be erected in Whitehall as a focus for tomorrow’s peace march.

Much speculation has been aroused by this great scaffolded and hidden object, which for some weeks past, has retained the secret of its special character until the eve of our national and Empire-wide festivities. The secret, if such it may be described, solely to emphasise its significance, need no longer be kept. Today’s dawn will visualise a simple cenotaph – a monument, that is, to the dead who are buried elsewhere bearing the three words:

THE GLORIOUS DEAD.

And, at its base, half-an-hour before the great, greatly-cheered, triumphal procession of all arms, and the arms of our Allies, passes by, there will be stationed four Guardsmen, with bowed heads and reversed arms.

As the victors march by, the accompanying bands will cease playing, and in the ensuing silence, broken only by the tread of the marchers, Allies, Dominion troops, and the troops of the Motherland will break into two broad streams of men walking six abreast on either side of the cenotaph, and salute – the Glorious Dead.

Thus, in the very hour of our triumph, and in the following hours of our festivities and amusements of all kinds, we shall not forget – we must not forget – the heroic dead! To them, first and foremost, we owe our victory. Without them there would have been no victorious decisions, and probably no festivities whatever to-day. Even the school-children, who have been given an official part in the celebrations, will remember that when one of the victorious generals of the Roman army was carried in triumph and amid cheering multitudes through the laurelled streets of the capital; a slave was placed in the back of his cart to remind him that he was, after all, only a man. So may we be reminded by this simple cenotaph of what the survivors of the war, soldiers and civilians, owe to the men who made the great sacrifice.

The cenotaph will be 32ft in height. From the top of it will droop the Union Jack, the White Ensign, and the Red Ensign. Beneath them will be hung laurel wreaths. A flight of three steps will lead up to the plinth of the monument.

SCHEME OF DECORATIONS

Apart from this single, simple, and solemn note, all else in the great procession, and in the scheme of festivities which finds its principal outward expression in the “efflorescence” of flags and decorations on the route of the march will be typical of the jubilation which the nation rightly feels at the conclusion of the Great War. For the first time in the history of celebrations in this country to which the Government of the day has lent its imprimatur, tomorrow’s arrangements, so far as the scheme of street-decoration goes, partakes to some extent of a uniform and harmonious idea in unison with the nobility of the occasion. London,

the greatest city in the world, has long lacked some central civic authority to control its decorative schemes on events of sufficient importance to call for the outward and visible expression of the popular emotion. Too often the city’s decorations are such a jumble of bunting and banners as to give the impression of incoherency. Even to-day, as one walks through the West-end, one finds this incoherency, as if it were impossible to give expression to the national feeling in any dignified and beautiful way.

To-day, however, Londoners will notice with pride and pleasure that at least upon the part of the route of the Victory March which comes under the control of his Majesty’s Office of Works, and under the direction of Sir Frank Baines (the principal architect to the Office of Works), a single, dominating, and highly effective decorative scheme has been adopted, in which for the first time, by the King’s permission, Buckingham Palace is included.

As the cenotaph in Whitehall is the focus and saluting base to commemorate the dead, so it is right and fitting that the only other saluting base should be that which centralises around the King’s majesty all the loyal and living forces of the Empire in its victory, and in the many aspects of its valour.

The King will take the salute of his troops, the troops of his Dominions and the troops of his Allies, from the King’s pavilion, which is to be specially erected at the base of the Queen Victoria monument in front of Buckingham Palace. No finer position for the Royal saluting base can be conceived than this pavilion, facing the full length of the Mall, with the gleaming marble and bronze of the Memorial to Queen Victoria for setting, and the façade of the Palace for background, The pavilion will be draped and canopied and decked in Royal purple cloth, bearing the Royal cipher in gold, and at its right side a great flagstaff will carry the Royal Standard.

Fronting the façade of Buckingham Palace the great arcs of the crescent round the Queen Victoria Memorial are to be given up to stands for over 1,000 disabled soldiers. The crescent itself will be transformed into a colonnade of trellised pillars, bearing gilded finials festooned with laurel, and above and around them, in a still larger colonnade, will be erected a number of masts, forty or fifty feet in height, topped with Imperial crowns, from which will float streamers thirty feet in length, based in design upon the flag of St. George, England’s patron saint, with great Tudor roses pinned upon the cloth of white with its red cross.

BLUE AND GOLD

Above the Palace will float the Royal Standard. At the extreme sides of the façade will be hung two Union Jacks, each six yards, long, and between them will be hung over each main window similarly large flags of all the Allies. The columns in the centre of the façade are to be wreathed with laurel, and each window will be covered with a blue and gold apron. The main balustrade will also be covered with an apron in blue and gold, with, at intervals, big cartouches, or trophies, of flags bearing in their centre the Royal cipher.