LONDON’S TRIBUTE TO OUR WAR HEROES

HISTORIC SPECTACLE

SALUTE TO THE DEAD

“Let us now praise famous men.” Out in the broad highway of Whitehall stands the day’s monument to the dead, austere, simple, and noble. The flags overhead are tossing in the wind and the sunshine. On that monument the flags fall still as a pall. It is crowned with crimson-bound laurel, and over it the three flags of Britain, the white ensign of her Navy, the red ensign of the merchant ship, the Union Jack which is the ensign of soldier and sailor too, stream down to clothe the stately white form of the monument in the robes of our country’s honour. So on the day of the triumph we commemorate The Glorious Dead, and about the base of the memorial lie scattered flowers, rich wreaths, and little bunches of blossom, and while you watch from the window you see a woman in deepest mourning come to lay there one more gift of flowers.

Of our men the Athenian vaunt is a mere cold record of fact; they indeed “have forced every sea and land to be the highway of their daring and everywhere have left immortal monuments behind them.” In the Arctic snows and under the Southern Cross lie the bones of those who died for us. Many a field of France “shall be for ever England” by the eternal right of the dust of those who fell to make it free again. The names of the cities of the Holy Land are sanctified anew for us after 2,000 years, and here we claim the right to blazon them on the masts of our triumph. The heights of the Dardanelles, the sands of Mesopotamia, the African forests and far islands in the Pacific seas have heard “the sound and the splendour of England’s war,” and entomb some of the best strength of our race. Here, as the long procession comes in the pomp of triumph, it must turn to salute the monument to the deeds and the sacrifice and the glory of those who “judged happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of valour,” and made the offering of their lives.

SURGE OF THE CROWD

I have never seen such a surge of people as that which swept down Whitehall at Saturday’s noon. Long before that masses were standing eight, ten, and twelve deep. When the procession was at hand a great flood of a crowd came streaming along the empty roadway. What was its source I cannot tell; it surged on quietly enough, but irresistible, and then the people on the pavement swept forward, submerged the few policemen, and in a moment the eastern half of the wide street was full. It was plain that nothing less than a troop of mounted men would ever sweep the roadway clear again.

But even half the width of Whitehall makes room enough for a procession, and the monstrous crowd, if it was completely out of hand, had the commonsense and good humour which we expect of crowds in London, and controlled itself. I do not know that anything in the well-planned schemes of the day was more typical of British character than this happy accident.

Whitehall was brilliant in a coat of many colours. Even the Treasury permitted itself a discreet splendour, with blue and gold at its windows and an array of flags from the roof. There is for our skies and our sombre buildings no better decoration than flags, if they are big enough to be significant, well chosen, and well arranged.

THE WHITE PILLAR

But the heart of the splendours of Whitehall is there in the cenotaph, that monument to all whose names stand upon the roll of honour, who “for this offering of their lives, made in common by them all, each himself received the renown which never grows old.” Noon was near, and a rustle of cheering, like wind in trees, grew louder and louder, and we saw General Pershing, a bluff, strong figure, come riding up, and the sunshine fell on a soldierly face, sharp hewn and square, as he turned his horse and, for a moment, stayed facing the monument holding the salute. On he rode through a storm of cheers, and after him came massed colours of American regiments. The regimental flags were lowered in salute, the flags of the nation, the stars and stripes of “Old Glory,” were borne high.