With the signing of the peace treaty at the Palace of Versailles, on the outskirts of Paris, on the 28th June 1919 the Great War, the war to end all wars, was finally at an end.
William Orpen – The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles 1919.
Less than a month later, on the 19th July two allied commanders Field Marshall Sir Douglass Haig and the French Marshal Ferdinand Foch rode at the head of a parade of 15,000 soldiers, from across the empire, through the city of London. As the parade moved down Whitehall from Trafalgar Square towards the Houses of Parliament, passing the Banqueting House, the site of Charles I’s execution, and passing Horse Guards, the historical headquarters of the British Army, a new edifice came into view. As the parade filled past this structure, sited in the middle of the road, the order was given to ‘eyes right’ in salute for this monument was here to reflect their approximately 880,000 fallen comrades. The structure constructed of wood and plaster was only supposed to be temporary.
1919 victory parade.
The person tasked with designing the monument by the government was the architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens.
Sir Edwin Lutyens.
As the primary architect of the fledging Imperial War Graves Commission, now renamed the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Lutyens’ was the man responsible for many of the features that have become synonymous with the British Military Cemeteries of Flanders, the Somme and also further afield in places like Gallipoli and Mesopotamia. It was Lutyens who designed the Stone of Remembrance which, along with the Cross of Sacrifice, are to be found in all the cemeteries not only of the First World War but also those of the Second World War and beyond. However, it is the Somme that Lutyens is most intrinsically linked for here Lutyens was tasked to design a fitting memorial to the 73,000 missing of the Somme, the men who have no known grave, the result the awe-inspiring Thiepval Memorial standing on the site of the Thiepval Chateau one of the hardest fought over grounds on that battlefield.
Thiepval Memorial. Photo credit Mark Wheatcroft.
And so, it was to this man that the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, approached to design a monument for the parade, his vison a low alter, in effect an enlarged version of Lutyens’ own Stone of Remembrance design.
However, Lutyens had something else in mind, much taller that would stand proud above the parade and spectators, taking pride of place. His design took him only six hours to finalise, little did he know when he sketched his design the impact that it would have. As the parade moved on, the crowd of spectators were allowed to move along Whitehall passing this temporary monument. As they passed, many laid flowers at the base of the monument, these were the fathers, the mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters of the fallen. Over the days and weeks that followed more and more flowers were laid at the base of the structure as the families of the fallen travelled from all corners of the country to the capital to remember their fallen. It was soon decided that the structure would be made permanent.
Down came the wood and plaster structure and a truly fitting memorial was constructed to original Lutyens design fittingly in Portland stone, the same stone from which the countless headstones of the fallen are carved. Unveiled in time for the newly constituted day of remembrance in 1920.
The Cenotaph. Photo Credit Mark Wheatcroft
Since then, the national remembrance service has taken place in front of Lutyens’ memorial to the Glorious Dead, the nation, led by the royal family and politicians from across the political spectrum, falls quiet for two minutes, originally at the time the guns on the Western Front fell quiet at the 11th hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month but since the end of the Second World War the closest Sunday.
The monument was given a Greek name which must have been alien to the people of post-Edwardian era Britain but one with a special meaning, because it translated to empty tomb, the word that entered the English language, the Cenotaph.
Daz and Mark discussed the history behind Remembrance Day in this podcast
links below.
The History Behind Remembrance Day with (Mark Wheatcroft)
Youtube video
Podcast links
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