"2. He will report as to the desirability of forming an advisory committee from among those who have been consulted, for the purpose of carrying out the proposals agreed upon.
" The Commissioners are of opinion that no distinction should be made between officers and men lying in the same cemeteries in the form or nature of the memorials."
The recommendations of Sir Frederic Kenyon's report, which were adopted by the Commission, may be briefly summarized as follows:
1. That the principle of equality of treatment should be expressed bv the erection of uniform headstones over the graves of all officers and men who, in the words of the charter, may have died from wounds inflicted, accident occurring or disease contracted while on active service during the war.
2. That each cenetery should have a great memorial stone and a tall cross as central monuments.
3. That isolated graves should be concentrated into selected cemeteries.
It remained for the Commission to put the scheme into execution. Officials were appointed and made responsible for the organization and carrying out of the work in the different areas, and by the spring of 1918 the new establishment was on a practical basis. 1 In France and Belgium the preparation of architectural designs was entrusted to Sir Edwin Lutyens, Sir Reginald Blomfieldand Mr. Herbert Baker; in Egypt, Macedonia, Italy and the United Kingdom to Sir Robert Lorimcr; in Gallipoli and Palestine to Sir John Burnet; and in Mesopotamia to Maj. Edward Warren. In each of these areas there were assistant architects responsible to the principal architects named.
Work. The type of regimental headstone finally selected by a committee consisting of Sir Frederic Kcnyon, Sir C. J. Holmes, Mr. D. S. MacColl and Mr. Macdonald Gill, was of a design frequently found in churchyards in the United Kingdom. The dimensions are: height 2 ft. 6 in., breadth i ft. 3 in., thickness 3 inches. Each stone as a rule bears at the top the badge of the regiment or unit. Then follow the military details with the name of the deceased and the date of his death, below which is carved the symbol of his faith, while at the foot of the stone is engraved a personal inscription chosen by the next-of-kin.
Of the two central monuments the great altar-like Stone of Remembrance, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, bears the inscription chosen by Mr. Rudyard Kipling, " Their name liveth for evermore." The other memorial is the great Cross of Sacrifice designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield, to the shaft of which is fixed a crusader's sword of bronze. (See Plate.)
The preparation of cemetery registers, which will present a complete record of the fallen, is also a feature of the Commission's work. Each register will as a rule contain a map showing the situation of the cemetery, a plan giving the position of the grave, and an alphabetical list of those buried or commemorated in the cemetery, with a short addition, generally giving, among other details, age and parentage furnished by the next-of-kin. To these duties must be added that of honouring the dead who have no known graves. This is no small task, for of these there are more than 250,000 and the precise form of the memorials was still in 1921 under consideration.
Nor did the Commission's responsibilities end here, for the commemoration of the navy's dead was also entrusted to them. In each of the three ports which throughout Britain's naval history have been intimately associated with the sea service a site was chosen for the erection of a memorial (which will also act as a sea-mark), bearing the names of those lost or buried at sea. These memorials were designed by Sir Robert Lorimer in consultation with the Board of Admiralty.
With equal generosity Belgium made provision similar to that of France for the acquisition of land for British cemeteries on her territory. Other countries followed the lead of France and Belgium. Measures of similar intent were passed by Italy in June 1918, and by Greece in Sept. 1920, while in Nov. 1918 the Egyptian Government promised to present to the Commission as a free gift the land on which British or Dominion soldiers were buried, as also did the Government of Palestine in Nov. 1920.
1 The head office was set up in London, which will remain the permanent headquarters of the Commission.
Several of the enactments described above were followed by treaties or agreements. In Nov. 1918 an Anglo-French Agree- ment was signed enabling the Commission to act in France. An mportant clause provided for the establishment of an Anglo- French Committee (of which distinguished French and British officers are members), to represent the Commission in their relations with the French authorities, and to present claims for .and for cemeteries, or for memorials by which some gallant exploit or feat of arms may be commemorated.
The Commission is represented by similar agencies with similar powers in Belgium, Greece, India, Canada, Malta, Gibraltar, Palestine and Mesopotamia. The Canadian Agency is responsi- ble to the Commission for the entire execution of its purposes in Canada, the United States of America and Siberia; a committee established in India, in consultation with the Indian Govern- ment, is in the same way responsible for that country and Aden.
The unprecedented nature of the task with which the Commis- sion was charged is obvious; its complexity and magnitude will be realized when it is remembered that the 600,000 known graves for which they were responsible were scattered all over the world in many different countries with different laws and customs, some of them the enemy countries with whom special provisions were made in the Treaties of Peace to ensure the graves being respected; and there are no less than 15,000 burial places in different parts of Europe and the East where British sailors and soldiers rest, the great majority being in civil cemeteries contain- ing small groups of graves, but some 1,500 of them being ceme- teries of considerable size, the largest containing 12,000 graves. As has been seen, the permanent construction work carried out in these cemeteries is of a simple but durable kind, but the Com- mission's gardeners set to work immediately after the Armistice, without waiting for the erection of the permanent headstones, planting shrubs, grass and flowers, taking as their guiding principle the words of Sir Frederic Kenyon's report: " There is no reason why cemeteries should be places of gloom; but the rcstfulness of grass and the brightness of flowers in fitting combination would appear to strike the proper note of brightness and life." It is hoped that these cemeteries may become a permanent landmark in the history of civilization.
\\hcn the Commission's policy was first announced it met with some criticism, particularly as regards equality of treatment as expressed by the principle of uniformity. This criticism found expression in a motion in the House of Commons. The debate which took place on this occasion (May 4 1920) has been de- scribed as one of the most moving in the history of. the British Parliament. The result, by which the motion was negatived without a division, must have removed from the minds of the commissioners any fear that the sympathy of the country wa not with them in the course they were pursuing.
II. FOECES OF FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES. While, as a rule, the Allies adopted similar methods of commemorating the fallen to those described above, the great differences in the numbers of their casualties and in the conditions obtaining in the different countries rendered certain divergences unavoidable. France, on whose soil lay over three million dead, was faced with the problem of honouring her fallen soldiers without clogging the wheels of industry and agriculture, which were beginning to revive under peace conditions, even in the devastated areas where the graves lay thickest. The British helped to solve the difficulty by concentrating all isolated graves into cemeteries which would forever mark the British battle-line. The French adopted the further expedient of giving the ncxt-of-kin the op- portunity of having their dead re-buried at the State's expense in the churchyard or burial-ground of their native place, while those who were left would rest in great national cemeteries constructed by the State as a lasting monument to the heroism of the soldiers who died for France.
Many of the fallen soldiers of the American Expeditionary Force were borne back across the Atlantic to rest in their native land. The execution of this difficult task demanded careful organization, and it says much for the enthusiasm and the capacity of the staff of the Cemeterial Branch of the American
