SILENT WITNESSES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18580, 14 December 1934, Page 14

SILENT WITNESSES

WAR’S DESOLATION GRAVES OF EMPIRE’S DEAD White headstones, row on row, all set in gardens, how replace the wooden crosses “in Flanders where the poppies grow” ; in Italy where they are buried in snow for half the year, and in the sun-baked, arid soil of Palestine. . . . “Our war graves set a girdle round the world,” Sir Fabian Ware, permanent vice-chairman of the Imperial War Graves Commission, said in'his address at Wellington.

“Each soldier made the same sacrifice, and we decided that each headstone should be the same in outward appearance; the same for general and private, rich or poor, and for every race and creed,” he said. Each bore the name, rank and unit of him whose grave it marked, together with the badge of his Dominion and a symbol of his religion. In the case of those who had gained the Victoria Cross, that emblem distinguished them in death. Over those who could not be identified was the inscription: “A Soldier of the Great War—Known to God.” “This ascription was much discussed,” Sir Fabian said, “and I think you will agrpo that nothing could be more suitable.’’ NO GRAVES DESECRATED

Every cemetery had its cross of sacrifice and its stone of remembrance/ and each was lovingly tended. There was no evidence of any graves being desecrated, even at Gallipoli. “The cost of the who.e work repro sented 6s per grave per year, aud the whole Empire contributed to the work.” J ir Fabian continued. “Early in 1916 France set a noble and generous example by passing an Act by which the land in which our soldiers were burnt should be set aside in perpetuity at the cost of the French Government. It was a very generous action. We were able to choose burial grounds behind the trenches, and so long as there were 40 graves in a cemetery that cemetery lias been kept where it was. Belgium, Italy and Greece followed the French example, and in other cases the land was purchased, or, as in the case of Gallipoli, we secured the land by treaty.” The commission had ordered 800,(TO memorials. “There had never been such an order for headstones in the world before,” he said, “and with the exception of some hundreds in Italy, all have been made by Britisli labor and British stone.”

And King George had said: "In the course of my pilgrimage I have many times asked myself whether there can be more potent advocates of peace on earth through the years to come than this massed multitude of silent witnesses to the desolation of war.”