The Unknown Warrior
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| The Unknown Warrior | |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | |
| For the unknown war dead, wherever they fell | |
| Unveiled | 11 November 1920 |
| Location | near London, United Kingdom |
The British tomb of The Unknown Warrior holds an unidentified British soldier killed on a European battlefield during World War I. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, London on November 11, 1920, the earliest such tomb honouring the unknown dead of World War I. Even the battlefield the Warrior came from is not known, kept permanently unknown so that the Unknown Warrior might serve as a symbol for all of the unknown dead wherever they fell.
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] Idea
The idea of a Tomb of the Unknown Warrior was first conceived in 1916 by the Reverend David Railton, who while serving as an army chaplain on the Western Front, had seen a grave marked by a rough cross, which bore the pencil written legend 'An Unknown British Soldier'.
He wrote to the Dean of Westminster in 1920 proposing that an unidentified British soldier from the battlefields in France be buried with due ceremony in Westminster Abbey "amongst the kings" to represent the many thousands of Empire dead. The idea was strongly supported by the Dean and the then Prime Minister Lloyd George. There was initial opposition from King George V (who feared that such a ceremony would reopen the wounds of a recently concluded war) and others but a surge of emotional support from the great number of bereaved families ensured its adoption.
[edit] Selection, arrival and ceremony
Arrangements were placed in the hands of Lord Curzon who prepared in committee the service and location. The body was chosen from four bodies draped with Union Flags at the chapel at Ste Pol near Arras, France on the night of 7th November, 1920 by Brigadier General L.J. Wyatt and Lieutenant Colonel E.A.S. Gell. The body was placed into a coffin and sealed. The following morning a multi-denominational service was held for the soldier whose coffin bore the legend 'A British Warrior who fell in the Great War'.
The coffin was then taken to Boulogne under guard by French soldiers and placed aboard HMS Verdun, Marshal Foch saluted the coffin as it rested on the quayside before loading. As the flotilla carrying the coffin closed on Dover Castle it received a 19 gun Field Marshal's salute. It was landed at Dover Maritime Railway Station at the Western Docks on 10th November, from where it was taken to Victoria Station, where it arrived at platform 8 at 8.32pm that evening and remained for the night of the 10th - at both locations there is a plaque.
On the morning of the 11th November, 1920 the coffin was loaded onto a gun carriage of the Royal Horse Artillery and drawn by 6 horses through immense and silent crowds. The route followed was Hyde Park Corner, The Mall, and to Whitehall where the Cenotaph was unveiled by King George V. The Cortège was then followed by the King, Royal Family and ministers of state to Westminster Abbey, where the coffin was borne into the West Nave of the Abbey flanked by an honour guard of 100 holders of the Victoria Cross.
The coffin was then interred in the far western end of the nave, only a few feet from the entrance, with soil from each of the main battlefields and covered with a silk pall. The Armed Services then stood as honour guard as tens of thousands of mourners filed past. The ceremony appears to have served as a form of catharsis for collective mourning on a scale not previously known.
The grave was then capped with a black Belgium marble stone (the only tombstone in the Abbey on which it is forbidden to walk) featuring this inscription, composed by Dean Ryle, Dean of Westminster, engraved with brass from melted down wartime ammunition:
Beneath this stone rests the body
Of a British warrior
Unknown by name or rank
Brought from France to lie among
The most illustrious of the land
And buried here on Armistice Day
11 Nov: 1920, in the presence of
His Majesty King George V
His ministers of state
The chiefs of his forces
And a vast concourse of the nation
Thus are commemorated the many
Multitudes who during the Great
War of 1914 - 1918 gave the most that
Man can give life itself
For God
For King and country
For loved ones home and Empire
For the sacred cause of justice and
The freedom of the world
They buried him among the kings
Because he
Had done good toward God and
Toward
His house
Around the main inscription are four texts:
(top) THE LORD KNOWETH THEM THAT ARE HIS,
(sides) GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS and UNKNOWN AND YET WELL KNOWN, DYING AND BEHOLD WE LIVE,
(base) IN CHRIST SHALL ALL BE MADE ALIVE.
[edit] Later history
A year later, the Warrior was conferred the US Medal of Honor on 17 October 1921, from the hand of General Pershing; it hangs on a pillar near to his burial site. (Later, on November 11, 1921, the U.S. Unknown Soldier was reciprocally awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest award for gallantry.)
When Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon married the future King George VI on April 26, 1923, she laid her bouquet at the Tomb on her way into the Abbey, a gesture which every royal bride married at the abbey since has copied, though on the way back from the altar rather than to it.
The British Unknown Warrior came 76th in the 100 Great Britons poll.
[edit] Other nations
Several other nations would follow the example and have their own Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
