History
Back to NewsroomThe Commonwealth War Graves Commission
The Sir John Monash Centre stands on the top of a hill, preceded by the Australian National Memorial and the Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery. This cemetery, like many other Commonwealth cemeteries on the Western Front, is cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC).
Today, the CWGC, manages more than 23,000 cemeteries and memorials around the world. More than 575,000 soldiers are buried or commemorated in France alone, while a further 205,000 are in Belgium.
To understand the work of the CWGC today, it is important to look at how the Commission was created.
The founding father of the Commission was Sir Fabian Ware. At the age of 45, he was considered too old to fight in the First World War, so he decided to join the British Red Cross and was appointed commander of a mobile ambulance unit.
He was particularly concerned about the lack of organisation for marking and recording the graves of fallen soldiers. The loss of life reminded him of the soldiers buried in South Africa during and after the Boer Wars.
Along with many others, he began recording the identities of the fallen and their burial sites while continuing his work for the Red Cross. This work quickly expanded to include other Red Cross units and was recognised by the War Office as the Graves Registration Commission (GRC) in 1915, which became the Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiry (DGRE) in 1916.
Now under the direction of the British Army, the intensive work of locating and maintaining the graves and preparing what would happen to them after the war gradually became of concern.
In response, the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) was created. As its name suggests, the IWGC covered the whole of the British Empire and had been proclaimed by Royal Charter on 21 May 1917.
It was chaired by the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII, with Sir Fabian Ware appointed vice-chairman.
The foundations of the burial of the troops of the British Empire were quickly laid by a panel of experts.
- Soldiers would be buried with their comrades and would not be repatriated to their families after the war.
- Cemeteries and memorials would be similar in design to show the continuity and unity of the Empire.
- No difference would be made between soldiers of different rank or religion.
« It was therefore ordained that what was done for one should be done for all, and that all, whatever their military rank or position in civil life, should have equal treatment in their graves.”
The Commission engaged experts included the architects Sir Reginald Blomfield, Herbert Bake and Sir Edwin Lutyens (principal architect of the Australian National Memorial) to design their cemeteries. They were assisted by the author and poet Rudyard Kipling, who was responsible for choosing the epitaphs for the anonymous tombs ‘Known unto God’, and the biblical inscription ‘Their name liveth for evermore’, which appears on the Stones of Remembrance.
Other great names, such as Sir Frederic Kenyon, Director of the British Museum, Arthur Hill, a great specialist in the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew, and Gertrude Jekyll, botanist and ‘the queen of gardens’, also contributed greatly to the design of the IWGC cemeteries. Through their expertise, they brought a more human approach to cemetery design, advocating an aesthetic style closer to the garden than to the necropolis.
“There is no reason why cemeteries should be places of gloom; but the restfulness of grass and the brightness of flowers in fitting combination would appear to strike the proper note of brightness and life.”
This horticultural dimension was central to the organisation of the first military cemeteries. In the midst of the First World War, many women from the United Kingdom who were serving in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) served in the IWGC cemeteries.
Their work included maintaining graves, planting trees, laying wreaths for families and sometimes digging graves for soldiers. Some of these women working close to the front line were injured or even killed by artillery fire, and their funerals were subject to the same ceremonial aspects as those of their male counterparts.
In 1920, a detailed report was drawn up under the direction of Frederic Kenyon, setting out the commission’s guidelines. After three test cemeteries had been established at Forceville, Louvencourt and Le Tréport, other IWGC cemeteries were established along the Western Front, and other key locations of the Great War, such as Gallipoli, Africa, the Middle East and even the United Kingdom.
However, while cemeteries are always assembled with care and according to the same guidelines, some differ in the choice of plants and stone used, with preference given to those best suited to the climate and location.
As soon as the war ended, the first IWGC male gardeners began to appear. They were often ex-servicemen, soldiers who had stayed behind, sometimes to re-enter working society, but also to stay close to their fallen comrades. In 1919, there were nearly 1,400 gardeners in France alone.
Today, the commission hires local people, and often ex-servicemen in rehabilitation, but work in these cemeteries is also a vector for passing on a passion and expertise, with many gardeners themselves descended from gardeners of the Commission, over several generations.
Renamed the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) in 1960, the Commission continues its work throughout the world, with almost 850 gardeners and craftspeople working on almost 700 hectares of land, 450 of which are purely ornamental.
The CWGC Visitors Centres in Beaurains and Ypres, are unique places that highlight the remarkable work carried out by the CWGC to keep the memory of the war dead alive. They give visitors a better understanding of the work carried out behind the scenes to honour the memory of the fallen.
