It would be grisly work, stated Macdonogh, so volunteers would paid an extra two shillings and six pence a day. The exhumation companies, who with the customary dark humour of the British Tommy dubbed themselves \u2018Travelling Garden Parties\u2019, were composed of squads of 32 men each. Their tools were \u201ctwo pairs of rubber gloves, two shovels, stakes to mark the location of graves found, canvas and rope to tie up remains, stretchers, cresol [a poisonous and colourless compound] and wire cutters.\u201d<\/p>\n
- Read more | Remembering the First World War: blood, poppies and poetry<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
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The men who volunteered for the exhumation companies had all fought in the trenches, so they knew the tell-tale signs of where bodies may be found. They looked for grass that had turned slightly blue indicating a body underneath, holes in the ground made by rats digging out a bone, or the butt of a rifle just visible in the mud. When they located a corpse, the men retrieved the identity discs and personnel effects, then placed the remains on a canvas sheet soaked in cresol.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorking in the fields digging up the bodies, a very unpleasant job,\u201d wrote Australian Private William McBeath in his diary on 15 April 1919. Two days later, he described how his work was interrupted by an unwelcome visitor: \u201cWorking in cemetery. An English lady came over to see her son\u2019s grave, found him lying in a bag and fainted.\u201d<\/p>\n
The men who volunteered for the exhumation companies had all fought in the trenches, so they knew the tell-tale signs of where bodies may be found. Grass that had turned slightly blue indicated a body underneath <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
The English poet and writer John Masefield, who had worked as an orderly in a field hospital in France, believed the work of the exhumation companies would prove futile. \u201cThe places where they lie will be forgotten or changed,\u201d he wrote in his book The Battle of the Somme<\/em>. \u201cGreen things will grow, or have already grown, over their graves. It may be that all these dead will some day be removed to a national graveyard.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Masefield\u2019s scepticism was misplaced, for he had not reckoned on the efforts of one of the unsung heroes of the war, Fabian Ware. More than any other person, he ensured that a century after \u201cthe war to end all wars\u201d, the graves of the fallen would remain immaculate and honoured.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Sir Fabian Ware kept\u00a0up his tireless work through and beyond World War I. (Photo by Sasha\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n One man\u2019s war<\/h3>\n
The Bristol-born Ware was 45 when the war began. His professional life hitherto had been varied, including a stint as an educational administrator in South Africa, a spell editing The Morning Post<\/em> newspaper and, in 1914, a post as the special commissioner to the Rio Tinto mining company.<\/p>\n
He was desperate to do his bit for the war effort, but he was too old to fight. Undeterred, he used his contacts to travel to France as the head of a mobile unit of the British Red Cross<\/a>. Along with a band of volunteers, men in possession of automobiles, he drove around the northern French countryside collecting the wounded at a time when the war had yet to develop into static trench warfare.<\/p>\n
As Ware went about his work, he grew increasingly concerned at the way the army was dealing with its dead. Soldiers would be buried where they fell in shallow graves and with a rudimentary wooden cross, if even that. There was no attempt to log the burials and Ware believed the graves would be destroyed in future fighting.<\/p>\n
- Read more | All Quiet on the Western Front<\/em> historian\u2019s review: An ambitious, visceral exploration of life and loss in WW1<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Remembering the fallen around the world<\/h4>\n
Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
The cemetery in the rugged foothills of Myanmar (formerly Burma) is a testament to the brutality experienced by Allied POWs under Japanese rule. It contains the graves of 3,149 Commonwealth and 621 Dutch men who died building the notorious Burma-Siam railway.<\/p>\n
Kohima War Cemetery <\/strong><\/p>\n
With more than 1,400 British and Indian graves, this cemetery in Nagaland stands on the scene of bloody fighting in the spring of 1944 when Japan tried to invade India. Inscribed on the memorial to the dead is: \u201cWhen you go home \/ Tell them of us and say \/ For your tomorrow \/ We gave our today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beach Cemetery,\u00a0Gallipoli\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
To the ANZAC troops (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps), the beach below the cliffs at Gallipoli, Turkey, would become known as \u2018Hell Spit\u2019. At Beach Cemetery, nearly 400 bodies now lie near the sea from which they had come ashore on 25 April 1915.<\/p>\n
London Cemetery, Somme\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
There are few places better to remember the horrors of the First World War, and bear witness to the unlearned lessons of the 20th century, than the Somme. Nearly 4,000 from that war are buried here, plus 165 from the Second World War, mostly men from the Highland Division killed in 1940.<\/p>\n
Devonshire Cemetery\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
Also on the Western Front, this cemetery contains 163 graves, the majority from the regiment after whom it is named. They were killed on 1 July 1916, the first day of the battle of the Somme. A memorial at the entrance reads: \u201cThe Devonshires held this trench; the Devonshires hold it still.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grave Island Cemetery\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
One of the most inaccessible cemeteries is on Grave Island, a tiny coral off the coast of Zanzibar. It takes 20 minutes by boat to reach the island, and visitors have to wade ashore. The 24 graves there are for sailors from HMS Pegasus<\/em>, killed in action on 20 September 1914.<\/p>\n
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So in October 1914, he persuaded, with the support of the Red Cross, the army to allow his unit to expand its remit. They would not only collect the wounded, but keep an official register of the location of every grave, placing a permanent marker on the spot. It hadn\u2019t been difficult to win over the military. The war was evidently not going to be the short all-over-by-Christmas affair everyone had initially believed and hoped, but would last months, even years, and public opinion was becoming more critical as the casualties mounted.<\/p>\n
Before the 20th century, the British had attached little importance to honouring their fallen soldiers, with most being buried in mass graves and only the social elite and wealthiest accorded individual recognition. This had caused anger and distress in the Second Boer War<\/a> (1899-1902) and the army acknowledged that it would be beneficial for morale if more humane methods were introduced.<\/p>\n
\nOn the podcast | Robert Sackville-West describes attempts to identify the bodies of the dead after the devastating battles of the First World War:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
- Read more | All Quiet on the Western Front<\/em> historian\u2019s review: An ambitious, visceral exploration of life and loss in WW1<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
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