THE YPRES TIMES
in refusing to dispose of his land or .permit the bodies of our soldiers to find
permanent burial therein, remained obdurate.
To have fought the matter in Belgian Courts would have meant certain and
humiliating defeat for the British Government. Consequently, much to the chagrin
of the Commission, and in particular to that of its vice-chairman, Major-General
Sir Fabian Ware, who is mainly responsible for its operations, there was no other
course open than to acquiesce and remove the bodies.
Rosenberg Chateau Cemetery and Extension contained 480 bodies of the
Empire's fallen; and although 1915 burials were in the majority, there were many
extending over the other three war years.
The following are the details
Rosenberg Chateau Cemetery.United Kingdom, 93; Canadian, 146; total, 239.
Cemetery Extension.United Kingdom, 78; Australian, 128; New Zealand, 35;
total, 241.
It may be mentioned that, although in the past both the cemetery and the
extension have been carefully tended by the gardening staff, work of construction
had not been attempted, nor were the headstones, which had been on the spot for
more than two years, erected above the graves, as the Commission foresaw a possi
bility of the demand for abolition being enforced.
I should add that the High Commissioners for the Commonwealth of Australia
and the Dominion of Canada had full cognizance of the unfortunate situation, and
it was with their consent and approval that the bodies of the Australian and
Canadian dead were exhumed and removed.
All the bodies have been removed to the Berks Cemetery Extension, which is
about half a mile distant on the main Armentières road. This picturesque British
burial-ground, standing under the immediate shadow of Ploegsteert Wood, already
contained the graves of 295 soldiers from the United Kingdom, 51 from Australia,
45 from New Zealand, and three from Canada. Moreover, the memorial to the
Missing" British men who fell in the battles and trench warfare in the Armen
tièresLillePloegsteert areas, has been erected within its confines. Upon this
memorial, the work of Mr. H. Charlton Bradshaw, A.R.I.B.A., are engraved the
names of 11,447 British fallen. It will be unveiled in the summer of the
present year.
In conclusion, just one word of reassurance to the relatives of the gallant men
whose remains have been removed. The writer has probably seen more of the
work of the Imperial War Graves Commission during the past ten years than any
other independent observer.
He has witnessed our war cemeteries transformed from rugged fields into
beautiful gardens of sleep he has watched the soldier gardeners mothering
the graves of their fallen comrades with solicitude and tender sympathy; and he has
been present at many exhumations.
Upon removal from the soil each body is placed in a separate wooden coffin, and
the Union Jack is immediately laid over it. Those present stand silently and rever
ently at attention whilst the hero's: body is borne upon a stretcher by two ex-soldiers
to the exhumation wagon that is to convey it to its final resting place in the selected
concentration cemetery.
The tragic remains are reburied in single graves, and no praise can be too
high for the devoted spirit in which the painful task is carried out.
REQUIESCAT IN PACE."
Reprinted by kind permission of
The Western Morning Neivs and Mercury."
