io
THE YPRES TIMES
Let us Keep Faith With Those Who Died.
There have this year been one or two suggestions—admittedly, not very
strong or very influentialthat the solemn celebrations of Remembrance Day
cannot go on for ever. One critic has detected in them a glorification of war and
a cynic declares that we neeu not trouble ourselves overmuch, since the next
Great War will assuredly put an end to them. If they did in any way involve
a glorification of war, they might die unlamented. And if they were merely a
smug reminder of our triumph in 1918, then too they would hardly be worth
the trouble of keeping alive. There is, however, no truth in either of these
accusations.
With the ceremony at the Cenotaph and the Silence we have instinctively set
apart November nth as a day for the remembrance of our glorious deadthose
of our kith and kin who sleep in the peaceful Silent Cities in the old war
zones, in lonely jungles, in the bush, on cliffs, in gardens, under tropical suns
and beneath the unplumbed, salt estranging sea." Year by year we receive, and
will continue to receive, in the Silence, their message of the greater love and of a
selflessness that counted not the cost. If we keep the solemnity annually in this
spirit, it becomes an essential part of our national life; if we keep it in any other,
we may be sure that it will perish of its own emptiness. But the form we have
given it tends to keep its true meaning alive. The people who never cared do not
care now. The others do.
It is, of course, recognized that war commemorative celebrations must
eventually be relinquished through the mere efflux of time; but that hour has not
yet struck. As long as there are living comrades left of those who fell on the
battlefields the tombs of the Unknown Soldiers and the village memorials will
not be without their wreaths on Remembrance Day. Surely, too, the younger
generation should be afforded this annual opportunity of paying its own peculiar
homage at the shrines of those who sacrificed all that the lives of posterity might
be passed in security and peace
From the United Kingdom alone 743,702 gallant fellows were killed, whilst
over a quarter of a million of our kith and kin died in the defence of the Ypres
Salientthe greatest battle-ground and simultaneously the greatest graveyard in
the world. These men looked down the dark valley unafraid, when Death
glowered along the trench. We cannot forget them unless first and last we are
false to ourselves.
All Souls' Day at Ypres.
France and Belgium do not forget their dead. As in Great Britain, one is
reminded everywhere of the cost of the Great Conflict. The war memorials and
the war chapels bear long lists of names who fell pour la patrie. Usually the
memorial is in memory of les enfants of a certain place. The children not
"the sons" or "the men"but "the children"; just the children of that
beautiful and stricken mother village.
Last year on All Souls' Day I was present at the Catholic service in memory
of the fallen at Ypres Communal Cemetery, on the immortal Menin Road, through
which many thousands of our own brave troops passed, alasnever to return.
A considerable number of British soldiers are buried in this sacred ground. They
include the King's cousin, Prince Maurice of Battenberg, son of Her Royal
Highness Princess Beatrice (Patron of the Ypres League), who fell whilst
serving in the King's Royal Rifle Corps. At this impressive and solemn service
special prayers were offered for the British dead, All Souls' Day," both in
France and Belgium, being an anniversary when our Allies remember not only
