The Unknown Soldier


The Unknown Soldier 

In 1916 Reverend Railton saw a cross inscribed ‘An Unknown Warrior of the Black Watch.’ Railton contemplated who the soldier was, and who grieved for him. He also wondered if an unidentified soldier’s body could be reinterred in England to represent the lives sacrificed in the Great War. 

Railton’s vision became reality on 11 November 1920 when an unknown soldier was buried at Westminster Abbey. As Amelia Bromley watched on, her thoughts turned to her dead son: ‘Yes, he’s come back home … to the place he first entered this world.’


That same day, France entombed a poilu’s remains beneath the Arc De Triomphe. A year later, an unknown American soldier was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. 


These tombs became places for silent contemplation, and often sad resignation. 


In 1926, a one-legged veteran named Trocker visited the Paris tomb, and smashed a magnum of champagne on the sacred stone and drunkenly toasted the glorious dead. He was arrested and carted away. He gave no explanation for his actions.


A year later, an elderly man visited the tomb to commemorate his missing son. The man calmly climbed the Arc de Triomphe’s spiral staircase. Atop the terrace, he let out a mournful cry and dived to his death. The tormented father believed that his son was entombed beneath the grand arches. 


Another protester roughly painted on the tomb, ‘What about the unknown wife of the unknown soldier?’


For the Soviet Union, the Great War had been an imperialist venture and was forgotten. Not until the 1960s did it entomb an unknown soldier and establish its eternal flame to commemorate its dead. From this 1966 photograph we can only imagine the emotions experienced by this veteran mourning at the eternal flame. 


In 1993, Australia reinterned its own unknown soldier. The notion that the remains in faraway London represented Australians had become a quaint archaism. 


Today more than 50 countries have a war memorial housing the remains of an unidentified soldier. 


Like my posts? Then take a sneak preview at my soon-to-be-released novel, ‘Night in Passchendaele’ (pre-orders open)

https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781761265976/night-in-passchendaele/

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