Epitaphs of The Great War
2 total works
It’s the casualties that dominate our thinking on the First World War – the dead – all those thousands of soldiers who lie buried on the battlefields of the world. Who were they? Where did they come from? What were they fighting for? How did their families cope? Can we ever know? In the case of the British we can get an idea because Britain, alone among the combatant nations, allowed their next-of-kin space for a personal inscription on the War Grave Commission’s headstones. And these inscriptions give us a piercing glimpse into the minds of the men and women of the British Empire who mourned their dead; into their pride, love, patriotism, dignity, anger, grief, resignation and despair. It’s as if the stones speak – and some of them do: “Remember whatever happens it will have been worth while”; “Mother dear I must go”; “I would not have missed it for anything”, “Why?”.
Epitaphs of the Great War – The Last 100 Days is the third instalment in an edited collection of
headstone inscriptions from the graves of those killed during the Great War. Limited by the
Imperial War Graves Commission to sixty-six characters – far more restrictive than Twitter’s
140-character rule – these inscriptions are masterpieces of compact emotion containing as
they do the distilled essence of thousands of responses to the war. However, their enforced
brevity means that many inscriptions relied on the reader being able to pick up on the
references and allusions, or recognise the quotations – and many twenty-first-century readers
do not. In this selection of one hundred inscriptions from the battlefield cemeteries, the
author, by expanding the context – religious, literary or personal – has been able to give full
voice to the bereaved. This volume covers those killed in France and Flanders during the period commonly known as
the last 100 days of the war, a period from 8 August to 11 November 1918.
Epitaphs of the Great War – The Last 100 Days is the third instalment in an edited collection of
headstone inscriptions from the graves of those killed during the Great War. Limited by the
Imperial War Graves Commission to sixty-six characters – far more restrictive than Twitter’s
140-character rule – these inscriptions are masterpieces of compact emotion containing as
they do the distilled essence of thousands of responses to the war. However, their enforced
brevity means that many inscriptions relied on the reader being able to pick up on the
references and allusions, or recognise the quotations – and many twenty-first-century readers
do not. In this selection of one hundred inscriptions from the battlefield cemeteries, the
author, by expanding the context – religious, literary or personal – has been able to give full
voice to the bereaved. This volume covers those killed in France and Flanders during the period commonly known as
the last 100 days of the war, a period from 8 August to 11 November 1918.
Epitaphs of the Great War Passchendaele is an edited collection of headstone inscriptions from the graves of those killed during the Third Battle of Ypres – Passchendaele. Limited by the Imperial War Graves Commission to sixty-six characters – far more restrictive than Twitter’s 140-character rule – these inscriptions are masterpieces of compact emotion. But, as Sarah Wearne says, their enforced brevity means that many inscriptions rely on the reader being able to pick up on the references and allusions, or recognise the quotations – and many twenty-first-century readers don’t. Consequently she has selected one hundred inscriptions from the battlefield cemeteries and by expanding the context – religious, literary or personal – she has been able to give full voice to the bereaved. This collection, the second in a short series, will be published to coincide with the centenary of the opening of the Passchendaele offensive on 31 July 1917. Together with Epitaphs of the Great War The Somme, published on 1 July 2016, these books cover the epitaphs of the ordinary and the famous, the privileged and the poor, the generals and the privates and, after a hundred years, give us an insight into what contemporaries believed they had been fighting for and how they viewed the loss of the men they had loved.