Perhaps the most poignant losses of the war were of men who remained genuinely lost, those who simply vanished, for whom relatives and friends had no focal point. Of all war memorials, the most moving is that of the Unknown Warrior.
The driving force behind this was a British , lieutenant- colonel, Henry Williams. At the end of the war 5000 men were given the job of exhuming those buried on battlefields, identifying them if possible and then reburying then in cemeteries. As a member of the Imperial War Graves Commission which was established in 1917 to bury or commemorate the war dead of the British Empire, Williams was asked to command them.
He was struck by the numbers who were unidentifiable or missing presumed dead. The 3888 graveleaa British soldiers killed during the retreat fro9m the Marne, the 56,000 unknown dead at Ypres. the 20,763 men who died at Gallipoli with no graves.
Backed by Sir Fabian Ware the head of the Commision, he suggested that one unidentified body should be buried in Britain as a symbol of all those others who had no grave. It took a year for the War Office and Westminster Abbey to agree that there should be indeed a memorial to the unknown Warrior.
Once the decision was taken a body was chosen and the unknown warrior began his journey home in a coffin of oak cut from the grounds of Hampton Court Palace.
On November 11th 1920 2 years to the day after the war had ended the coffin carrying the soldier was carried down Whitehall at 11am was unveiled at the Cenotaph. After a ceremony the procession moved towards to Westminster Abbey where the body was interred.
The war was a terrible waste. The Allies lost 5 million men. Great Britain alone lost 743000 dead. France suffered almost twice as many under 1.4 million dead. In all more than 8 million soldiers died as a result of the conflict.
With the machinery of war which had never been used in previous conflicts the terrible effect left many men mutilated beyond recognition. This made the task of compiling accurate figures almost impossible. This task was further complicated by other destructive events which happened at the same time such as the Influenza pandemic of 1918 -1919.
According to some estimates this amounted to around £270 billion.
The hearts and minds bore a most terrible cost of the population left in villages all over the globe. To pick up the pieces of life after the loss of there loved ones.
1.5 million men were left wounded in body or mind or both. One in 8 who served.
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