222-666: The Royal Artillery Memorial is a First World War memorial located on Hyde Park Corner in London, England. Designed by Charles Sargeant Jagger , with architectural work by Lionel Pearson , and unveiled in 1925, the memorial commemorates the 49,076 soldiers from the Royal Artillery killed in the First World War . The static nature of the conflict, particularly on the Western Front, meant that artillery played
444-450: A Lancashire company invented an automated engraving process. In Britain, voluntary subscription, rather than funding from local or central government, was considered the only correct way to pay for a war memorial, although it was disputed whether active proactive fundraising was appropriate. Raising the sums required could be quite difficult, and many committees tried various means, including moral blackmail , to exhort larger sums out of
666-711: A diamond rush and a massive influx of foreigners to the borders of the Orange Free State. Then, in June 1884, gold was discovered in the Witwatersrand area of the South African Republic by Jan Gerrit Bantjes . Gold made the Transvaal the richest nation in southern Africa; however, the country had neither the manpower nor the industrial base to develop the resource on its own. As a result,
888-441: A realist approach to his figures, embracing detailed images of military power with none of the classical symbolism of other monuments, or even Jagger's own pre-war pieces. The art historian Reginald Wilenski likens the memorial to the work of Frank Brangwyn , who focused on depicting the physical labour of soldiers and workers during the war. The memorial shows the three upright bronze figures stood at ease, rather than to attention;
1110-645: A shanty town . Uitlanders (foreigners, white outsiders) poured in and settled around the mines. The influx was so rapid that uitlanders quickly outnumbered the Boers in Johannesburg and along the Rand, although they remained a minority in the Transvaal. The Boers, nervous and resentful of the uitlanders' growing presence, sought to contain their influence through requiring lengthy residential qualifying periods before voting rights could be obtained; by imposing taxes on
1332-518: A " khaki election ". However, Boer fighters took to the hills and launched a guerrilla campaign, becoming known as bittereinders . Led by generals such as Louis Botha , Jan Smuts , Christiaan de Wet , and Koos de la Rey , Boer guerrillas used hit-and-run attacks and ambushes against the British for two years. The guerrilla campaign proved difficult for the British to defeat, due to unfamiliarity with guerrilla tactics and extensive support for
1554-496: A "work of the highest quality and distinction". Alan Borg , an art historian and Director of the Imperial War Museum, described the work in 1991 as "undoubtedly" Jagger's masterpiece, noting the quality of the sculptural work which makes it "one of the outstanding examples of 20th-century British art" and "perhaps the only war memorial" to be recognised as intrinsically important in its own right. The memorial enjoyed
1776-542: A bronze memorial plaque, inscribed with the name of the deceased alongside Britannia and a lion, and a scroll, sent to the next of kin of those had died in the service of the British Empire. Honour rolls in Canada were very popular, particularly immediately after the end of the war, although the decision on which names to include on them proved contentious: should accidental deaths, for example, be included? Where it
1998-658: A design that would be "unmistakably recognisable" as an artillery monument, and were insistent that the eventual designer take detailed advice from a junior officer who had served in the war. The RAWCF first examined a design by Captain Adrian Jones , who produced the Boer War Cavalry Memorial a few years before, but his design was rejected. Next, the committee contacted the architects Sir Edwin Lutyens , Herbert Baker , and Sir Aston Webb (designer of
2220-580: A distinction between utilitarian and non-utilitarian, symbolic designs; in the US, utilitarian memorials were termed "living memorials". Utilitarian memorials were intended to commemorate the dead by having a practical function and typically include projects such as libraries, small hospitals, cottages for nursing staff, parks, clock towers or bowling greens, although in Britain and Canada, large-scale urban redevelopment projects were also proposed, including rebuilding
2442-643: A frenzy of jingoism, lionised him and treated him as a hero. Although sentenced to 15 months imprisonment (which he served in Holloway ), Jameson was later rewarded by being named Prime Minister of the Cape Colony (1904–1908) and was ultimately anointed as one of the founders of the Union of South Africa. For conspiring with Jameson, the uitlander members of the Reform Committee (Transvaal) were tried in
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#17327832283922664-451: A further two years, the Boers conducted a hard-fought guerrilla war, attacking British troop columns, telegraph sites, railways, and storage depots. To deny supplies to the Boer guerrillas, the British, now under the leadership of Lord Kitchener , adopted a scorched earth policy. They cleared vast areas, destroying Boer farms and moving the civilians into concentration camps. Some parts of
2886-550: A gun in the Imperial War Museum . At the end of each arm of the cross is a sculpture of a soldier—an officer at the front (south side), a shell carrier on the east side, a driver on the west side, and at the rear (north) a dead soldier. The sides of the base are decorated with relief sculptures depicting wartime scenes. The realism of the memorial, with the depiction of the howitzer and the dead soldier, differed significantly from other First World War memorials, notably
3108-405: A key part of these designs. The graves proved controversial: initially they were marked by wooden crosses but, after some argument, it was agreed to replace these with Portland stone markers; the original wooden memorials were in some cases returned to the soldier's next of kin. Each marker was identical in shape and individualised only through the inscription of the name, regiment, date of death,
3330-431: A large ridge some 69 km (43 mi) south of the Boer capital at Pretoria. The ridge was known locally as the "Witwatersrand" (white water ridge, a watershed). A gold rush to the Transvaal brought thousands of British and other prospectors and settlers from around the globe and over the border from the Cape Colony, which had been under British control since 1806. The city of Johannesburg sprang up nearly overnight as
3552-523: A lesser extent) war memorials, a sculpture of a dead soldier at eye level was an unusual and dramatic feature among First World War memorials—architects often preferred abstract, classical designs (such as the Cenotaph) or portrayed death through allegory. Jagger was adamant about the inclusion, even offering to pay for the casting of the additional figure himself. After considerable debate, the RAWCF agreed to
3774-416: A major role in the war, though physical reminders of the fighting were often avoided in the years after the war. The Royal Artillery War Commemoration Fund (RAWCF) was formed in 1918 to preside over the regiment's commemorations, aware of some dissatisfaction with memorials to previous wars. The RAWCF approached several eminent architects but its insistence on a visual representation of artillery meant that none
3996-447: A memorial committee. These committees might then bring in a wider cross-section of local community leaders, including Christian clergy, Jewish leaders, voluntary organisations, rifle clubs and volunteer police, although sometimes committees were more tightly controlled by local government officials. Former servicemen occasionally felt that their opinions were excluded from the formal processes, while in other cases complaints were made that
4218-1065: A memorial. It was proposed to leave the fortifications of Douaumont in ruins as a memorial to the dead of Verdun, and the issue of whether or not to replant the region with trees in the 1930s proved controversial with veterans. Some parts of the trench systems were preserved intact as memorials, however, including the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial and the trench system at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial . In other theatres, such as Iraq and Palestine, reconstruction took much longer and bodies remained unburied at least until 1929. Resources and funds were needed to construct most memorials, particular larger monuments or building projects; sometimes professional services could be acquired for nothing, but normally designers, workmen and suppliers had to be paid. Different countries approached this problem in various ways, depending on local culture and
4440-459: A military presentation. The British phrase, adopted by IWGC, " their name liveth for evermore ", was popularised by Rudyard Kipling , who had lost a son during the war. British lists often omitted the soldier's rank, creating an impression of equality in death. Long lists of names – up to 6,000 – incorporated into churches in England and Germany. In Australia, where
4662-811: A national response, and many towns and villages did not erect memorials at all. A new organisation, the Souvenir Français , was established in the 1880s to protect French war memorials and encourage young French people to engage in military activities; the organisation grew to have many contacts in local government by 1914. Britain and Australia had both sent forces to participate in the Second Boer War of 1899 to 1902, which spurred an increased focus on war memorials. The Boer War had involved 200,000 British volunteers alone, and attracted considerable press coverage. Numerous war memorials were erected on their return, either by local community leaders or by
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#17327832283924884-426: A national response. The local processes and committees could result in multiple memorials being created for the same community or event: the site of Verdun was commemorated by three different memorials, for example, while some British towns saw rival memorials created by competing groups in the community. In contrast, the construction of war cemeteries, graves and their associated memorials were typically placed under
5106-408: A pedestal. The RAWCF felt that a realist design would have broader appeal and would be inclusive of the tastes of ordinary artillerymen—rather than catering solely for the tastes of the officers—while at the same time creating a historical record of the era for future generations. Jagger engaged the architect Lionel Pearson to design the stone structure of the memorial, and through June and July 1921
5328-773: A plan to take Johannesburg and end the control of the Transvaal government was hatched with the connivance of the Cape Prime Minister Rhodes and Johannesburg gold magnate Alfred Beit . A column of 600 armed men was led over the border from Bechuanaland towards Johannesburg by Jameson, the Administrator in Rhodesia of the British South Africa Company , of which Cecil Rhodes was the chairman. The column, mainly made up of Rhodesian and Bechuanaland British South Africa Policemen ,
5550-495: A pretext for war and a justification for a big military build-up in Cape Colony. The case for war was developed and espoused as far away as the Australian colonies. Cape Colony Governor Sir Alfred Milner ; Rhodes; Chamberlain; and mining syndicate owners such as Beit, Barney Barnato , and Lionel Phillips , favoured annexation of the Boer republics. Confident that the Boers would be quickly defeated, they planned and organised
5772-418: A religious symbol and a short text agreed by the next of kin. Public debate ensued about these graves throughout the 1920s. British officials were concerned about families erecting their own memorials on the sites and detracting from the appearance of the cemeteries; critics complained about the secular nature of the memorials, the limited options for families to individualise the graves and the excessive role of
5994-442: A result of all these processes, large numbers of memorials, more than for any other conflict, were built across the world during the inter-war period. It is estimated that France built around 176,000 war memorials, including around 36,000 in the local communes. Most of the local commune memorials were built by 1922, but those in the towns and cities typically required more protracted negotiations, and their construction stretched into
6216-573: A result, many memorial projects had to be cut back or altered due to lack of money. The final size of Douaumont had to be cut in size by a third when fund-raising slowed. Proposals to turn the planned Imperial War Museum into a grand memorial for the war dead were shelved due to lack of funds. The construction of memorials produced a lot of business in all the countries involved in the war. In Britain and Australia, stone masons provided large quantities of mass-produced design, often advertising through catalogues, while professional architects acquired
6438-539: A short war, citing the uitlanders' grievances as the motivation for the conflict. In contrast, the influence of the war party within the British government was limited. UK Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury , despised jingoism and jingoists. He was also uncertain of the abilities of the British Army. Despite both his moral and practical reservations, Salisbury led the United Kingdom to war in order to preserve
6660-498: A similar mausoleum at Mărăşeşti, explicitly likened to the use French ossuary at Verdun. Amidst some concerns about denigrating the importance of other battlefields, the CBMC focused on producing a single major memorial at Vimy. In Turkey, the entire battlefield of Gallipoli was ceded to Britain and her imperial allies in 1923, and the area was turned into an extended memorial to the war dead. There were no settlements to reconstruct, so
6882-461: A small ceremony at the memorial; the newspaper felt that this said more about the quality of the memorial than the more negative writings of art critics. These voices eventually held sway, and the memorial came to be popularly termed "the special Cenotaph of the Gunners", Lord Edward Gleichen praising it in 1928 as "a strikingly imaginative and most worthy representation". By the 1930s, it was one of
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7104-697: A still higher profile in the 21st century. The architectural historian Gavin Stamp compared its quality to the memorials of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission , and in 2004, the art critic Brian Sewell pronounced the Royal Artillery Memorial "the greatest sculpture of the twentieth century". Historic England , in the memorial's entry on the National Heritage List for England , remarks that
7326-455: A stronger role in the process of commissioning memorials. France, for example, mostly relied on local communities to organise and commission most war memorials, but the state played a comparatively larger role than in Britain and similar countries. A law was passed in 1919 establishing an official role for local government officials in the process of commissioning memorials; many towns then formed committees to take this process forward, typically at
7548-419: A temporary cenotaph, an empty sarcophagus monument, which would be saluted by the marching troops. The British Prime Minister David Lloyd George decided that a similar but non-denominational memorial should be built in London, despite ministerial concerns that a cenotaph was an inappropriate, Catholic form of monument, and that it might be desecrated. The victory marches went ahead; French political leaders had
7770-450: A walled area, intended to resemble an English garden; almost all were constructed around a War Stone and a Cross of Sacrifice , described in more detail below. The style varied slightly by architect and location, but typically the cemeteries followed classical influences in buildings and monuments, sometimes adapted slightly to appeal to the style of a particular Dominion. The buildings at the cemeteries were important symbolically and formed
7992-489: Is in the form of a squat Roman cross. Cast by the A. B. Burton foundry, bronze figures are placed at the ends of each arm—an artillery captain holding a greatcoat at the front (facing south, below the barrel of the howitzer); a shell carrier on the east side; a driver wearing a heavy cape to the west; and to the north, a dead soldier on the north, his greatcoat thrown over him and his helmet resting on his chest. Carved stone reliefs show various detailed military scenes from
8214-574: Is officially called the South African War . In fact, according to a 2011 BBC report, "most scholars prefer to call the war of 1899–1902 the South African War, thereby acknowledging that all South Africans, white and black, were affected by the war and that many were participants". The origins of the war were complex and stemmed from more than a century of conflict between the Boers and Britain. Of immediate importance, however,
8436-658: The Anglo-Belgian Memorial in Brussels, though the Royal Artillery memorial is arguably his leading work. Most of these works were in the design stage or under construction concurrently. Jagger was approached by the RAWCF both because of his reputation as a designer and because of his service as an infantry officer, although the American artist John Sargent , a patron of Jagger's, may have encouraged
8658-601: The Canadian Legion or local authorities. There was considerable discussion in the US during 1919 about the need to construct a suitably grand, national monument to commemorate the war dead, but the discussions failed to produce a consensus and no project was undertaken; monuments such as the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri were built by local citizens. In other countries, the state played
8880-654: The Enfield . Indeed, when the ammunition for the Mausers ran out, the Boers relied primarily on the captured Lee-Metfords. Regardless of the rifle, few of the Boers used bayonets. The Boers also purchased the best modern European German Krupp artillery. By October 1899, the Transvaal State Artillery had 73 heavy guns, including four 155 mm Creusot fortress guns and 25 of the 37 mm Maxim Nordenfeldt guns . The Boers' Maxim, larger than
9102-794: The First Boer War (December 1880 to March 1881) was a much smaller conflict. Boer (meaning "farmer") is the common name for Afrikaans -speaking white South Africans descended from the Dutch East India Company 's original settlers at the Cape of Good Hope . Among some South Africans, it is known as the (Second) Anglo–Boer War. In Afrikaans , it may be called (in order of frequency) the ' Tweede Vryheidsoorlog ("Second Freedom War"), ' Tweede Boereoorlog ("Second Boer War"), Anglo–Boereoorlog ("Anglo–Boer War") or Engelse oorlog ("English War"). In South Africa , it
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9324-529: The First World War centenary . On the eve of World War I there were no traditions of nationally commemorating mass casualties in war. France and Germany had been relatively recently involved in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871. Germany had built a number of national war memorials commemorating their victory, usually focusing on celebrating their military leaders. In France, memorials to their losses were relatively common, but far from being
9546-459: The Fêtes de la Victoire , while pilgrimages to the sites of the conflict and the memorials there were common in the inter-war years. Much of the symbolism included in memorials was political in tone, and politics played an important part in their construction. Many memorials were embroiled in local ethnic and religious tensions, with memorials either reflecting the contribution of particular groups to
9768-619: The Great Trek . Around 15,000 trekking Boers departed the Cape Colony and followed the eastern coast towards Natal . After Britain annexed Natal in 1843, they journeyed farther northwards into South Africa's vast eastern interior. There, they established two independent Boer republics: the South African Republic (1852; also known as the Transvaal Republic) and the Orange Free State (1854). Britain recognised
9990-533: The Martini-Henry Mark III, because thousands of these had been purchased. Unfortunately, the large puff of white smoke after firing gave away the shooter's position. Roughly 7,000 Guedes 1885 rifles had also been purchased a few years earlier, and these were also used during the hostilities. As the war went on, some commandos relied on captured British rifles, such as the Lee-Metford and
10212-735: The Matabele and Mashona peoples' rising against the British South Africa Company. The rebellion, known as the Second Matabele War , was suppressed only at a great cost. A few days after the raid, the German Kaiser sent a telegram—known to history as "the Kruger telegram "—congratulating President Kruger and the government of the South African Republic on their success. When the text of this telegram
10434-586: The Second World War . They were unveiled by Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II ). Over the years, pollution and water penetration caused damage to the bronzes and stonework. English Heritage conducted a major restoration of the memorial during 2011, completed in time for Armistice Day . In 1970 the memorial was designated a Grade II* listed building , and in July 2014 it was one of five memorials in London to be upgraded to Grade I status to mark
10656-642: The South African War and most monuments contemporary to the First World War. Memorials of the South African War typically included figures of soldiers, sometimes dying in conflict, but always heroically in a "beautiful death". Classical symbolism was often used to distance the event of death from the observer, as typified in William Colton 's work for the Worcester Boer War Memorial . Most First World War memorials reacted to
10878-486: The commune level. Members of the Souvenir Français organisation played an important role in many of the resulting local committees. In other cases, governments increased their role in commissioning memorials during the inter-war period. In Romania, most memorials in the early 1920s were initially erected by local communities; in 1919 the royal family created the "Societatea Cultul Eroilor Morţi" (The Cult of
11100-459: The events of Gallipoli . In the same way, Romania regarded the battles of Mărăşeşti and Mărăşti as hugely significant sites, worth of special remembrance. In the inter-war years, these battlefields were frequently described as forming "sacred" ground because of the number deaths that had occurred there. National governmental bodies and charities were rapidly formed to produce memorials for these sites. The British government, for example, set up
11322-427: The innovative deployment of aircraft, submarines and poison gas . In many theatres of operation, mobile campaigns degenerated into static trench warfare , depending on the slow attrition of the enemy over many years for victory. The battles spread across larger areas than ever before, with key engagements, such as that at Verdun , etched on the memories of the nations involved. One result of this style of warfare
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#173278322839211544-554: The " Missionaries Road " passed through it towards territory farther north. After the Germans annexed Damaraland and Namaqualand (modern Namibia ) in 1884, Britain annexed Bechuanaland in 1885. In the First Boer War of 1880–1881 the Boers of the Transvaal Republic proved skilful fighters in resisting Britain's attempt at annexation, causing a series of British defeats. The British government of William Ewart Gladstone
11766-488: The "experience in the trenches persuaded me of the necessity for frankness and truth". According to historian John Glaves-Smith, the memorial uses themes of "endurance and sacrifice, not dynamism and conflict", and thus speaks to its audience about the experience of war in a way that the Cenotaph, for example, does not. The Royal Artillery Memorial has been the subject of much critical discussion since its inception. Although
11988-497: The "gloomy" figure on the front of the memorial staring down Constitution Hill towards Buckingham Palace. A year-long debate occurred within the RAWCF as to what inscription should be placed on the memorial, adding to the delay. Jagger made another change in early 1924, adding an effigy of a dead soldier to the fourth side of the memorial, in keeping with the soldiers on the other three sides. The proposal proved controversial. Although recumbent effigies were not uncommon on tombs and (to
12210-443: The 1930s. The 1920s were particularly busy for construction of memorials in Britain, although the trend tailed off in 1930s, with the last inter-war memorial unveiled at the town of Mumbles in 1939. The commissioning of Australian war memorials similarly reduced after the mid-1920s. Over 3,500 Romanian memorials were erected. Many German memorials were built during the 1930s. Russia was unusual in building very few war memorials to
12432-437: The 1930s. While few memorials embraced a pacifist perspective, some anti-war campaigners used the memorials for rallies and meetings. Many of the political tensions of the inter-war period had diminished by the end of the 20th century, allowing some countries to commemorate the events of the war through memorials for the first time since the end of the war. The memory of the war became a major theme for scholars and museums during
12654-480: The 19th century, towards depicting ordinary soldiers, annual ceremonies surrounding the memorials were not common and no official memorial day emerged. Boer War memorials in both countries were widely felt to lack a suitable quality of design and execution, echoing contemporary concerns in the US about the statues erected to commemorate the American Civil War . The new European states that had formed in
12876-608: The 54,896 names inscribed on the Menin Gate and the 73,357 on the Thiepval Memorial. Civic memorials in Britain and France typically had names inscribed; in Britain, these were often combined with other mottos or script, in France, where the significance of the name took even greater importance, just the names were used with a simple introduction. In France the names were usually listed in alphabetical order, resembling
13098-745: The African continent was dominated in the 19th century by a set of struggles to create within it a single unified state. In 1868, Britain annexed Basutoland in the Drakensberg Mountains, following an appeal from Moshoeshoe I , the king of the Sotho people , who sought British protection against the Boers. While the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 sought to draw boundaries between the European powers' African possessions, it also set
13320-606: The Battle Exploits Committee in 1919 to create national battlefield memorials, alongside the work of the IWGC. Initially their intent was to celebrate the more heroic aspects of the fighting, and to avoid the flavour of memorials to the fallen that were being built elsewhere; by 1921, however, the committee had entered into a partnership with IWGC and adopted the same focus on the sacrifice of the fallen soldiers. The Canadian Battlefields Memorials Commission (CBMC)
13542-514: The Boer cause attracted thousands of volunteers from neutral countries , including the German Empire, United States, Russia and even some parts of the British Empire such as Australia and Ireland. Some consider the war the beginning of questioning the British Empire's veneer of impenetrable global dominance, due to the war's surprising duration and the unforeseen losses suffered by the British. A trial for British war crimes committed during
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#173278322839213764-403: The Boers. However, British fortunes changed when their commanding officer, General Redvers Buller , was replaced by Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener , who relieved the besieged cities and invaded the Boer republics in early 1900 at the head of a 180,000-strong expeditionary force. The Boers, aware they were unable to resist such a large force, refrained from fighting pitched battles , allowing
13986-406: The Boers; 20,000 died. British mounted infantry were deployed to track down guerrillas, leading to small-scale skirmishes . Few combatants on either side were killed in action , with most casualties dying from disease. Kitchener offered generous terms of surrender to remaining Boer leaders to end the conflict. Eager to ensure fellow Boers were released from the camps, most Boer commanders accepted
14208-667: The British Britannia, to the Gallic rooster to the Romanian vulture . Postcards of war memorials were widely produced in Britain and Italy, and ceramic models of the more famous ones, such as the Cenotaph, were sold as souvenirs. The World War I war cemeteries represented important memorials sites to the conflict and typically incorporated specific monuments commemorating the dead. Under the Treaty of Versailles , each country
14430-489: The British Empire's prestige and feeling a sense of obligation to British South Africans. Salisbury also detested the Boers treatment of native Africans, referring to the London Convention of 1884 , (following Britain's defeat in the first war), as an agreement "really in the interest of slavery". Salisbury was not alone in this concern. Roger Casement , already well on the way to becoming an Irish Nationalist,
14652-413: The British Maxims, was a large calibre, belt-fed, water-cooled "auto cannon" that fired explosive rounds (smokeless ammunition) at 450 rounds per minute. It became known as the "Pom Pom". Aside from weaponry, the tactics used by the Boers were significant. As one modern source states, "Boer soldiers ... were adept at guerrilla warfare—something the British had difficulty countering". The Transvaal army
14874-641: The British authorities in the Cape. Negotiations failed at the botched Bloemfontein Conference in June 1899. The conflict broke out in October after the British government decided to send 10,000 troops to South Africa. With a delay, this provoked a Boer and British ultimatum and subsequent Boer irregulars and militia attacks on British colonial settlements in Natal Colony . The Boers placed Ladysmith , Kimberley , and Mafeking under siege, and won victories at Colenso , Magersfontein and Stormberg . Increased numbers of British Army soldiers were brought to Southern Africa and mounted unsuccessful attacks against
15096-403: The British press and British government expected the campaign to be over within months, and the protracted war gradually became less popular, especially after revelations about the conditions in the concentration camps (where as many as 26,000 Afrikaner women and children died of disease and malnutrition). The Boer forces finally surrendered on Saturday, 31 May 1902, with 54 of the 60 delegates from
15318-415: The British terms in the Treaty of Vereeniging , surrendering in May 1902. The former republics were transformed into the British colonies of the Transvaal and Orange River , and in 1910 were merged with the Natal and Cape Colonies to form the Union of South Africa , a self-governing dominion within the British Empire. British expeditionary efforts were aided significantly by colonial forces from
15540-467: The British to occupy both republics and their capitals, Pretoria and Bloemfontein . Boer politicians, including President of the South African Republic Paul Kruger , either fled or went into hiding; the British Empire officially annexed the two republics in 1900. In Britain, the Conservative ministry led by Lord Salisbury attempted to capitalise on British military successes by calling an early general election , dubbed by contemporary observers as
15762-405: The Cape Colony, the Natal, Rhodesia , and many volunteers from the British Empire worldwide, particularly Australia , Canada , India and New Zealand . Black African recruits contributed increasingly to the British war effort. International public opinion was sympathetic to the Boers and hostile to the British . Even within the UK, there existed significant opposition to the war . As a result,
15984-886: The Cape during the late 17th and early 18th centuries; however, close to one-fourth of this demographic was of German origin and one-sixth of French Huguenot descent. Cleavages were likelier to occur along socio-economic rather than ethnic lines. Broadly speaking, the colonists included a number of distinct subgroups, including the Boers . The Boers were itinerant farmers who lived on the colony's frontiers, seeking better pastures for their livestock. Many were dissatisfied with aspects of British administration, in particular with Britain's abolition of slavery on 1 December 1834. Boers who used forced labor would have been unable to collect compensation for their slaves. Between 1836 and 1852, many elected to migrate away from British rule in what became known as
16206-411: The Cape inquiry and the London parliamentary inquiry and was forced to resign as Prime Minister of the Cape and as Chairman of the British South Africa Company, for having sponsored the failed coup d'état . The Boer government handed their prisoners over to the British for trial. Jameson was tried in England, where the British press and London society, inflamed by anti-Boer and anti-German feeling and in
16428-471: The European theatre of the conflict. Many of the deaths occurred within a short period of time, or affected particular groups: half of France's casualties occurred during the first 17 months of the war, for example, while the French middle and upper classes suffered disproportionate losses. Many of those who survived were injured in the course of the fighting; some injuries, such as facial traumas , resulted in
16650-781: The Fallen Heroes Society) to oversee commemoration of the war more generally; the organisation was headed by the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church . By the 1930s official concern over the diverse range of designs led to increased central control over the process. Other memorials were commissioned by international veteran organizations, like FIDAC (Interallied Federation of War Veterans Organisations). After its foundation in 1920, FIDAC organised its first congress in Paris in 1921, where it launched
16872-474: The Fascist revolution, this process became more centralised; veteran groups were assimilated by the Fascist government in 1926, and a systematic attempt to construct suitable national and local memorials followed. In Germany, the political and economic chaos of the immediate post-war years discouraged the construction of civic war memorials and comparatively few civic memorials in their larger towns, mainly due to
17094-595: The First World War—two on each side, one larger than the other—and the Royal Arms with the Artillery's cannon badge. The reliefs on the east side portray an action by heavy artillery and the crew of a howitzer; on the west side is an action involving horse artillery and a signaller and telephonist on the smaller relief. The memorial's main inscription on the west and east faces reads "In proud remembrance of
17316-806: The Flemish elements of the population were increasingly forming a disproportionate percentage of the army, the language on the memorial headstone gradually became an issue, leading to calls for the creation of heldenhuldezerkjes , headstones inscribed in Flemish, rather than the usual French. In Imperial Russia, the Moscow City Fraternal Cemetery was constructed for the war dead in 1915 by the Imperial royal family and senior Moscow political leaders, who hoped that its inspiring architecture would ensure patriotism in future generations of Russians. Various different mechanisms for commissioning
17538-414: The IWGC and Australian government around £40,000. The French approach to funding memorials also relied mainly on voluntary fundraising, but featured a greater role for the state. A law passed in 1919 provided for a subsidy from central government to local authorities to assist in building memorials; the money was distributed in proportion to the number of local citizens who had died in the war. Nonetheless
17760-410: The IWGC in determining how the soldiers were buried. The construction of the French cemeteries was complicated by even more heated arguments over how the bodies of the war dead should be dealt with. During the conflict the French war dead had ended up being split between special war cemeteries, local civilian cemeteries and some had been returned to their original villages. Catholic traditionalists in
17982-503: The Machine Gun Corps Memorial by Francis Derwent Wood , close to the Royal Artillery Memorial. Where dead soldiers were shown, they were depicted in an image of serenity and peace, often physically distanced from the viewer on a high platform, the entire effect enhanced by the silence that traditionally surrounds ceremonies at the Cenotaph. The Royal Artillery Monument attempted a very different effect. Jagger takes
18204-471: The Orange Free State to join him and mobilising their forces, Kruger issued an ultimatum giving Britain 48 hours to withdraw all their troops from the border of Transvaal (despite the fact that the only regular British army troops anywhere near the border of either republic were 4 companies of the Loyal North Lancs , who had been deployed to defend Kimberley. ) Otherwise, the Transvaal, allied with
18426-406: The RAWCF and the authorities considered the proposal. Jagger's model was similar to the eventual memorial, but had only two gunners at either end of an oblong memorial; the howitzer on the top was smaller than the eventual version, and pointed sideways, rather than lengthways along the pedestal. In reporting to the committee, Jagger said that he felt strongly that the design should unashamedly focus on
18648-401: The RAWCF insisted that a howitzer be prominently incorporated into the designs, Lutyens withdrew. Baker disagreed with the concept of single service monuments, but submitted a proposal costed at over £25,000 (approximately equivalent to £1,421,000 in 2023), which was declined and he withdrew from the project. Webb declined to submit a proposal and also withdrew. The committee then approached
18870-416: The RAWCF was pleased with its memorial, some members disapproved of the design and of the dead soldier in particular. Some felt that it was too graphic, or that it would be distressing to relatives and others who should have been consoled by the memorial, while a group of former artillerymen felt that any recumbent figure should be of a man just shot down so as to present a more heroic image. Charles ffoulkes ,
19092-472: The RAWCF were unimpressed by the Royal Artillery's memorial to that war , located on the Mall . As a result of these problems, the prominent artist Sir Edward Poynter put forward recommendations that far more care, time and funding be given to the construction of future war memorials, which were taken on board by the RAWCF. The RAWCF first explored the option of joining some form of national commemoration which
19314-661: The Second Boer War was the longest, the most expensive (£211 million, £19.9 billion at 2022 prices), and the bloodiest conflict between 1815 and 1914, lasting three months longer and resulting in more British combat casualties than the Crimean War (1853–1856). Disease took a greater toll in the Crimean War, claiming 17,580 British. The conflict is commonly referred to simply as "the Boer War" because
19536-462: The Somme, for example, either because their bodies had been lost, destroyed or were unrecognisable, more than one in ten of the losses in the battle. One of the key developments in memorials to the war, the cenotaph , used an empty tomb to symbolise these aspects of the war. In 1919, Britain and France planned victory marches through their respective capitals and as part of this France decided to erect
19758-631: The Transvaal Boers behind President Kruger and his government. It also had the effect of drawing the Transvaal and the Orange Free State (led by President Martinus Theunis Steyn ) together in opposition to British imperialism. In 1897, the two republics concluded a military pact. In earlier conflicts, the Boers' most common weapon was the British Westley Richards falling-block breech-loader. In his book The First Boer War , Joseph Lehmann offers this comment: "Employing chiefly
19980-494: The Transvaal and Orange Free State voting to accept the terms of the peace treaty. This was known as the Treaty of Vereeniging , and under its provisions, the two republics were absorbed into the British Empire, with the promise of self-government in the future. This promise was fulfilled with the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910. The war had a lasting effect on the region and on British domestic politics. For Britain,
20202-483: The Transvaal courts and found guilty of high treason. The four leaders were sentenced to death by hanging, but the next day this sentence was commuted to 15 years' imprisonment. In June 1896, the other members of the committee were released on payment of £2,000 each in fines, all of which were paid by Cecil Rhodes. One Reform Committee member, Frederick Gray, committed suicide while in Pretoria gaol , on 16 May. His death
20424-527: The Transvaal reluctantly acquiesced to the immigration of uitlanders (foreigners), mainly English-speaking men from Britain, who came to the Boer region in search of fortune and employment. As a result, the number of uitlanders in the Transvaal threatened to exceed the number of Boers, precipitating confrontations between the Boer settlers and the newer, non-Boer arrivals. Britain's expansionist ideas (notably propagated by Cecil Rhodes ) as well as disputes over uitlander political and economic rights led to
20646-460: The US, memorial halls – some of which were large, grand structures – were popular. Australia also created the idea of an Avenue of Honour, involving lines of trees, with memorial plaques, along a road. Canadians often brought back various material from Europe for their memorials, including pieces of local European churches and soil from the relevant battlefields. Individual countries also had typical national symbols that were widely incorporated, from
20868-444: The US, there was sufficient interest that a specialist magazine, Monumental News , was created to support the trade in war memorials. The deaths caused by World War I were difficult for post-war societies to cope with: their unprecedented scale challenged existing methods of grieving. Furthermore, an expectation had arisen during the war that individual soldiers would expect to be commemorated, even if they were low ranking members of
21090-518: The allied nations: France, Italy, United Kingdom, Romania, Greece, Poland, Russia and Spain. These monuments were located both outside (on the esplanade) and inside the votive tower. The rise of fascism in particular frequently encouraged greater state involvement. In Italy, between the end of the war and 1923 local groups and organisations had established their own local memorials in villages and towns. Not all villages agreed that memorials were appropriate, either for political or religious reasons. With
21312-409: The appearance of the howitzer, but was protective of his artistic independence and would not brook suggestions which he felt would impinge on the quality of the work. There were concerns on the committee that the design would shock members of the public, especially women, but the RAWCF eventually voted 50 to 15 in favour of accepting the design and the proposed cost of £25,000. Jagger was formally awarded
21534-490: The area praises the detail in Jagger's sculptures, especially the corpse, and notes that the memorial is "now recognised as a masterpiece of British 20th century sculpture". The unveiling was originally scheduled for 28 June 1925 but early in 1925 Jagger's most capable assistant resigned, leaving Jagger to complete the work alone. He advised the RAWCF that it could not be completed in time without sacrificing quality. The memorial
21756-478: The best-known monuments in Europe. The memorial's reputation diminished in the post-war period . The art critic Geoffrey Grigson echoed Lord Curzon's comments, complaining in 1980 that it was a "squat toad of foolish stone". A renewed focus on Jagger's works, including the Royal Artillery memorial, in the 1980s led to a fresh reappraisal of the piece; the most recent critical work on the memorial has described it as
21978-423: The border. Four days later, the weary and dispirited column was surrounded near Krugersdorp , within sight of Johannesburg. After a brief skirmish in which the column lost 65 killed and wounded—while the Boers lost but one man—Jameson's men surrendered and were arrested by the Boers. The botched raid had repercussions throughout southern Africa and in Europe. In Rhodesia, the departure of so many policemen enabled
22200-601: The borders of both the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, failing which the Transvaal, allied to the Orange Free State, would declare war on the British government . (In fact, Kruger had ordered commandos to the Natal border in early September, and Britain had only troops in garrison towns far from the border.) The British government rejected the South African Republic's ultimatum, and the South African Republic and Orange Free State declared war on Britain. The southern part of
22422-489: The bulk of the specialised commissions for war memorials, making use of their professional organisations. Professional sculptors argued that their work was superior and more appropriate than that of architects, but they received far fewer commissions. British stone masons provided cheap products through catalogues. In France, funeral directors played a large part in the business of producing designs, producing catalogues of their designs for local communities to choose from. In
22644-418: The cemeteries and the decision was taken that the cemeteries would be controlled by the state, and that a uniform design would be applied to the memorials at the graves. French cemeteries were used for as memorial sites for ceremonies by injured soldiers during the war and many towns began to name streets and squares after Verdun . In Belgium, where the movement of the war and losses of territory had meant that
22866-576: The cemeteries tended to be smaller and more scattered. There was much discussion across the British empire about how the IWGC should commemorate the war dead. The construction of war cemeteries was a clear priority, but there was an ambition to produce a ground-breaking series of memorials to the fallen soldiers and the key battles along the Western front, while in the east there was an urgent political requirement to construct memorials to reinforce Britain's inter-war claims to influence and territories across
23088-433: The centenary of the First World War. Listed building status provides legal protection from demolition or modification. Grade II* is applied to "particularly important buildings of more than special interest" and applied to about 5.5 per cent of listed buildings; Grade I is reserved for structures of "the greatest historic interest", and applies to around 2.5 per cent of listed buildings. The list entry notes its group value with
23310-488: The centre of Westminster , to form a huge war memorial complex and building a subway under the Detroit River. In contrast non-utilitarian memorials, such as monuments, remembered the dead purely through their symbolism or design. Locations could be also contentious: in France, some arguments as to whether market places, for example, were suitable locations: was it good to choose a central location, or did this cheapen
23532-415: The committee to consider the young artist. General Sir John Du Cane , a member of the RAWCF committee, encouraged his fellow members to consider Jagger on the grounds that the memorial would be the work which established Jagger's reputation and thus the sculptor would produce his best work. The RAWCF requested that he submit a model for a realist sculpture, which should include a group of soldiers in bronze on
23754-526: The conflict or being rejected entirely by others. In several countries it proved difficult to produce memorials that appealed to and included the religious and political views of all of a community. The Fascist governments that came to power in Italy and Germany during the inter-war period made the construction of memorials a key part of their political programme, resulting in a number of larger memorial projects with strong national overtones being constructed in
23976-496: The conflict resulted in revolution and civil war between 1917 and 1923, and the rise to power of the Communist Bolshevik government. The German Empire had seen revolution break out at the end of the war, with vicious street fighting in the major cities, including Berlin ; some Germans felt that this experience was too quickly forgotten in the post-war years. Romania almost descended into revolution as well. There
24198-516: The conflict. Huge numbers of memorials were built in the 1920s and 1930s, with around 176,000 erected in France alone. This was a new social phenomenon and marked a major cultural shift in how nations commemorated conflicts. Interest in World War I and its memorials faded after World War II , and did not increase again until the 1980s and 1990s, which saw the renovation of many existing memorials and
24420-663: The construction of war memorials emerged during the inter-war period. In most of the nations involved in the conflict, the memorials erected in towns and cities were usually commissioned by local community leaders and other civic groups, with relatively little or no central state involvement. Some national organisations emerged, including the British War Memorials Committee and the Canadian War Memorials Fund, but these focused on narrow, limited projects, rather than trying to coordinate
24642-574: The contract for the memorial in March 1922. Jagger at that time was preoccupied with the Anglo-Belgian Memorial in Brussels and did not begin work on the Royal Artillery memorial until October, at which point he made several changes to the proposed design, which he submitted to the RAWCF early the following year. The revised memorial would be a third larger than before, cruciform in plan, and guarded by three bronze soldiers. Jagger rotated
24864-580: The control of a central state authority. The Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) took on this role for Britain and her empire. The Commissione nazionale per la onoranze ai caduti di guerra in Italy coordinated the military repatriation of bodies and the construction of cemeteries. The German war graves commission, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (VDK), was established in 1919, and took strict control over
25086-507: The country become increasingly apparent, with conscription becoming a major political issue. In the years after the war, veterans, the bereaved and the rest of society focused, to the point of obsession, with the problem of death. There was tremendous interest in creating war memorials that celebrated the themes of glory, heroism and loss. In part, there was a rupture or dislocation with the pre-war norms of how memorials should look and feel; communities sought to find new, radical ways to mourn
25308-403: The creation and style of German war cemeteries. The American Battle Monuments Commission oversaw US military graves in a similar fashion. In Britain and Australia, local community leaders were expected to organise local committees to create war memorials. Britain had a strong tradition of local government, and mayors, council chairmen or similar leaders would usually step forward to establish
25530-502: The creation of new forms of memorial. Lists of memorial names, reflecting the huge scale of the losses, were a common feature, while Tombs of the Unknown Soldier containing a selected, unidentified body , and empty cenotaph monuments commemorated the numerous unidentifiable corpses and those servicemen whose bodies were never found. Ceremonies were often held at the memorials, including those on Armistice Day , Anzac Day and
25752-556: The criticism of this approach by adopting cleaner architectural forms, but still retaining the ideal of a "beautiful death", an approach which can be seen at Lutyens' Southampton Cenotaph , the precursor to his more famous Cenotaph on Whitehall . These memorials frequently used abstract designs intended to remove the viewer from the real world, and focus them on an idealised sense of self-sacrifice. Soldiers in these memorials were still frequently depicted as Homeric warriors, and classical ideals and symbols remained popular, as can be seen at
25974-401: The damage caused by the war and the detritus of the fighting, but post-war reconstruction meant that by the 1930s most of this damage along the Western front had been restored. In several cases, veterans felt that the battlefields should be maintained in their immediate post-war condition as memorials; the reconstruction of the town of Ypres was opposed by some who favoured keeping the ruins as
26196-764: The dead and to hold donations of flowers. They were criticised, however, as promoting Catholic ritualism. Official support for the shrines only came after a national newspaper campaign, efforts by the Lord Mayor of London and a well-publicised visit from Queen Mary to a shrine, and standardised stone shrines then began to replace the earlier, temporary versions. Across the German Empire nagelfiguren , war memorials made from iron nails embedded in wood, became popular, particularly in Austria . These took various forms, including knights, shields, eagles and crosses, as well as submarines. This practice had medieval origins, and
26418-406: The deceased and personal objects sent back from the front. In Britain and Australia, early memorials were closely linked to the need to promote military recruitment and the state had an ambivalent attitude towards the informal memorials that emerged during the conflict. In Britain, stone memorials to the war began to be erected in towns and villages from 1915 onwards; some of these were given out by
26640-439: The different nations varied considerably, but common themes emerged. The war required a mass call to arms , with a significant percentage of the population mobilised to fight, either as volunteers or through conscription . Campaigns were conducted on multiple fronts across Europe and beyond. The fighting was mechanised and conducted on an industrial scale; existing weapons, such as machine guns and artillery , were combined with
26862-426: The driver leans back against the parapet, his cape hanging over his outstretched arms, suggesting an attitude of exhaustion or contemplation. The faceless, heavily laden statue of the fallen soldier appears less at rest than exhausted, pulled down as if by a great weight. At the same time, the sheer size of the memorial, including the oversized gun and larger-than-life bronze figures, exudes a sense of strength and power;
27084-575: The edges of towns. In Serbia, Niś Commonwealth Military Cemetery includes memorials to nurses from the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service . The situation was somewhat different in Russia, however, where the Moscow City Fraternal Cemetery was used not just for the war dead of World War I, but also for the casualties of the Civil War, and then the victims of the secret police . It
27306-458: The events of World War I, mainly as a result of the devastation of the Civil War and the political views of the subsequent Bolshevik government. Civic and private memorials in response to the war took many forms, from monuments, sculpture, buildings, gardens, artistic works or special funds to support particular activities. One of the major distinctions between proposed war memorials involved
27528-485: The events of the war also began to be commissioned; governmentally: the Imperial War Museum in Britain in 1917, Australia began a War Museum in 1917; privately, the repository of wartime records in France, Germany the Kriegsbibliothek . During the conflict itself, monuments were erected near the battlefields and the temporary cemeteries being used to store the dead. It had been hoped in Britain to repatriate
27750-441: The events of the war, noting that it "should in every sense be a war memorial". Jagger explained that the artillery had "terrific power" and was the "last word in force", and that the howitzer he had chosen was the only suitable weapon to symbolise those capabilities. During the design process, the committee presented Jagger with many suggestions. He gladly accepted their advice on technical matters related to artillery procedures and
27972-468: The extensive use of artillery , particularly on the Western Front . Technical advances, combined with the relatively static nature of trench warfare , made these guns a key element of the conflict: over half the casualties in the war were caused by artillery. Artillery guns and their crews were themselves targets, and 49,076 members of the Royal Artillery died during the conflict. In the years after
28194-488: The failed Jameson Raid of 1895. Dr. Leander Starr Jameson , who led the raid, intended to encourage an uprising of the uitlanders in Johannesburg . However, the uitlanders did not take up arms in support, and Transvaal government forces surrounded the column and captured Jameson's men before they could reach Johannesburg. As tensions escalated, political manoeuvrings and negotiations attempted to reach compromise on
28416-458: The failure to repatriate British war dead from Europe early in the war had proved domestically controversial, and when the US joined the war in 1917 their government had promised relatives that bodies would be repatriated to the US; around 70 percent of the US war dead were sent back. Along the Western front, the cemeteries were typically concentrated in specific locations, with the bodies brought in some distances to form larger cemeteries; elsewhere,
28638-412: The figures are stocky, confident and imposing. This contributes to the sense of masculinity that pervades the work, from the phallic image of the howitzer, to the solid, muscular figures of the gunners. Despite the realist nature of the bronze statues in the design, commentators have often also noted the dehumanising aspects of the memorial. Its sheer size and the bulk of the howitzer serve to distance
28860-485: The forces were solely volunteers, all those who served were typically recorded on memorials, while in New Zealand, where conscription applied, only the fallen were recorded on memorials. Touching the names of the dead on memorials was common gesture of grieving in the inter-war period; sometimes mourners would also kiss the names. Visitors to the memorials on the Western front would often photograph or trace on paper
29082-632: The form of memorials. Most memorials in Australia were monumental rather than utilitarian, but practical memorials such as hospitals, schools or new roads were increasingly popular in the post war period, although some concerns were raised that these memorials might be later demolished as Australia's towns expanded. In America, utilitarian memorials were more popular, and the establishment of the National Committee on Memorial Buildings supported this trend. The American "living memorial" movement
29304-523: The forty-nine thousand and seventy-six of all ranks of the Royal Regiment of Artillery who gave their lives for King and country in the Great War 1914—1919". Beneath the dead soldier is the inscription "Here was a royal fellowship of death", a quote from William Shakespeare's Henry V , which was suggested by Jagger himself. The memorial forms a sharp contrast with both the earlier monuments of
29526-494: The gold industry; and by introducing controls through licensing, tariffs and administrative requirements. Among the issues giving rise to tension between the Transvaal government on the one hand and the uitlanders and British interests on the other, were: British imperial interests were alarmed when in 1894–1895 Kruger proposed building a railway through Portuguese East Africa to Delagoa Bay , bypassing British-controlled ports in Natal and Cape Town and avoiding British tariffs. At
29748-513: The government called for the bodies to be buried together in special cemeteries along the Western front, while others campaigned for them to be returned to local cemeteries. In 1919, the decision was taken to use special war cemeteries and to ban the repatriation of bodies, but by 1920 this decision had been reversed and 300,000 French bodies were repatriated to their original homes. The French war cemeteries were typically much larger than their IWGC equivalents and used concrete Catholic crosses for all
29970-484: The government that a permanent memorial might be vandalised, while the popular press criticised any suggestion of dismantling the existing structure. A new, permanent cenotaph designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens was commissioned and unveiled on Whitehall on Armistice Day 1920, effectively turning this part of London into a memorial to the war; over a million people visited the site during November that year. The memorial style became very popular and spread to other countries in
30192-413: The graves were largely left scattered in individual graves or small cemeteries, and the slopes were planted with Australian vegetation . Obelisks were particularly popular memorials at Gallipoli along the ridges, including one obelisk 100 ft high. There was uncertainty as to how to treat the wider battlefields surrounding these monuments. At the end of the war, visitors and tourists could easily see
30414-691: The graves, with the exception of the Islamic and Chinese war dead. German war cemeteries are somewhat different from French and British ones, being more austere and simple in design. They were built around lawns, without flowers or other decorations, intended to highlight acceptance of the tragedy and avoid the expensive and pretentious sentimentality that the German VDK felt Allied cemeteries invoked. German war cemeteries also included heldenhaine , heroes' groves populated with oak trees and large boulders, dolmen . Both symbolising nature; this landscaping
30636-593: The guerrillas among civilians. In response to failures to defeat the guerrillas, British high command ordered scorched earth policies as part of a large scale and multi-pronged counterinsurgency campaign; a network of nets , blockhouses , strongpoints and barbed wire fences was constructed, virtually partitioning the occupied republics. Over 100,000 Boer civilians, mostly women and children, were forcibly relocated into concentration camps , where 26,000 died, mostly by starvation and disease. Black Africans were interned in concentration camps to prevent them from supplying
30858-465: The howitzer as "a toad squatting, which is about to spit fire out of its mouth...nothing more hideous could ever be conceived". Modernists such as Roger Fry criticised the conventional, secure structure that underpins the memorial. Editorials in The Times and The Builder both likened the howitzer to a children's toy, complaining that the gun did not lend itself to recreation in art. The Builder
31080-604: The howitzer by 90 degrees, bringing it into line with the main axis of the base, pointing towards the Wellington Arch. After much discussion—including advice from Lutyens and Sir Reginald Blomfield representing the Royal Fine Arts Commission —Jagger agreed that the howitzer would point south to produce a pleasing silhouette from the park. The change also resolved an objection raised by the King about
31302-652: The idea of raising a memorial to celebrate the allied forces. At their congress in Rome in 1925, Cointe Hill in Liège, Belgium was chosen as the site of this memorial. The construction began in 1928 and was completed in 1937. The Memorial included the Sacré-Cœur Church (Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus) as a religious building and a tower as a civil memorial. The civil memorial contained numerous monuments offered by
31524-405: The inaugural curator of the Imperial War Museum, was more impressed, and described the corpse as "a poignant and tremendous statement of fact which unconsciously makes the onlooker raise his hat". The figure was shocking to a public who were unused to graphic images of the war due to censorship. After the unveiling, a vigorous debate occurred in the British newspapers about the memorial. The Times
31746-443: The influential Cenotaph , which used pure architectural forms and classical symbolism. The design was controversial when unveiled; some critics viewed the dead soldier as too graphic or felt that the howitzer did not lend itself to rendition in stone. Nonetheless, the memorial was popular with others, including ex-servicemen, and later came to be recognised as Jagger's masterpiece and one of Britain's finest war memorials. The memorial
31968-436: The issues of uitlanders' rights within the South African Republic, control of the gold mining industry, and Britain's desire to incorporate the Transvaal and the Orange Free State into a federation under British control. Given the British origins of the majority of uitlanders and the ongoing influx of new uitlanders into Johannesburg, the Boers recognised that granting full voting rights to the uitlanders would eventually result in
32190-528: The largest French projects, such as the Ossuary of Douaumont, were still paid for mostly through private fund raising across France and the international community: it could take many years to raise the sums required. The Ossuary cost 15 m francs to build; at the other end of the scale, more modest urban memorials cost around 300,000 francs. Much of the inter-war period saw economic recession or stagnant growth, making fund-raising more challenging. Partially as
32412-456: The local Lord Lieutenant , acting on behalf of the county regiments; these were often situated in quiet locations to allow for peaceful reflection by visitors. Australia had honoured its volunteers by placing individual plaques inside buildings, creating outdoor memorial tablets and erecting obelisks in public places. Although the Boer War encouraged a shift away from memorials portraying heroic commanding officers, as had been popular earlier in
32634-629: The loss of ethnic Boer control in the South African Republic. The June 1899 negotiations in Bloemfontein failed, and in September 1899 British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain demanded full voting rights and representation for the uitlanders residing in the Transvaal. Paul Kruger , the President of the South African Republic, issued an ultimatum on 9 October 1899, giving the British government 48 hours to withdraw all their troops from
32856-428: The memorial "is now internationally recognised as one of the finest memorials to have been erected anywhere after the First World War. Its combination of sculptural force, boldness of conception, vivid narrative and humanity makes the memorial pre-eminent", and notes that "the inclusion of an over-life size corpse was boldly direct and is without parallel on any major British memorial". The Pevsner Architectural Guide for
33078-402: The memorial in Paris removed immediately after the parade, on the basis that it was too Germanic in appearance, but the London cenotaph proved very popular and hundreds of thousands flocked to see it. The popularity of the temporary Cenotaph resulted in it remaining open until the following year, when the decision had to be taken about what to do with the decaying structure: there was concern from
33300-533: The memorial met conflicting opinions, it further bolstered Jagger's professional reputation. He was awarded the Royal British Society of Sculptors ' gold medal in 1926 and was admitted as an associate of the society later that year. A set of bronze tablets was added to the south of the memorial in 1949, lying on a flat plinth which replaced a set of steps. Designed by Darcy Braddell, the addition commemorates 29,924 Royal Artillerymen who were killed in
33522-406: The memorials were reinforced by the promotion of burgfrieden during the war, a medieval pact in which disparate German communities would put aside their differences during a conflict. In some cases, relatives of the deceased were encouraged to hammer memorial nails in as part of the ceremonies, while children might be encouraged to read out poems in a medieval style. At some nagelfiguren a charge
33744-420: The military. One method used to address this was the inclusion of lists of names. In part, this was a response to the practical problem of commemorating such large numbers of dead, but it carried additional symbolic importance; in some ways, the physical presence of a name acted to compensate for an absent body. The lists could vary in size from the 21 names listed in a small English village like East Ilsley , to
33966-528: The millions of dead, killed in an essentially modern conflict. In other ways, the building of memorials drew on traditional forms and ideas, drawing on existing religious and architectural themes to explore loss and grief. As the war progressed, memorials began to be created in most countries, either in civic centres, personal homes or on the battlefields themselves. Memorials took various names across Europe; amongst English-speaking countries, such memorials had previously been called fallen soldiers' monuments, but
34188-406: The modification. Jagger's work continued to take longer than planned, partially due to shortages of staff, the need to approve each amendment to the plan, and practical problems on the site itself. The names of his models for three of the statues are known—William Fosten for the driver, another ex-gunner called Metcalfe for the ammunition carrier, and Lieutenant Eugene Paul Bennett , VC, who fought in
34410-429: The monument to their wives and children as a way of explaining the events of the war. Ex-servicemen were quoted by the newspaper as reminiscing about the war as they examined the statue, and remarking on how the bronze figures had captured the reality of their time in the artillery. The Illustrated London News reported how, two days after the official ceremony, a crowd had gathered in the rain just before dawn to conduct
34632-616: The more wealthy members of the community. The amount of money successfully raised varied considerably: the city of Glasgow , with a million inhabitants, raised approximately £104,000 for memorials; Leeds, with around half a million inhabitants, only £6,000. A typical memorial monument in Britain costed between £1,000 and £2,000, but some could be cheaper still; larger pieces, such as the Royal Artillery Memorial , could cost as much as £25,000. Australian communities raised funds in similar ways to their British equivalents, but
34854-532: The multiple other monuments on the Hyde Park Corner island (many of which are also listed), including the Wellington Arch and the multiple other war memorials. First World War memorial World War I is remembered and commemorated by various war memorials , including civic memorials, larger national monuments, war cemeteries, private memorials and a range of utilitarian designs such as halls and parks, dedicated to remembering those involved in
35076-588: The national losses that had been incurred there, and took steps to erect special memorials to them, alongside the cemeteries that held their war dead. The French regarded the battles around Verdun as symbolic of the entire war, while for the British the battle of Ypres in Belgium and the battle of the Somme in France ;– in particular Thiepval hill – had similar resonances. Australian and New Zealand forces placed special significance on
35298-459: The observer, which—according to art historian John Glaves-Smith—depersonalises the soldiers in a similar way to the Cubist war paintings of Wyndham Lewis and Richard Nevinson . The carved stone reliefs have an aggressive, hostile quality to them, a consequence of their focus on surface detail at the expense of the humans in the design. When questioned about his lifelike depictions, Jagger said that
35520-499: The occasional modest local monuments. Bulgaria and Serbia constructed many war memorials after the end of the First Balkan War in 1913. The public played little role in these eastern European memorials, however, which were typically constructed by the central state authorities. The memorials to World War I were shaped by the traumatic nature of the conflict and its impact on individuals and communities. The experience of
35742-437: The opening of new sites. Visitor numbers at many memorials increased significantly, while major national and civic memorials continue to be used for annual ceremonies remembering the war. Architecturally, most war memorials were relatively conservative in design, aiming to use established styles to produce a tragic but comforting, noble and enduring commemoration of the war dead. Classical themes were particularly common, taking
35964-451: The prevailing styles of the late 19th century and typically simplifying them to produce cleaner, more abstract memorials. Allegorical and symbolic features, frequently drawing on Christian imagery, were used to communicate themes of self-sacrifice, victory and death. Some memorials adopted a medievalist theme instead, looking backwards to a more secure past, while others used emerging realist and Art Deco architectural styles to communicate
36186-498: The process of fund-raising was much more open, and included directly canvassing for donations. Typical Australian projects cost between £100 and £1,000, with the larger memorials costing up to £5,000; bank-loans were also sometimes used. Memorials along the Western front, being larger, cost rather more than their civic equivalents; the Villers–Bretonneux Australian National Memorial , for example, cost
36408-500: The regiment's Boer War memorial). Lutyens sent in three designs, each costed at less than £15,000 (approximately equivalent to £853,000 in 2023), but several committee members felt them to be too similar to the Cenotaph and to give insufficient prominence to artillery. Further problems arose when the Office of Works stated that it would not approve Lutyens' designs on the grounds that all would be too tall for their surroundings. After
36630-540: The region it would strike too aggressive a posture and possibly derail a negotiated settlement—or even encourage a Boer attack. Steyn of the Orange Free State invited Milner and Kruger to attend a conference in Bloemfontein . The conference started on 30 May 1899, but negotiations quickly broke down, as Kruger had no intention of granting meaningful concessions, and Milner had no intention of accepting his normal delaying tactics. On 9 October 1899, after convincing
36852-469: The region. The Dominions also wanted to have their own national monuments as part of the programme of work. Initially twelve major memorials were planned, each of which would combine a memorial to a key battlefield, a cemetery and a monument to a specific Dominion, but the French government raised concerns over the considerable number and size of these memorials, leading to the plans being halved in scale. IWGC war cemeteries featured grass and flowers within
37074-406: The relevant names on the memorials, taking these reminders back with them to their homes. By contrast, the naming of the dead played a less significant role in Italy, where formal lists of the war dead were not established until the mid-1920s; local communities compiled their own lists, used to produce local memorial plaques, but the national lists remained inaccurate for many years. After the war,
37296-493: The role of the state. Despite the special nature of the memorials, contractual arguments and issues over costs, timings and specifications were common, from smaller works in villages through to major works, such as the Vimy Memorial. The sheer volume of work encouraged industrial innovation: carving the inscriptions into the many thousands of British memorial stones had to originally be undertaken by hand, for example, until
37518-417: The same decade saw the completion of totenburgen , fortresses of the dead, used as war cemeteries and memorials. These were in some senses an extension of the cemetery designs of the 1920s, celebrating a natural German landscape, but included extensive modernist , monumental features, intending to highlight German artistic skill. Most nations considered certain battlefields particularly important because of
37740-559: The same regiment as Jagger, for the commander. The Royal Artillery Memorial is located in what Malcolm Miles has termed the "leafy traffic island" of Hyde Park Corner in central London. It is one of several war memorials which dominate the roundabout and its surrounds; it is directly opposite the Wellington Arch while at the north end is another memorial to the Duke of Wellington in the form of an equestrian statue. Other memorials in
37962-580: The sculptor Charles Sargeant Jagger in early 1921. Jagger trained as a metal engraver before attending the Royal College of Art . He served in the infantry during the First World War and was injured at the battles of Gallipoli and Neuve-Église , being awarded the Military Cross . At the end of the war, Jagger became involved in the design of war memorials, which formed the basis of his artistic reputation. His first major memorial commission
38184-583: The second half of the 19th century typically had traditions of war memorials, but nothing on the scale that would later emerge from World War I. Italy built various war memorials after unification in the 1860s, but there was little agreement about who should be responsible for these within the new Italian state. Romania erected a number of heroically styled memorials after the Romanian War of Independence in 1877 and 1878, usually celebrating famous leaders associated with Romanian independence, but also including
38406-448: The second phase, after the number of British troops greatly increased under the command of Lord Roberts , the British launched another offensive in 1900 to relieve the sieges, this time achieving success. After Natal and the Cape Colony were secure, the British army was able to invade the Transvaal, and the republic's capital, Pretoria , was ultimately captured in June 1900. In the third and final phase, beginning in March 1900 and lasting
38628-495: The shortage of funds in the inter-war German economy and political disagreements between local groups as to what to commemorate and how. Those memorials that were constructed were often built instead by local movements, representing particular factional interests. It was only after the rise of the German Nazi party to power in 1933 that substantial funding began to flow into construction programmes, controlled from Berlin. As
38850-402: The stage for further scrambles. Britain attempted to annex first the South African Republic in 1880, and then, in 1899, both the South African Republic and the Orange Free State. In the 1880s, Bechuanaland (modern Botswana ) became the object of a dispute between the Germans to the west, the Boers to the east, and Britain's Cape Colony to the south. Although Bechuanaland had no economic value,
39072-550: The state as rewards to communities for meeting military recruitment targets. In Australia, the existing memorials to mark the Boer War were used initially for commemorative ceremonies intended to increase military recruitment. As casualties increased, rolls of honour listing the dead began to be displayed in Britain and honour tablets with the names of those who had enlisted were put up inside Australian buildings: Australia used these lists to apply moral pressure on those who were not yet joined up. Informal memorials began to multiply as
39294-574: The statue and hammer nails in. By the end of the war, architects in Germany were already considering how to commemorate the dead. A large, temporary memorial shrine was built in Hyde Park in August 1918, with over 100,000 visitors in its first week: it lasted over a year. The Hyde Park shrine encouraged debate in Britain about permanent war memorials in the major cities and towns. Museums to remember
39516-488: The subsequent years. Second Boer War British victory [REDACTED] South African Republic [REDACTED] Orange Free State 1900 1901 1902 The Second Boer War ( Afrikaans : Tweede Vryheidsoorlog , lit. ' Second Freedom War ' , 11 October 1899 – 31 May 1902), also known as the Boer War , Transvaal War , Anglo–Boer War , or South African War ,
39738-492: The symbolism? In Britain, in a shift from 19th century practices, memorials were typically placed in busy public places. In some countries, such as France and Germany, utilitarian memorials were considered totally unsuitable; the Germans, for example, thought them unpatriotic and disrespectful to the dead. In other, particularly more Protestant countries, however, a vigorous debate raged as to whether utilitarian or symbolic memorials were more appropriate. In Britain, this debate
39960-511: The term "war memorial" became popularised by the conflict, drawing attention to the role of society as a whole in the events. Germany followed suit, terming the memorials Kriegerdenkmal , warrior monument. By contrast France and Italy termed them monuments aux morts and monumenti ai caduti : monuments to the dead, an explicit reference to the deceased. Many of these memorials were in private homes rather than in public places, as bereaved families often made domestic memorials, using photographs of
40182-401: The themes of the war. The establishment of memorials was overseen by various national and regional bodies, reflecting diverse political landscapes. Funding sources were similarly varied, often relying on local donations to finance construction expenses. However, state authorities typically centrally managed and funded war cemeteries and memorials commemorating pivotal battles. The war encouraged
40404-472: The time, the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony was Cecil Rhodes, a man driven by a vision of a British-controlled Africa extending from the Cape to Cairo . Certain self-appointed uitlanders' representatives and British mine owners became increasingly frustrated and angered by their dealings with the Transvaal government. A Reform Committee (Transvaal) was formed to represent the uitlanders. In 1895,
40626-635: The trend pre-dated the First World War, very few Western war memorials portrayed heroic commanding officers, as had been popular earlier in the 19th century; if soldiers were depicted, they were invariably ordinary soldiers, usually infantrymen. After the unveiling of the Cenotaph in London, it became a popular design in many other locations in Britain and Australia too. In other respects, individual countries had different preferences for styles of memorial. French communities usually chose simple monuments, located in public spaces, and deliberately avoided political or religious imagery and rhetoric. In Australia and
40848-518: The two Boer republics in 1852 and 1854 but attempted British annexation of the Transvaal in 1877 led to the First Boer War in 1880–1881. After Britain suffered defeats, particularly at the Battle of Majuba Hill (1881), the independence of the two republics was restored, subject to certain conditions. However, relations remained uneasy. In 1866, diamonds were discovered at Kimberley , prompting
41070-418: The very fine breech-loading Westley Richards – calibre 45; paper cartridge; percussion-cap replaced on the nipple manually—they made it exceedingly dangerous for the British to expose themselves on the skyline". Kruger re-equipped the Transvaal army, importing 37,000 of the latest 7x57 mm Mauser Model 1895 rifles supplied by Germany, and some 40 to 50 million rounds of ammunition. Some commandos used
41292-669: The vicinity include the Machine Gun Corps Memorial , the Australian and New Zealand war memorials, and the Commonwealth Memorial Gates . The Royal Artillery Memorial is 43 feet long, 21 feet wide and 30 feet high (13 metres by 6 metres by 9 metres); the pedestal and the one-third over-lifesize replica of a BL 9.2-inch howitzer , modelled on a gun in the Imperial War Museum , that sits on top of it are made of Portland stone . The plinth
41514-429: The victim being shunned by wider society and banned from public events. These losses also left large numbers of widows and orphans – 1.36 million in France alone – and affected most families in some way: in Australia, every second family had lost a relative. Even those left at home had suffered extensively from stress, anxiety and grief. The war had also led to political tensions, revolution and turmoil. In Russia,
41736-402: The war dead, but this rapidly proved entirely impractical, leading to haphazard, improvised arrangements around the battlefields. By 1916 over 200 war cemeteries had been commissioned in France and Belgium, prompting debate about what longer term memorials might be appropriate at these sites. The government was concerned that unsuitable, even distasteful memorials might be erected by relatives at
41958-506: The war progressed. Local Australian groups erected small monuments, such as drinking fountains and stone pillars, to the point where the government became concerned about the expenditure on them and passed a law in 1916 to control their numbers. In Britain, some Anglican church leaders began to create street war shrines to the dead. These cheap, local memorials were mainly constructed in working class districts, often built from wood and paper, and were used for holding short services in honour of
42180-538: The war, including the killings of civilians and prisoners, was opened in January 1901. The war had three phases. In the first phase, the Boers mounted preemptive strikes into British-held territory in Natal and the Cape Colony , besieging the British garrisons of Ladysmith , Mafeking , and Kimberley . The Boers then won a series of tactical victories at Stormberg , Magersfontein , Colenso and Spion Kop . In
42402-450: The war, many former servicemen, including gunners , found the scale of the losses difficult to deal with, or felt that their trust in the political leadership that had led them into the war had been challenged. Visual reminders of the conflict were often avoided: mutilated servicemen, for example, were banned in the 1920s from joining in veterans' marches, and those with facial injuries often hid them in public. Where sculpture of human figures
42624-442: The wealthier members of the community were given a disproportionate role in decision-making. In both Britain and Australia, local memorials were also supplemented by other memorials that reflected wider groups in society, such as military units or particular sports, hobbies or even animals. North America largely followed a similar process. In Canada, the early memorials to the war were typically organised by groups of former soldiers,
42846-480: Was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and Orange Free State ) over the Empire's influence in Southern Africa . The Witwatersrand Gold Rush caused a large influx of " foreigners " ( Uitlanders ) to the South African Republic (SAR), mostly British from the Cape Colony . As they, for fear of a hostile takeover of the SAR, were permitted to vote only after fourteen years of residence, they protested to
43068-466: Was a factor in softening the Transvaal government's attitude to the surviving prisoners. Jan C. Smuts wrote, in 1906: The Jameson Raid was the real declaration of war ... And that is so in spite of the four years of truce that followed ... [the] aggressors consolidated their alliance ... the defenders on the other hand silently and grimly prepared for the inevitable". The Jameson Raid alienated many Cape Afrikaners from Britain and united
43290-413: Was a level of casualties unknown in previous conflicts. Approximately 2 million Germans and 1.3 million Frenchmen died during the war; 720,000 British soldiers died, 117,000 American soldiers were killed, and 61,000 Canadian, 60,000 Australian, and 18,000 New Zealand servicemen also died. On the Eastern front, 300,000 Romanians died. The war had a global impact, and at least 2,000 Chinese died in
43512-417: Was able to produce a satisfactory design. Thus they approached Jagger, himself an ex-soldier who had been wounded in the war. Jagger produced a design which was accepted in 1922, though he modified it several times before construction. The memorial consists of a Portland stone cruciform base supporting a one-third over-lifesize sculpture of a howitzer (a type of artillery field gun), which Jagger based on
43734-445: Was aided by widespread criticism of the war monuments to the American Civil War, which many felt to have been poorly executed. For symbolic memorials, numerous designs were possible, from simple monuments through to much more complex pieces of sculpture. Obelisks had been a popular memorial form in the 19th century and remained so in the inter-war years, including in Britain, France, Australia and Romania. One factor in this popularity
43956-454: Was considered to be particularly important for German war cemeteries. The cemeteries used slate grave markers, less individualised than British or French equivalents, and felt to better symbolise the importance of the German nation as a whole. In eastern Europe, Romania built what were termed heroes' war grave cemeteries, either in existing heroes' cemeteries, on the sites of the World War I battles, or in new cemeteries symbolically placed on
44178-417: Was critical, comparing it unfavourably to the Cenotaph, while The Daily Mail highlighted the cost of the monument, and argued that the money could have been better spent on directly caring for injured veterans. Both the dead soldier and the howitzer drew particular comment; art critic Selwyn Image complained about having any sort of artillery gun on the monument, while Lord Curzon was quoted as describing
44400-419: Was disclosed in the British press, it generated a storm of anti-German feeling. In the baggage of the raiding column, to the great embarrassment of Britain, the Boers found telegrams from Cecil Rhodes and the other plotters in Johannesburg. Chamberlain had approved Rhodes' plans to send armed assistance in the case of a Johannesburg uprising, but he quickly moved to condemn the raid. Rhodes was severely censured at
44622-404: Was equipped with Maxim machine guns and some artillery pieces. The plan was to make a three-day dash to Johannesburg and trigger an uprising by the primarily British expatriate uitlanders, organised by the Johannesburg Reform Committee , before the Boer commandos could mobilise. However, the Transvaal authorities had advance warning of the Jameson Raid and tracked it from the moment it crossed
44844-419: Was eventually unveiled four months late on 18 October 1925 by Prince Arthur and the Reverend Alfred Jarvis , Chaplain-General to the Forces . Despite the delay, the RAWCF and Jagger parted on very good terms, the committee exceptionally pleased with the final memorial. Such was the toll on Jagger that after its unveiling he suspended work on all his other projects for six months to recuperate. Although at first
45066-613: Was finally closed by the Bolsheviks in 1925 and turned into a park; subsequently, possibly on the orders of Joseph Stalin , the Eastern Orthodox church building and the headstones were systematically destroyed until almost no trace of the cemetery remained. A final wave of war cemetery memorials were completed in the 1930s under the Fascist governments of Germany and Italy. The main Italian war cemeteries were not finished until 1938, and their positioning in some cases carried special political meaning, emphasising Italy's right to claim important, but ethnically diverse, border regions. In Germany,
45288-417: Was impractical to inscribe names in churches, usually due to the number of casualties and available space, books of names were often recorded instead. A large number of soldiers who died in the war were never found, and similarly bodies were recovered that could not be identified; once again, this required new forms of memorial. The scale of the issue was once again huge: 73,000 Allied dead were never found at
45510-451: Was made for each nail used, with the revenues donated to charities supporting soldiers, orphans and others affected by the conflict. Some relatively large memorials were constructed during the war. The largest nagelfiguren was a statue of General Hindenburg , famous for his victory over the Russians in Prussia at the battle of Tannenberg ; the 12 m tall statue was put up in Berlin , complete with scaffolding to allow participants to reach
45732-403: Was made officially responsible for maintaining the military graves inside their territories, but the relevant countries of the fallen soldiers were typically granted the freedom to design and build the military cemeteries themselves. Some countries' cemeteries would naturally be on their own soil, but in other cases, such as for Britain and the Dominions, the cemeteries could be relatively distant;
45954-436: Was nevertheless happy to gather intelligence for the British against the Boers because of their cruelty to Africans. The British government went against the advice of its generals (including Wolseley) and declined to send substantial reinforcements to South Africa before war broke out. Secretary of State for War Lansdowne did not believe the Boers were preparing for war and that if Britain were to send large numbers of troops to
46176-441: Was quickly discarded as unlikely to gain approval from the relevant authorities. The national proposals stalled, partly because of concerns that individual regiments would not be able to maintain their individuality—something of great importance to the RAWCF—within a uniform whole. The RAWCF began exploring sites for its own individual monument, either at Hyde Park Corner or on the edge of Buckingham Palace gardens . The RAWCF sought
46398-408: Was sharply critical of the close relationship between the sculptor and the client, which it viewed as the root cause, believing that Jagger had given the artillerymen far too much influence over artistic matters. Other opinions were more positive. The Manchester Guardian noted that the frankness of the portrayal was a "terrible revelation long overdue", and hoped that veterans would be able to show
46620-428: Was similarly established in 1920 to produce war memorials for the major battlefields involving Canadian forces. A range of battlefield memorials emerged. The huge Douaumont ossuary was built to remember Verdun through a private French charity, organised by the Bishop of Verdun . The ossuary was deliberately multi-faith, however, with Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Islamic facilities. The Romanian authorities built
46842-425: Was spurred on by the formation of various national societies to promote particular perspectives. Some felt that practical memorials failed to remember the war dead properly; others argued that these memorials helped support the survivors of the war and society as a whole. Although these arguments frequently became embroiled in local politics, there was little correlation between national political views and opinions on
47064-492: Was that obelisks were relatively cheap to build, while they also fitted well with the existing civic architecture in many towns. Memorial plaques were another popular memorial style around the world. Soldiers, either individually or in groups, were a popular sculptural feature in most countries, portrayed in various stances; typically these were allegorical, although in France the style of the soldier could also carry political meaning and reflect local political sympathies. Although
47286-458: Was the Hoylake and West Kirby War Memorial . The realism and starkness of the sculptures there marked Jagger out as unconventional among war memorial designers. Nonetheless, it was highly celebrated after it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1921, and led to other commissions across England and on foreign battlefields. Other examples include the Great Western Railway War Memorial at Paddington station in London, Portsmouth War Memorial , and
47508-419: Was the question of who would control and benefit most from the very lucrative Witwatersrand gold mines discovered by Jan Gerrit Bantjes in June 1884. The first European settlement in South Africa was founded at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, and thereafter administered as part of the Dutch Cape Colony . The Cape was governed by the Dutch East India Company, until its bankruptcy in the late 18th century, and
47730-444: Was thereafter governed directly by the Netherlands . As a result of political turmoil in the Netherlands, the British occupied the Cape three times during the Napoleonic Wars , and the occupation became permanent after British forces defeated the Dutch at the Battle of Blaauwberg in 1806. At the time, the colony was home to about 26,000 colonists settled under Dutch rule. A relative majority represented old Dutch families brought to
47952-490: Was to remember the artillerymen who had died during the war, and after some discussions of various options, including purchasing a house for wounded soldiers, or building a number of small shrines across the country, the RAWCF decided to construct a single memorial to the fallen Royal Artillery servicemen. Memorials to lost servicemen from the previous major conflict, the South African War fought between 1899 and 1902, had been widely criticised as being unimaginative and members of
48174-433: Was transformed: Approximately 25,000 men equipped with modern rifles and artillery could mobilise within two weeks. However, President Kruger's victory in the Jameson Raid incident did nothing to resolve the fundamental problem of finding a formula to conciliate the uitlanders, without surrendering the independence of the Transvaal. The failure to gain improved rights for uitlanders (notably the goldfields dynamite tax) became
48396-413: Was turmoil in Ireland; 210,000 Irish served in the war as part of the British forces, but the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 led in turn to the Irish War of Independence and the later civil war . Elsewhere the war exposed simmering ethnic and religious divisions. In Canada, for example, the distinctions between the English, largely Protestant , and French speaking, predominantly Catholic , parts of
48618-405: Was under consideration in the aftermath of the First World War, initially wishing to spend only a small proportion of the fund on a physical monument. Plans were floated for a national memorial in the vicinity of Buckingham Palace or on the Mall. Another option mooted was a memorial cloister attached to Westminster Abbey , with contributions from the Royal Artillery and other regiments, though this
48840-483: Was unveiled by Prince Arthur on 18 October 1925. Dedications were later added to the memorial in memory of the 29,924 Royal Artillerymen killed in the Second World War . It underwent restoration in 2011 after years of weathering and water ingress. The memorial is a Grade I listed building and is managed by English Heritage ; it now shares its site with multiple other military monuments and war memorials. The First World War , which took place between 1914 and 1918, saw
49062-460: Was unwilling to become mired in a distant war, requiring substantial troop reinforcement and expense, for what was perceived at the time to be a minimal return. An armistice ended the war, and subsequently a peace treaty was signed with the Transvaal President Paul Kruger. In June 1884, British imperial interests were ignited in the discovery by Jan Gerrit Bantjes of what would prove to be the world's largest deposit of gold-bearing ore at an outcrop on
49284-429: Was used in First World War memorials , it tended to depict allegorical figures such as Peace or Victory . Sculptures of soldiers were uncommon. Where they were used, the soldiers appeared healthy and smartly presented in military uniform, not dishevelled or injured. The Royal Artillery War Commemoration Fund (RAWCF) was formed in 1918, made up of a mixture of commissioned officers and other ranks . The RAWCF's intention
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