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(page two)
On the morning of 11 November the body of the Unknown Warrior
was drawn to the Cenotaph on a gun carriage pulled by six black horses, followed by twelve
distinguished pallbearers, including Haig, Beatty and French. Many of those who lined the
streets watching the procession pass had been waiting all night.
The Great Silence November 11th 1920
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At eleven o'clock - "the eleventh
hour" - as Big Ben began to chime, the King turned to face the Cenotaph and, by a
touch on a button, released the flags veiling the monument. As the chimes died away,
everyone fell silent for two minutes, and the Last Post sounded.
The solemn journey continued down Whitehall to Westminster
Abbey where the nave was lined by 100 soldiers who had been awarded
the Victoria Cross. The Royal Family had pride of place, but the
congregation was primarily composed of widows and mothers who had lost sons. There was no foreign representation.
The service was brief and according to The Times , 'the most beautiful, the most
touching and the most impressive this island has ever seen....'
 The first ever recordings made in the Abbey were taken of the
ceremony by Major Lionel Guest and Captain Merriman who sold the resulting discs for seven
shillings and sixpence (37p) each. The
event touched the nation in a remarkable way with the Daily Mirror special
edition, selling almost two million copies, a record for a single issue.
It had been planned that the grave of the Unknown Warrior
would be closed after allowing a pilgrimage of three days. The organisers were taken
completely by surprise by the response of the people, not only in London, but throughout
Great Britain. Once the ceremony was finished the thousands of people who had lined the
streets began to queue to pass the Cenotaph. Most of them had brought wreaths or bunches
of flowers to place at the base of the memorial.
At least 40,000 people passed through the Abbey before the
doors were closed at 11pm an hour later than the scheduled closure time and thousands more
passed the Cenotaph. There were still long queues at midnight, and people continued to
visit the site through the night.
Most impressive of all was the night scene in
Whitehall. The vast sweep of the road was almost silent save for the ceaseless murmur of
footsteps. Under the brilliant glare of the lamps that were softened by the foggy air the
long, dark lines of people stretched from Trafalgar Square to the Cenotaph from whose base
they could be seen vanishing in the distance, two narrow lines of slowly moving people
separated by a wide pathway on which stood here and there vague figures of policemen on
horseback.
from the Daily Mail 12 November 1920
The pilgrimage went on throughout the weekend, with Saturday
bringing large numbers of pilgrims from outside London. The Daily Express told
the story of two wounded soldiers who walked sixty miles to lay wreaths at the Cenotaph;
they had both lost brothers in the war. There were pilgrims from Ireland,
Scotland and Wales.
One policeman spoke of old women who had come from
remote country villages to pay homage to the dead. "One old lady came from the far
north of Scotland. She carried a bunch of withered flowers, and told me with tears in her
eyes that the flowers came from a little garden which her boy had planted when he was only
six."
from Daily
Telegraph 12 November 1920
On Monday 15 November traffic began to move along Whitehall,
but the great pilgrimage carried on. As buses passed the Cenotaph, the drivers slowed out
of respect, and their passengers stood and removed their hats. Up to the time the grave
was closed on 18th November an estimated 1,250,000 people visited the Abbey, but the
pilgrimage continued long afterwards, with the space enclosing the grave remaining filled
with flowers and other tributes for almost a year.
It was probably the greatest public outpouring of emotion
that Britain had ever seen.
Further reading on this subject:
Ronald Blythe, The Age of Illusion (1963)
David W.Lloyd, Battlefield Tourism (1998)
Michael Gavaghan, The Story of the Unknown Warrior (1997)
David Cannadine, Aspects of Aristocracy (1994) |
 Memorial to the Unknown Warrior - the unveiling
of a plaque at Victoria Station, London, in November 1998
You might also like to read H.V.Morton's
description of the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Among the Kings
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