ELEVEN o’clock on November 11, 1918. The Forest of Compiègne in northern France. Buglers sound an ‘all-clear’ outside the railway carriage where the Armistice was signed six hours earlier. Reactions across battle zones and home fronts veer across the spectrum of jubilation, relief, exhaustion and grief.
In no time, ‘battlefield tourists’ and relatives of the Fallen started making their way out from Britain to locations far and near—especially to the Western Front. Year by year, a veritable industry sprang up to assist in these ‘pilgrimages’. Travel agents—Cook’s Tours and Travel Service inevitably to the fore—offered options to suit different pockets. Organisations such as the YMCA and Salvation Army aided travellers of limited means.
Those who died together lie shoulder to shoulder for eternity
For too many among the bereaved, the trip offered only the consolation of visiting the area where a loved one was last seen alive. The fortunate pilgrims were those able to locate where particular soldiers lay. Hundreds of well-ordered,. ‘When you see the hundreds of little crosses that make of those fields a vast cemetery “for ever England”, you will not regret that you went. Those crosses… give an impression of sleeping battalions.’
