The Sun SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 1928. THE FIELD OF REMEMBRANCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 424, 4 August 1928, Page 8

The Sun SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 1928. THE FIELD OF REMEMBRANCE

PARADISE is under the shadow of swords."’ This and thus, to-day, must be among the many inexpressible thoughts haunting the minds of the British pilgrims to the battlefields and shrines of sacrifice in Flanders and in France. Eleven thousand members of the British Legion are making a noble pilgrimage to the scenes of their Empire’s service, and make it under the companionable leadershii) of the Prince of Wales. They will be accompanied in sympathy and imagination by hundreds of thousands of their former comrades who are now scattered all over the Empire and (as one may be permitted to hope in spite of medical scientists and materialists) by the host of unseen warriors who, in the flush of youthful heroism, passed beyond a soldier’s trumpet-call. And Tlaig of Bemersyde, whose living thought was always for the troops whose confidence he held, will not be seen marching at the head of the pilgrims as they march through the Menin Gate; but all that was immortal of the man and his service will he there, too, its presence made more realisable by the tender companionship of Countess Haig, a great soldier’s widow, firm-lipped in the Scottish way, fighting bravely against memories and the onslaught of emotion. ...

The heroism of youth might well he the vivid picture in every mind that, near and far, takes part in the pilgrimage. No one can live with the dead, and it is madness to try, but all may remember their dead with profit to the soul. And even the sight of the little and large cemeteries that are reminiscent of war all over France and Belgium will, in the penetrating phrase of the British Prime Minister after his recent pilgrimage to the battlefields, “be a revelation to the eye and a comfort to the heart. The ceremony at the Menin Gate this week-end will he a beautiful part of the great work of remembrance.- And what a story there is in the mighty record of commemoration, a story too poignant to tell in stark detail, but a story that should and will he told through generations to come. One million and seventyfive thousand sons of the Empire fell in the Great War. . feo far, more than three-quarters of a million rest in graves which have been registered and marked. There are 600,000 headstones, 1,135 Crosses of Sacrifice, and 265 Stones of Remembrance. The Field of Remembrance is almost as wide as the world. It is to be found in France and Belgium, in the United Kingdom and all the British Dominions, in East Africa, Egypt, Gallipoli, Gibraltar, Greece, Holland, Italy, Macedonia, Malta, Mesopotamia, Newfoundland, Norway, Palestine, Rumania, Samoa, Sweden, Switzerland, and in all the lonely island Protectorates of the British Crown. That is the field of the Empire’s dead; that the story of youthful heroism; that the Paradise under the shadow of swords. To-day, the centre of the vast Field of Remembrance is in Western Flanders, hard by the Menin Gate, the symbol of sacrifice, and the restored city of Ypres. It is right that it should be there as a sacred place for the representative expression of the purpose of the British Legion. There, in the flat country, a battleground of nations down the centuries, the gallant Allied Armies survived the terrific shocks of four sustained conflicts, each designated a battle, though each was as a separate war, and spread over a period of four years. There, intense carnage piled the dead in 1914, in 1915, in 1917, and in 1918. But it is not necessary to recount again the ebb and flow of battle or to recall the first cloud of green vapour which heralded the advent of poison gas in warfare—the deadly cloud that suffocated the flower of Canada’s Expeditionary Force. These had best be forgotten and memory concentrated on the courage that endured, on the spirit of youth that was unconquerable. The British Legion pilgrims (it is good to know that a score of New Zealand’s war soldiers are with them) will spend four days on the wide battlefront. In many different groups they will revisit the scenes of their active service, each group lingering with love and longing at the place of its war experience. And there, the men of to-day will know the sadness of lost youth. Here and there some of the scenes will be much as they were a decade ago, save silence in the place of fury; for in many places in France and Flanders war-torn country has been left unrestored as a terrible memorial. But there will he amazing changes and almost incredible transformations. There will he happy peasants in golden cornfields, bright maids tending 1 cattle, the song of birds in resurrected forest glades, and quiet fields where friends and foes are comrades at last in the common peace of death, the passions and penalties of war forgotten and surely forgiven. But what of the lads and the spirit of youth that have for ever gone? The comradeship, the grouching, the courage, the sheer raw doggedness that conquered muck, misery, and the hell of modern war; these, absent but recalled, will wrench the hearts of the pilgrims. Let their mood and tributes, their sadness and their quiet pride, he added to the increasing hope that war shall not again foul the Field of Remembrance.