}
Fabian Ware and the Imperial War Graves Commission
‘Now so beautiful, peaceful and quiet; impossible to imagine the conditions during the battles’
Visitors' book at a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery
The dead were often buried where they fell. It was Bristol-born Fabian Ware who got the British Army and government organized over burials, and established the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission. Fabian Ware was too old for active service in 1914, so he joined the Red Cross ambulance service. He began mapping graves and set up the Graves Registration Unit, which transferred to the Army in 1915 as the Graves Registration Commission. Ware’s concerns about what happened to the graves after the war led to the Imperial War Graves Commission. By 1918, almost 600,000 graves had been identified. The Commission established over 1,000 war cemeteries in the battlefields of Europe. Many of the dead left no body to bury. Their names, over 500,000, were carved on the Memorials to the Missing on the battlefields and in the cemeteries. The Commission treated all the dead equally, whether officer or private, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu or atheist. They lie side by side, with the same white headstone.
The dead were often buried where they fell. It was Bristol-born Fabian Ware who got the British Army and government organized over burials, and established the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission. Fabian Ware was too old for active service in 1914, so he joined the Red Cross ambulance service. He began mapping graves and set up the Graves Registration Unit, which transferred to the Army in 1915 as the Graves Registration Commission. Ware’s concerns about what happened to the graves after the war led to the Imperial War Graves Commission. By 1918, almost 600,000 graves had been identified. The Commission established over 1,000 war cemeteries in the battlefields of Europe. Many of the dead left no body to bury. Their names, over 500,000, were carved on the Memorials to the Missing on the battlefields and in the cemeteries. The Commission treated all the dead equally, whether officer or private, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu or atheist. They lie side by side, with the same white headstone.