The Unknown Warrior
|
|
The British tomb of The Unknown Warrior holds an unidentified British soldier killed on a European battlefield during World War I. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, London on November 11, 1920, the earliest such tomb honoring the unknown dead of World War I. Even the battlefield the Warrior came from is not known, kept permanently unknown so that the Unknown Warrior might serve as a symbol for all of the unknown dead wherever they fell.
The Warrior was conferred the US Medal of Honor on 17 October 1921, from the hand of General Pershing; it hangs on a pillar near to his burial site.
Several other nations would follow the example and have their own Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the most famous being France's, beneath the Arc de Triomphe.
When Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon married the future King George VI on April 26, 1923, she laid her bouquet at the Tomb on her way into the Abbey, a gesture which every royal bride since has copied, though on the way back from the altar rather than to it.
The tomb in Westminster Abbey is in the far western end of the nave, only a few feet from the entrance. The black Belgian marble covering the grave is the only tombstone in the Abbey on which it is forbidden to walk.
The British Unknown Warrior came 76th in the 100 Great Britons poll.
Epitaph
The inscription on the tomb, composed by Dean Ryle, reads:
Beneath this stone rests the body Of a British warrior Unknown by name or rank Brought from France to lie among The most illustrious of the land And buried here on Armistice Day 11 Nov: 1920, in the presence of His Majesty King George V His ministers of state The chiefs of his forces And a vast concourse of the nation Thus are commemorated the many Multitudes who during the Great War of 1914 - 1918 gave the most that Man can give life itself For God For King and country For loved ones home and Empire For the sacred cause of justice and The freedom of the world They buried him among the kings because he Had done good toward God and toward His house.
See also
External links
- The Unknown Warrior (Westminster Abbey) (http://www.westminster-abbey.org/library/burial/warrior.htm)de:Grabmal des unbekannten Soldaten#England