Frank Fox - The Kings Pilgrimage

THE KINGS

PILGRIMAGE

PROFITS FROM THE SALE OF THIS BOOK WILL, BY HIS MAJESTYS DESIRE, BE DISTRIBUTED AMONG THE PHILANTHROPIC ORGANIZATIONS WHICH FOR SOME TIME HAVE BEEN ASSISTING RELATIVES TO VISIT THE CEMETERIES ABROAD

THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE

TERLINCTHUN

The Kings Pilgrimage

London:
Hodder and Stoughton, Limited
1922

The Imperial War Graves Commission has to acknowledge the permission of the following for the publication of the photographs which are contained in this book: Central News Agency, Graphic Photo Union, Daily Mail, Press Photographic Agency, The Times, Topical Press Agency, Lt.-Col. H. Ellissen, Mr. F. C. See, Mr. A. H. W. Brown

PRINTED IN PHOTOGRAVURE
BY
THE SUN ENGRAVING CO., LTD.
LONDON AND WATFORD

It was our Kings wish that he should go as a private pilgrim, with no trappings of state nor pomp of ceremony, and with only a small suite, to visit the tombs in Belgium and France of his comrades who gave up their lives in the Great War. In the uniform which they wore on service, he passed from one to another of the cemeteries which, in their noble simplicity, express perfectly the proud grief of the British race in their dead; and, at the end, within sight of the white cliffs of England, spoke his thoughts in a message of eloquence which moved all his Empire to sympathy.

The Governments of France and of Belgium, our allies in the war for the freedom of the world, respected the Kings wish. Nowhere did official ceremony intrude on an office of private devotion. But nothing could prevent the people of the country-side gathering around the places which the King visited, bringing with them flowers, and joining their tribute to his. They acclaimed him not so much as King, but rather as the head of those khaki columns which crossed the Channel to help to guard their homes; in their minds the memory of the glad relief of August, 1914, when they learnt that the British were with them in the war and felt that the ultimate end was secure. Many of them were of the peasants who, before the scattered graves of our dead had been gathered into enduring cemeteries, had graced them with flowers, making vases of shell-cases gathered from the battle-fields. The King was deeply moved by their presence, at seeing them leave for an hour the task of building up their ruined homes and shattered farms, and coming with pious gratitude to share his homage to the men who had been faithful to their trust unto death. To those around him he spoke more than once in thankful appreciation of this good feeling of the people of France and Belgium. Especially was he pleased to see the children of the country-side crowd around him, and when little choirs of them sang God Save the King in quaintly accented words his feeling was manifest.

There came thus to the pilgrimage from the first an atmosphere of affectionate intimacy between these people who were not his subjects and the British King. They gathered around him as around a friend, the old women leaning forward to catch his words, the children trying to come close enough to touch him, seeing in his uniform again the Tommy who had proved such a gentle soul when he came for a brief rest from the horrors of the battle-field to the villages behind the line and helped mother with the housework and nursed the baby. At one village a gendarme, feeling in his official soul that this was really no way to treat a King, tried to arrange some more formal atmosphere. But in vain. The villagers saw the old friendly good-humoured British Army back in France, and could not be official.

Now and then at a cemetery the King met relatives, in some cases from far-off Pacific Dominions, visiting their dead, and he stopped to speak with them because they were on the same mission as he was, of gratitude and reverence. One mother, moved by the kindness of the Kings greeting, opened her heart to him and told, with the simple eloquence of real feeling, how she had just come from her sons grave and was proud that he had died for his King and country; that every care had been taken to find and identify it, and more could not have been done if it had been the Prince of Wales himself.

At several points the workers of the Imperial War Graves Commissionpractically all of whom had gone through the campaign, and now are reverently and carefully tending the last resting-places of their fallen comradesassembled to greet the King. He spoke with them also, giving them thanks for their work and noting their war medals and asking them about their life in the camps, or with the mobile caravans which, in the districts where housing cannot yet be found, move from cemetery to cemetery, keeping fresh the tribute of grass and flowers and treescaravans which bring back vividly ones memory of the old British supply columns, for they are almost invariably led by a small self-important and well-fed dog.