Stop the War demonstration marches past the Cenotaph

The Cenotaph in Whitehall will be the centre of the Remembrance Day events next Sunday. Royalty, politicians and military will lay wreaths at the foot of the Portland stone monument, whose name comes from the Greek for ‘empty tomb’ and whose appearance resembles a coffin stood on one end.

The ceremonies every year on November 11, to mark the anniversary of the end of the First World War in 1918, commemorate the dead but leave no reason for doubt that their deaths were justified. The red poppy, now compulsory dress code for the BBC, parliament and all other parts of the British establishment in the weeks running up to the anniversary, is produced by the British Legion and is promoted by the army.

The original Cenotaph was rather different. It wasn’t meant as a permanent structure at all. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens for the victory parade through London in July 1919 and, as a temporary memorial, was constructed of wood with silk panels flowing down its sides.

No one who had been part of organising the monument and parade had any idea what impact it would have. But the Cenotaph became a symbol of the grief that gripped every nation that had fought in the war. Every day huge crowds came to the Cenotaph, to pay their respects and to express their loss.

Flowers of every description piled up around the base of the monument. Women and children openly wept. Passengers on buses raised their hats as they went past. The monument symbolised the terrible losses that were now being remembered.

Britain lost three-quarters of a million servicemen during the war. Another 1.5 million had serious injuries. Ex soldiers and their families could expect disability compensation of 16 shillings a week for loss of a right arm; 15 shillings for the loss of a left arm; and nothing for facial injuries. Some faces were so disfigured that special copper masks were made to hide the men’s scars.

The authorities didn’t expect or welcome this outpouring of grief. Some complained about the mountains of flowers rotting in the summer heat and wanted them removed. There had been mutinies round London earlier in the year, and feeling was strongly against the war and against those who had supported it. Strikes were taking place throughout the country as working people discovered they were not living in a ‘land fit for heroes’.

The Cenotaph became permanent in 1920, erected to coincide with the burial of the Unknown Soldier in Westminster Abbey. Its original reception as a popular symbol of mourning gradually changed.

The Cenotaph has long been connected with wars, not peace, its ceremonies of remembrance carried out on behalf of the military, not in opposition to it. The misery, futility, destruction of war is hidden from view behind the cheering, flag waving and pompous commentaries which mark the ceremonies.

There is everything right about remembering the dead who die in futile wars. There is everything wrong about using the past dead to justify current wars.

As Siegfried Sassoon, one of the most militant poets of the First World War, wrote: