In 1916, a British army chaplain named David Railton walked through a graveyard behind the front lines in Armentières, France. World War I was in its second year, and the dead were everywhere. One grave stopped him cold. The cross read: "An Unknown British Soldier." No name. No rank. No hometown. Just a man who gave everything and vanished into the mud. That image burned into Railton's mind. It would change how a nation remembers its dead.
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Crowns & Conquests·2/2·1′
The place
Westminster Abbey
The Unknown Warrior
The most honoured grave in the British Isles — where a nameless soldier lies among kings
1920 AD — Aftermath of the Great WarWestminster Abbey
Moral of the Story
“The worth of a human life does not depend upon a name, a rank, or a title — one unknown soldier, laid among kings, became the most honoured grave in a nation of the living and the dead”
Characters
T
The Unknown Warrior — An unidentified British soldier of the Great WarR
Reverend David Railton — Army chaplain who conceived the idea after seeing an unmarked grave in ArmentièresB
Brigadier General L.J. Wyatt — The officer who chose the body from six candidates at midnightK
King George V — Who walked behind the coffin and scattered French soil into the graveH
Herbert Ryle — Dean of Westminster, who championed the proposal and composed the inscriptionD
David Lloyd George — Prime Minister who gave final approval for the burialSource
Westminster Abbey archives, Reverend David Railton's papers, Michael Gavaghan's "The Story of the Unknown Warrior" (1995), Imperial War Museum records, Hansard parliamentary debates (1920)