A Guide to the Cemeteries & Memorials to the 'Missing' in
France and Flanders 1914 - 1918

Go to the Cemetery & Memorial main index

"In the course of my pilgrimage, I have many times asked myself whether there can be more potent advocates of peace upon earth.....than this massed multitude of silent witnesses to the desolation of war. And I feel that, so long as we have faith in God's purpose, we cannot but believe that the existence of these visible memorials will, eventually, serve to draw all peoples together in sanity and self-control, even as it has already set the relations between our Empire and our allies on the deep-rooted bases of a common heroism and a common agony".

King George V (1865 - 1935) Terlincthun British Cemetery, Wimille, France. 1922

 

In 1929 a book called 'The Silent Cities' was published. Compiled by the Imperial War Graves Commission & Sydney C. Hurst, it contained 959 photographs of war cemeteries on the Western Front. Its aim was to be a guide to the relatives and friends of the fallen in the Great War who would wish to make the pilgrimage to France & Flanders and visit the burial places of the missing.

It is the aim of this site to list (both with details & photographs) all of the cemeteries and war memorials that are located in and around the Western Front of 1914 -1918. Using the medium of the Internet this site aims to bring these "Silent Cities" to your awareness.

The amount of cemeteries listed in Silent Cities numbered 2,485, of which, as quoted above 959 were photographed. As you might imagine the size of the task ahead is massive, so please bear with me as I endeavor to complete this project.

Finally a big thank you must go to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission whose hard working and dedicated staff make the Western Front such a moving and wonderful place to visit.

 

Go to the Cemetery & Memorial main index