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The Gate of Eternal Memories: Architecture Art and Remembrance

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The Gate of Eternal Memories: Architecture Art and Remembrance CONTESTED TERRAINS SAHANZ PERTH 2006 JOHN STEPHENS THE GATE OF ETERNAL MEMORIES: ARCHITECTURE ART AND REMEMBRANCE. John Richard Stephens Faculty of Built Environment Art and Design, Curtin University of Technology, Perth Western Australia, Australia. ABSTRACT The Menin Gate is a large memorial in Belgium to British Empire troops killed and missing during the battles of the Ypres Salient during the First World War. Designed by the architect Reginald Blomfield in 1922 it commemorates the 56,000 soldiers whose bodies were never found including 6,160 Australians. Blomfield’s sobering memorial has symbolic architectural meaning, and signifi- cance and commemorative meaning to relatives of those whose names appeared on the sur- faces of the structure. In 1927 the Australian artist and soldier William Longstaff painted his alle- gorical painting “Menin gate at Midnight showing the Gate as an ethereal structure in a brood- ing landscape populated with countless ghostly soldiers. The painting was an instant success and was reverentially exhibited at all Australian capital cities. From the contested terrain of war re- membrance this paper will argue that both the Gate and its representation in “Menin Gate at Midnight” are linked through the commemorative associations that each employ and have in common. “Here was the world’s worst wound. And Imperial War Graves cemetery. As a product of here with pride particular political and ethical policies, the bodies ‘Their name liveth for evermore’ the of British Empire soldiers were not returned to their Gateway claims. countries but buried close to where they met their Was ever an immolation so belied As these intolerably nameless names? fate. The soldiers named on the gate were not just Well might the Dead who struggled in the ‘fallen’ but also ‘lost’. For the relatives of the miss- slime ing a pilgrimage to the Gate was a significant act Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime.”1 which helped to heal the effects of grief and loss providing a tangible link to the memory of loved In “On Passing Menin Gate” the poet Siegfried Sas- ones through its location, dedication and number- soon derided the “pile of peace complacent less names. stones” in his usual vitriolic verse on the effect of the industrialized warfare of the First World War. The dedication ceremony on the 24th of July 1927 Designed by the prominent Edwardian architect Sir was a significant and moving affair attended by Reginald Blomfield, the Menin Gate at Ypres had officials, dignitaries and thousands of pilgrim been built as a memorial to the 56,000 missing from mourners. The ceremony was also attended by the the battles of the Ypres Salient between 1914 and Australian artist Will Longstaff who had been a 1918. It was constructed on the site of the demol- Captain in the Australian Army. By his own ac- ished gateway that stood on the road through the count, while walking by the Gate at night, Long- city ramparts to the nearby town of Menin. Sas- staff had a vision of the ghosts of the missing rising soon’s sarcasm derived from his own – somewhat up out of the ground in front of the Gate and contradictory – role in the war as both a deco- marching off towards the Ypres battlefields.3 This rated hero and fierce critic and his conviction that experience provided the inspiration for his painting officialdom was cynically using the bereaved and “Menin Gate at Midnight” depicting his vision of a their tide of sorrow for national and imperial agen- spectral army arising from the poppy fields near das. Others, too, were cognisant of the memorial the Gate. It was well regarded in Britain and en- as evidence of official guilt for the war and propa- joyed overwhelming acclaim and popularity in ganda for the British Empire.2 Australia where it was shown in each of the capital cities before investiture at the Australian War Me- However, these people were at odds with many morial in Canberra. Longstaff’s painting success- others who held that the memorial was chiefly a fully tapped into a number of key commemorative focus of grief for sons and relatives whose bodies ideas and sentiment of Australian people of the were never recovered and given a burial in an time. Firstly, memorials could act as ‘empty graves’ SAHANZ 2006 1 CONTESTED TERRAINS SAHANZ PERTH 2006 JOHN STEPHENS for the dead and be a focus of memory for those designed cemeteries near the battlefields was ad- who may never see the graves of relatives over- vanced by the Imperial War Graves Commission seas. Secondly, that pilgrimage was an important (IWGC) whose charismatic leader, Sir Fabian Ware, part of alleviating grief. Thirdly, both the Gate and successfully argued - against much opposition – for the painting tapped into a tide of spiritualism that equality of treatment. It was unjust that the rich swept Britain and Australia at the time helping to could afford to take the bodies of their sons home soften the blow of losing loved ones. To Australians while the vast majority of the population could the painting was not just a representation of the not.7 Consequently soldiers’ bodies effectively be- memorial but as important as the building itself. As came the property of the state and were re- Bruce Scates points out, in the 1930s no Australian interred in cemeteries designed by IWGC archi- could stand before the Menin Gate at Ypres with- tects and tended by their gardeners. out the mental picture of Longstaff’s painting hov- ering in their mind.4 As Bruce Scates argues, the decision not to repa- triate bodies made pilgrimage to battlefield grave- From the contested terrain of war remembrance sites an imperative whether the pilgrimage was this paper argues that both the Gate and its repre- actual or imaginary.8 The presence of a body to sentation in “Menin Gate at Midnight” are linked grieve over was a significant factor in healing the through the commemorative associations that grief over the loss of a son. As Tarlow shows, a syn- each employ and have in common. Also – as with chronic relationship between the living and the many World War One memorials - both contest the dead had developed by the end of the nine- notion of traditional remembrance by substituting teenth century emphasizing an ongoing emotional for the lack of physical remains of soldiers seen as relationship with the dead rather than merely a necessary for meaningful mourning at the time. To past one or a future one in heaven. While grief was do this, the paper will discuss the Menin Gate and no less intense than in previous times, codes of its architectural and commemorative meanings feeling had changed and become manifest in with reference to the painting Menin Gate at Mid- such things as the regular visiting of graves.9 Tal- night - discussing the linkages between architec- low’s research helps explain why local war memo- ture and memory in the context of war memorials. rials were so emotionally charged at that time, par- It is important to understand memorials such as ticularly memorials to those whose bodies were these, in the context of their time, as the focus of never recovered. In normal circumstances people genuine grief and not just the symbol of a victori- could bury and visit their dead in local graveyards ous empire. but this was not possible with the war dead. Grief was intensified at such distance from the soldier, Commemoration and Remembrance the horrible circumstances of the death and the lack of personal burial rituals - compounded when War memorials in the First World War Anglo- soldiers were missing and no grave could be pho- Australian sense are mnemonic objects that form tographed or even imagined. The Menin Gate the focus of collective memory and remembrance arose out of the need for a class of memorial that for distant events and places. As Tarlow asserts was specifically aimed at commemorating what ‘They serve as foci for political and personal ritual, ‘…every family dreaded: the terrible oblivion of the 5 dependant on a shared history’ . They are surro- missing.’10 gate tombs for the ‘fallen’ and remember the ser- vice of those who answered the call. More impor- The memorial to the missing tantly, while many built during the war doubled as war propaganda, war memorials offered a focus Along with most World War One memorials, the of solace for relatives who had lost relatives. This Menin Gate memorial was born in conflict. By the was particularly important where there were no end of the war the Belgium city of Ypres was in bodies to grieve over. Almost before the war ruins. Suggestions of how to mark Ypres as ‘holy ended a wave of war memorial building gripped ground’ abounded, including leaving the city as a Australia with many communities erecting their ruin. This suggestion was championed by both own memorials to those from the district who had Winston Churchill and King George V who recom- served or fallen. mended that the British government buy Ypres as a monument.11 There were other schemes includ- The mechanized nature of the war and the strate- ing rebuilding part of the city and leaving some gies employed on the battlefields resulted in mass ruins as a ‘zone of silence’. However in the end it deaths on an unprecedented scale. Each British was considered less costly and less politically prob- Empire country abided by the decision to avoid lematic to build a memorial on the ruins of the bringing back soldiers remains to the country of Menin Gate despite determined efforts to scuttle origin and this made local war memorials ex- this process.12 Before the war this gate, a simple treemly important as a focus of loss and as a substi- way through the ramparts of Ypres, was guarded tute grave for the dead.
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