Identifying the Dead by Frederic Villiers. 1915. Source: Villiers 33.
Villiers observed and conveyed the sad realities of warfare, showing here, amid the bleak wintry landscape in the aftermath of battle, the ingenious method adopted to provide some record of the fallen: "On some of the French positions on the Western Front I noticed a clever idea more easily to identify the hastily buried. Letters or small articles found in the pockets of the dead were stuffed into empty beer or wine bottles, corked up and stuck in the mud of the graves" (31). This improvised record would help give some closure to the bereaved, who would at least know where their loved one was buried.
The need for this is memorably recognised in Kipling's short story, "The Gardener," in which a grieving woman is led to her son's war grave, amongst a sea of others, by a "gardener" whom we later recognise as symbolising Jesus: "'Come with me,' he said, 'and I will show you where your son lies'" (508). This is particularly poignant in context: the woman has always pretended that her illegitimate son was her nephew, but the "gardener" recognises a mother's grief. Kipling, who lost his own teenaged son in the war, conveys the emotions implicit in Villers' choice of subject with both inwardness and subtlety.
Scanned image and text by Jacqueline Banerjee. [You may use the image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned it, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Kipling, Rudyard. Selected Stories. London: Penguin, 2001.
Villiers, Frederic. Days of Glory: the sketch book of a veteran correspondent at the front. New York: George H. Doran, 1920. Internet Archive, from a copy in the State Library of Pennsylvania. Web. 27 April 2025.
Created 27 April 2025