These men have laid down their lives for England. In the future, History will pass its verdict upon the War, its causes and its consequences, the methods of its accomplishment, and on the men who planned and schemed and fought to bring it to a triumphantly victorious ending. Our children, and the generations which are to follow us, for whose sake we have believed this war is being waged, will sit in judgment on all that has been done in it for good or for ill. Let us be content to be so judged.

But, whatever may be that verdict, what grander tribute can we humbly pay to those who have fallen, what else can we proudly say of them than the bare reiteration of the simple fact that they have made that last and greatest sacrifice of all? That sacrifice has been reached after the manner of our race, for the benefit of others, for the sake of those ideals which we rightly regard alike as the foundation and the characteristics of our nation.

From the fringes of the Empire men came homing back to the Motherland to shoulder her troubles and die for her alongside of the veterans who had already grown grey in the service of the King, and of the boys from London Town.

Some have gone out to meet their death with laughter on their lips, and some with prayers; and others have faced the end racked with the pain of long drawn suffering. Some have died in the gladdening exaltation of accomplished victory; and there are those who fought—and fought—and turned again and fought—and fell, sleeping as they fell and dying as they slept, in that grimmest nightmare of retreat at the opening of the campaign.

Victory we have known—failure we have met; yet those who have fought this fight for us have heaped up laurel upon laurel to add eternal lustre to that battle fame which the centuries behind us have woven for our name; and our children’s children will rejoice in the glory they have made.

There are British graves in Flanders and Gallipoli, on the bleak hillsides of Serbia and by the waters of the Euphrates. There are those who now rest peacefully beneath the sullen waves of the grey North Sea or the sun-kissed far Pacific; and of those who sleep so quietly none now hears the maddening racket of this world at war in which they played out their parts so gallantly.

Here are their names, officers and men together, as they fought and died for this dear Empire which they have loved so exceeding well. Let us pay tribute to their memory.