The King's Pilgrimage
Encyclopedia
The King's Pilgrimage is the title of a poem and book about the journey made by King George V in May 1922 to visit the World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 cemeteries and memorials being constructed at the time in France and Belgium by the Imperial War Graves Commission. This journey was part of the wider pilgrimage movement that saw tens of thousands of bereaved relatives from the United Kingdom and the Empire visit the battlefields of the Great War in the years that followed the Armistice. The poem was written by the British author and poet Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

, while the text in the book is attributed to the Australian journalist and author Frank Fox. Aspects of the pilgrimage were also described by Kipling within the short story 'The Debt' (1930).

Poem

The author of the poem, Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

, had lost his only son in the war. Kipling, a member of the Imperial War Graves Commission, was its literary advisor and wrote many of the inscriptions and other written material produced for the Commission.

The first publication of the poem in the UK was in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

of 15 May 1922, while the poem also appeared in the USA in the New York World
New York World
The New York World was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers...

.

The text of the poem includes references to Nieuport
Nieuwpoort, Belgium
Nieuwpoort is a municipality located in Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium, and in the Flemish province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Nieuwpoort proper and the towns of Ramskapelle and Sint-Joris. On January 1, 2008 Nieuwpoort had a total population of 11,062....

 (a coastal port down-river from Ypres
Ypres
Ypres is a Belgian municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Ypres and the villages of Boezinge, Brielen, Dikkebus, Elverdinge, Hollebeke, Sint-Jan, Vlamertinge, Voormezele, Zillebeke, and Zuidschote...

), and "four Red Rivers", said to be the River Somme, the River Marne, the River Oise and the River Yser, which all flow through the World War I battlefields. The poem also talks about "a carven stone" and "a stark Sword brooding on the bosom of the Cross", referring to the Stone of Remembrance
Stone of Remembrance
The Stone of Remembrance was designed by the British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens for the Imperial War Graves Commission . It was designed to commemorate the dead of World War I, to be used in IWGC war cemeteries containing 1000 or more graves, or at memorial sites commemorating more than 1000 war...

 and the Cross of Sacrifice
Cross of Sacrifice
The Cross of Sacrifice was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield for the Imperial War Graves Commission and is usually present in Commonwealth war cemeteries containing 40 or more graves. It is normally a freestanding four point limestone Latin cross in one of three sizes ranging in height from 18 to...

, architectural motifs being used by the Commission in the cemeteries.
Kipling's poem describing the King's journey has been compared to 'The Waste Land
The Waste Land
The Waste Land[A] is a 434-line[B] modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922. It has been called "one of the most important poems of the 20th century." Despite the poem's obscurity—its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its...

' by T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...

, published later the same year. In her 2009 paper, Joanna Scutts draws comparisons between the structure of the poem and that of a chivalric quest
Quest
In mythology and literature, a quest, a journey towards a goal, serves as a plot device and as a symbol. Quests appear in the folklore of every nation and also figure prominently in non-national cultures. In literature, the objects of quests require great exertion on the part of the hero, and...

. Scutts also considers the pilgrimage as an "interpretive context" for the Eliot poem, stating that "[s]een through Kipling's poetic lens, the king's exemplary pilgrimage became as much romance quest as religious ritual", and suggests that Kipling's poem blurs the line between "conservative, traditional commemoration" and the "antiestablishment modernism" represented by Eliot.

Book

The poem was reprinted in a book published the same year by Hodder & Stoughton
Hodder & Stoughton
Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette.-History:The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged fourteen, with Messrs Jackson and Walford, the official publisher for the Congregational Union...

. The poem prefaced the book, and lines and stanzas from the poem and from the speech given by the King, were used as epigraphs
Epigraph (literature)
In literature, an epigraph is a phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document or component. The epigraph may serve as a preface, as a summary, as a counter-example, or to link the work to a wider literary canon, either to invite comparison or to enlist a conventional...

 for the chapters describing the King's journey, and to caption some of the photographs. The book, which was illustrated with black-and-white photographs, sold in "huge numbers". A statement in the book declared that profits from the sale of the book would, at the behest of the King, be donated to the organisations arranging for bereaved relatives to visit the cemeteries and memorials. Also included in the opening pages is a signed letter from the King himself, again mentioning the proposed use of the profits from the book to assist those travelling to visit graves. Following the opening pages, the book proper consists of 34 pages of text, authored by Frank Fox, divided into four sections, with 61 black-and white photographs illustrating the book. The book ends with the text of two telegrams and a letter of thanks sent by the King following his return home. Later reprints of the poem included its use in the opening pages of The Silent Cities, a guide to the Commission's war cemeteries and memorials in France and Flanders, published in 1929.

Pilgrimage

The King and his entourage, which included Field Marshal Earl Haig
Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig
Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, KT, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCIE, ADC, was a British senior officer during World War I. He commanded the British Expeditionary Force from 1915 to the end of the War...

 and Major-General Sir Fabian Ware
Fabian Ware
Major General Sir Fabian Arthur Goulstone Ware KCVO, KBE, CB, CMG was the founder of the Imperial War Graves Commission, now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission-Early life:...

, the head of the Commission, travelled by ship, car and train, visiting sites in both France and Belgium. The journey was intended to set an example of pilgrimage to other travellers, and pomp and ceremony (apart from at Terlincthun) was avoided. The party inspected cemeteries and memorials, some still under construction, and met local representatives, army generals, war graves officials, memorial and headstone carvers and cemetery gardeners. During the journey, memorial silences were held and wreaths laid. Visits were made to graves of soldiers from all the Imperial Dominions, as well as India.

The sites visited on the journey included Étaples Military Cemetery
Etaples Military Cemetery
Étaples Military Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Étaples, near Boulogne on the north-west coast of France. The cemetery holds over 11,500 dead from both World War I and World War II.-History:...

, where the King laid flowers on the grave of a soldier following a personal request that had been made by the soldier's mother to Queen Mary
Mary of Teck
Mary of Teck was the queen consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, as the wife of King-Emperor George V....

. At Notre Dame de Lorette
Notre Dame de Lorette
Notre Dame de Lorette is the name of a ridge, basilica, and French national cemetery northwest of Arras at the village of Ablain-Saint-Nazaire...

, a burial place and ossuary
Ossuary
An ossuary is a chest, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary...

 for tens of thousands of French war dead, the King and Haig met with Marshal Ferdinand Foch
Ferdinand Foch
Ferdinand Foch , GCB, OM, DSO was a French soldier, war hero, military theorist, and writer credited with possessing "the most original and subtle mind in the French army" in the early 20th century. He served as general in the French army during World War I and was made Marshal of France in its...

, who had led the French army during the final year of the war. Other dignitaries to meet with the King included the Bishop of Amiens. Kipling was touring in a separate party to that of the King, but was asked several times to meet with him. The pilgrimage culminated in a visit to Terlincthun British Cemetery on 13 May 1922, where the King gave a speech that had been composed by Kipling.

The official Royal Party, in addition to the King, Haig and Ware, included the Right Honorable Sir Frederick Ponsonby
Frederick Ponsonby, 1st Baron Sysonby
Frederick Edward Grey Ponsonby, 1st Baron Sysonby GCB GCVO PC , was a British soldier and courtier.Ponsonby was the second son of General Sir Henry Ponsonby and his wife the Hon. Mary Elizabeth...

, Colonel Clive Wigram and Major R. Seymour. The pilgrimage started on 11 May in Belgium, after a State Visit with the Belgian King, following which the King and his companions travelled by Royal Train through Belgium and France, using cars to tour the cemeteries from the towns where the train stopped. As described by Fox in the book about the pilgrimage, places visited included Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge is a village on the coast of Belgium and a subdivision of Bruges, for which it is the modern port. Zeebrugge serves as both the international port of Bruges-Zeebrugge and a seafront resort with hotels, cafés, a marina and a beach.-Location:...

 (scene of the Zeebrugge Raid
Zeebrugge Raid
The Zeebrugge Raid, which took place on 23 April 1918, was an attempt by the British Royal Navy to neutralize the key Belgian port of Bruges-Zeebrugge...

), Tyne Cot Cemetery
Tyne Cot Cemetery
Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground for the dead of the First World War in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front...

, Brandhoek Military Cemetery, Ypres Town Cemetery (including a visit to the graves of the King's cousin, Prince Maurice of Battenberg
Prince Maurice of Battenberg
Prince Maurice of Battenberg, KCVO, was a member of the Hessian princely Battenberg family and the extended British Royal Family, the youngest grandchild of Queen Victoria...

, and the King's one-time equerry Lord Charles Mercer-Nairne
Lord Charles Petty-FitzMaurice
Lord Charles George Francis Mercer Nairne Petty-Fitzmaurice MVO was a British soldier and courtier.Petty-Fitzmaurice was the youngest son of the 5th Marquess of Lansdowne and his wife, Maud. He became a Major in the 1st King's Dragoon Guards and from 1899–90, he was an aide-de-camp to FM Frederick...

 and Major William George Sidney Cadogan, the equerry to the King's son, the Prince of Wales). While in and around Ypres, the touring party also visited the site of the planned Menin Gate
Menin Gate
The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing is a war memorial in Ypres, Belgium dedicated to the commemoration of British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the Ypres Salient of the First World War and whose graves are unknown...

 memorial to the missing, and several other cemeteries associated with battles of the Ypres Salient
Ypres Salient
The Ypres Salient is the area around Ypres in Belgium which was the scene of some of the biggest battles in World War I.In military terms, a salient is a battlefield feature that projects into enemy territory. Therefore, the salient is surrounded by the enemy on three sides, making the troops...

.

Crossing to France, the Royal Party stopped for the night at Vimy. This place was not yet the site of the Vimy Memorial
Vimy Memorial
The Canadian National Vimy Memorial is a memorial site in France dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War. It also serves as the place of commemoration for First World War Canadian soldiers killed or presumed dead in France who have no known...

 that would later be built there, but recalling the battle fought here, the King sent a telegram to Lord Byng, at that time the Governor-General of Canada, and during the war the commander of the Canadian forces that fought at Vimy. On 12 May, the pilgrimage arrived at Notre Dame de Lorette
Notre Dame de Lorette
Notre Dame de Lorette is the name of a ridge, basilica, and French national cemetery northwest of Arras at the village of Ablain-Saint-Nazaire...

, to pay homage to the French war dead. As with other locations visited, this site was not yet the location of a memorial, but as at the Menin Gate, the design for the memorial structure to be built here (a basilica) was shown to the King. After this, the route of the pilgrimage passed near or through places on the battlefields of the Somme Offensive, with many cemeteries being visited (Warlencourt, Warloy-Baillon, Forceville, Louvencourt, Picquigny, Crouy, Longpre-les-Corps Saints). On that evening, the King was greeted by the Bishop of Amiens at Picquigny. After journeying back towards the French coast, the night of 12 May was spent at Etaples at the mouth of the River Canche
Canche
The river Canche is one of the rivers that flow from the plateau of the southern Boulonnais and Picardy, into the English Channel. The Somme is the largest example. The basin of the Canche extends to 1,274 square kilometres and lies in the southern end of the département of Pas-de-Calais...

.

The final day of the pilgrimage, 13 May, started at Etaples Military Cemetery
Etaples Military Cemetery
Étaples Military Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Étaples, near Boulogne on the north-west coast of France. The cemetery holds over 11,500 dead from both World War I and World War II.-History:...

, where the King, at his request, met representatives of the Imperial Dominions: P. C. Larkin (High Commissioner for Canada), Sir James Allen
James Allen (New Zealand)
Sir James Allen, GCMG, KCB was a prominent New Zealand politician and diplomat. He held a number of the most important political offices in the country, including Minister of Finance and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was also New Zealand's Minister of Defence during World War I.-Early life:Allen...

 (High Commissioner for New Zealand), Sir Edgar Bowring (High Commissioner for Newfoundland), and representatives of Australia and South Africa (these two High Commissioners being absent to attend the Genoa Conference
Genoa Conference
The Genoa Conference was held in Genoa, Italy in 1922 from 10 April to 19 May. At this conference, the representatives of 34 countries convened to speak about monetary economics in the wake of World War I...

). The next visit was to Meerut Indian Cemetery, meeting General Sir Alexander Cobbe
Alexander Cobbe
General Sir Alexander Stanhope Cobbe VC GCB KCSI DSO was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces....

 the representative of the Secretary of State for India. The final visit was to Terlincthun British Cemetery to carry out what was described by Fox as the "crowning act of homage".

Terlincthun British Cemetery is located high on the cliffs of Boulogne, from which it is sometimes possible to see the white cliffs of the English coast. A fleet of French and British warships awaited the King to escort him home, but first, joined by Queen Mary, he visited the graves of the British war dead. Along with Haig (representing the Army), the royal couple were joined by Earl Beatty
David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty
Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO was an admiral in the Royal Navy...

 (representing the Navy), and General de Castelnau (representing the French Army), along with other dignitaries, including the cemetery architect Sir Herbert Baker
Herbert Baker
Sir Herbert Baker was a British architect.Baker was the dominant force in South African architecture for two decades, 1892–1912....

. After visiting the graves, the King laid a chaplet
Chaplet
Chaplet may refer to:* Chaplet , a string of prayer beads and the associated prayer* Chaplet , a metal form to hold a core in place...

 at the Cross of Sacrifice
Cross of Sacrifice
The Cross of Sacrifice was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield for the Imperial War Graves Commission and is usually present in Commonwealth war cemeteries containing 40 or more graves. It is normally a freestanding four point limestone Latin cross in one of three sizes ranging in height from 18 to...

, and together with a guard of honour of French soldiers saluted the dead to begin a two-minute silence. Following this, the King, facing the Stone of Remembrance
Stone of Remembrance
The Stone of Remembrance was designed by the British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens for the Imperial War Graves Commission . It was designed to commemorate the dead of World War I, to be used in IWGC war cemeteries containing 1000 or more graves, or at memorial sites commemorating more than 1000 war...

, delivered an eloquent and moving speech composed by Kipling, which made reference to the nearby column commemorating Napoleon Bonaparte.
This was followed by a speech in French by General de Castelnau, referring to the sea breeze bringing scents of England from across the Channel, and pledging to guard and honour the British dead. More wreaths were laid, by de Castelnau on behalf of the Anglo-French Committee of the Imperial War Graves Commission, and by another French general for the French Army. The concluding ceremony centred around the Stone of Remembrance, draped with the British flag, before which the Queen laid another wreath. The French guard of honour lowered their standards, and buglers of the Coldstream Guards
Coldstream Guards
Her Majesty's Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, also known officially as the Coldstream Guards , is a regiment of the British Army, part of the Guards Division or Household Division....

 and Grenadier Guards
Grenadier Guards
The Grenadier Guards is an infantry regiment of the British Army. It is the most senior regiment of the Guards Division and, as such, is the most senior regiment of infantry. It is not, however, the most senior regiment of the Army, this position being attributed to the Life Guards...

 sounded the Last Post
Last Post
The "Last Post" can be either a B♭ bugle call within British Infantry regiments or an E♭ cavalry trumpet call in British Cavalry and Royal Regiment of Artillery used at Commonwealth military funerals and ceremonies commemorating those who have been killed in war.The two regimental traditions have...

, bringing the pilgrimage to its end.

Short story

A description of the pilgrimage is also present in a short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

by Kipling called 'The Debt', which he wrote some years later and which was published in 1930. The story is set at the time of a serious chest infection that affected King George V in November 1928. News of the King's condition was broadcast to the nation and the Empire on the radio, and the story depicts the subsequent conversation and story-telling that takes place one evening between a 6-year-old boy, the son of a doctor at a colonial prison, and his carers for that evening, a household servant and one of the prison convicts. Among the stories told is one related by the convict, a tribesman and former soldier, as told to him by his Colonel. In this story, the convict describes the ordering of the construction of the war graves and the pilgrimage undertaken six years earlier by the King (referred to as 'the Padishah').
The rest of the short story features further description of the pilgrimage, including a specific incident inspired by Kipling's own experience on the pilgrimage. In the story, as presented in 'The Debt', the King travels to one of the war cemeteries where a British general is waiting to greet him. Although still recovering from an illness, the general had removed his overcoat and was waiting in his uniform in cold weather. The King told the general to put the overcoat back on against the cold, and warned him against a named illness that the general might otherwise contract.

This leads to the central theme of the short story, as (returning to 1928) the convict and the household servant, a devout Muslim, attempt to forecast the outcome of the King's chest condition. They note that the King had forenamed in 1922 the disease that would strike him in 1928; from this, the convict concludes that the King's kindly actions towards the general had saved the general's life and led to a "blood-debt" that would be repaid by the King recovering from his illness. In the short story, this episode with the general and his overcoat is stated to have taken place towards the end of the pilgrimage at an Indian cemetery, though accounts of Kipling's movements during the pilgrimage ascribe the incident that inspired the short story to a few days earlier on 11th May, a "bitterly cold" day when Kipling had been waiting for the King and Haig near Ypres.

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