By the Editor
The Great Silence
ONE of the most remarkable incidents in the life of the British Empire took place at eleven o’clock on November 11TH, 1919. A great silence—an indescribable silence-fell over those lands under the British flag, and every man and woman ceased from their work for two minutes, and thought, and many prayed. Remembrance and prayer—for our King had commanded a halt of two minutes to all his subjects.
The busy life of the world went on as usual until eleven o’clock, then the mighty silence fell, broken occasionally by sobs. An old woman stood weeping, wiping her eyes with her shawl. Men and women knelt in the streets. A motor car rushing along stops suddenly, the driver gets out and stands reverently by the bonnet uncovered. All traffic is suspended, and all work ceases in every town and hamlet. In the railway stations porters stand still by their barrows, no passenger moves, no tickets are issued. In telegraph offices every instrument is stopped by signal. The signalman stands by his lever. Soldiers stand with their hands at the salute. At sea the engines of every ship are stopped, and the mighty ships of war and the huge liners, and every British ship lies still upon the waters in the King’s great silence. All the passengers and all the crews stand motionless, the bugle calls to prayer, then silence, then the Last Post, then full speed ahead.
Down in a coal mine an old man kneels in prayer. His son had been killed in the War, and for many minutes he knelt and prayed. In the convict prisons all work ceases, in the fields the plowmen stood by their horses; all over the countryside the King’s silence fell. And far across the heaving seas, on every island and continent that held our King’s allegiance, there this wondrous silence rested.
The flags of Britain were all half-mast, and muffled peals were heard. Men and women stood still, the men stopped smoking, and with bent, uncovered heads held their part in the world’s great rest. We are told that ninety per cent. of the people wore black, and that tears filled the eyes of multitudes, and many sobbed. A girl wailed out when the silence ended, “Poor old Jack.”
Before the Cenotaph in Whitehall a great crowd stood. One poor widow came weeping there with her little girl, and placed a bunch of flowers at the foot of the memorial. Our King and Queen sent their wreath with these words, “In memory of the glorious dead, from their King and Queen.”