Switzerland’s armistice memories, carved in stone
On Sunday, many countries are celebrating the centenary of the end of the First World War. At the heart of these ceremonies are monuments that honour the memory of the dead. Saint Martin’s cemetery in Vevey, overlooking Lake Geneva and the French Alps, is one such place. The British military section of the cemetery honours 88 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the First World War and 48 others who lost their lives in the Second World War. The presence of foreign soldiers’ graves on Swiss soil dates back to the presence of prisoners of war in Switzerland since the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. This policy continued during the two world wars. During the First World War, Switzerland welcomed more than 65,000 prisoners of war for humanitarian reasons from 1916 to 1919. They were either seriously ill or wounded or relatively old. A number of them died in Switzerland, where they are buried. This policy has left its mark on the stone. There are more than 100 places in Switzerland ...
