112 Pages
ISBN 978-1-917120-72-2
B&W Images
 
The Imperial War Graves Commission is rightly celebrated for its founding principle of equality in death regardless of rank, race or creed. Yet for all that has been written about its origins on the
Western Front, its operations across Egypt — the Commission's second largest area of activity — have remained almost entirely unexplored.
 
The IWGC in Egypt is the first book to examine how the Commission established and managed its work across Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and beyond. Drawing directly from the Commission's own archives, Sarah Shepherd brings to life the remarkable human and bureaucratic realities behind the headstones: diplomatic negotiations to secure land in perpetuity, the practical challenges of deserts, oil and salt erosion, and the deeply personal stories of soldiers, grieving families, and the Egyptian staff who tended the graves decade after decade.
 
But alongside the familiar story of the uniform headstone and Rudyard Kipling's carefully chosen inscriptions, a more troubling legacy is uncovered. Large numbers of the Egyptian Labour Corps
and Camel Transport Corps died in service during the Great War, yet the Commission's treatment of these men fell profoundly short of its own founding ideals — a failure now formally acknowledged
by the CWGC itself.