About this record

These are two pages from a 72-page booklet titled Where the Australians rest. The first page displayed is the title page and the second (page 8) contains a drawing captioned ‘Anzac cemetery, Sailly, Sur La Lys’. This booklet, published by the Department of Defence in 1920, describes all the overseas cemeteries where Australian servicemen and servicewomen were laid to rest. It was presented to the next of kin of Australians who had died on active service during the first World War.

Educational value

• During the First World War, more than 60,000 Australian servicemen and servicewomen died. Most were serving overseas, mainly in France, Belgium and Turkey, at the time of their death and were buried in cemeteries near where they died—although many were ‘missing’, especially on the Western Front, and had no known grave.
• When families received the news they all dreaded—that their loved one had died serving Australia—it often came in the form of a telegram. The fact that most deaths occurred in distant lands only added to the distress for many families. Where the Australians rest aimed to help these families grieve and commemorate those they had lost. In 1922 the government also sent a memorial scroll, and later a memorial plaque, to the next of kin of all the fallen. 
• Maintaining service records for the approximately 420,000 Australians who enlisted during the First World War was a challenging administrative task. Ink stamps were often created to save time for those responsible for updating the records. One of the stamps used read ‘Where the Australians Rest’. The rectangular stamp was added to a service record to indicate that this booklet had been sent to the next of kin. 
• The Imperial War Graves Commission was founded in May 1917 to maintain burial plots, cemeteries and memorials for British and Empire service personnel who died during the First World War. Renamed the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in 1960, it now has six member governments: Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. It maintains 23,000 sites, relating to both world wars, in 154 countries. The commission maintains an online database providing information about grave sites.