Act of Remembrance

An enduring ‘Birthday Tribute’

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In modern South Africa, very few official traditions or accolades to personalities linked to our Imperialist past endure – but there are exceptions, one such figure that has endured is that of Jan Christiaan Smuts.

Other than Jan Smuts and Louis Botha as South African heads of state, just about every other ‘white’ historic leader from South Africa’s Imperialist and Colonial epoch has been scolded, removed, defaced and villainized by the ANC government and its cabal – Jan van Riebeeck, President Paul Kruger, Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes, President Marthinus Steyn, Prime Minister Barry Hertzog – the list under each of them is almost endless, and we are not even getting to the proponents of the Apartheid era, Prime Ministers Malan, Verwoerd onwards – as they are simply irreconcilable – on just about anyone’s terms in our modern epoch.

Jan Smuts is still however honoured by our ANC led government and our defence force, he manages to still stand above – and not just recognised by official organs of the South African state, but also by governments, associations, orders, corporations, societies and foundations all over South Africa and even worldwide – still to this day. Surprising considering the weight of critique and scorn sometimes levelled at him by misinformed and inconsiderable zealots – far left and far right of the political spectrum.

Nothing demonstrates this better than his annual birthday tribute, when the newly re-designated South African National Defence Force – General Jan Smuts Regiment joined hands with The Memorable Order of Tins and other military veteran associations – the South African Air Force Association, the South African Legion and more – in a time-honoured military ‘toast’ to the ‘Oubaas’ on the occasion of his birthday.

Images: Jan Smuts’ humble beginnings, the house he grew up in Riebeeck West, Western Cape (near Malmesbury).

In August 2019 the South African National Defence Force’s Reserve Forces units had their names changed to reflect diversity in our shared military history, the old Regiment Westelike Provincie was re-designated as the General Jan Smuts Regiment in honour of its Colonel-in-Chief, Smuts served in this capacity until his death in 1950.

Smuts served in the South African War (1899-1902) a.k.a. The Boer War as a Republican Boer General and again in World War 1 (1814-1918) as a General in the Union of South Africa Defence Force, he served again in World War 2 (1939-1945) and was promoted to the highest Commonwealth rank of Field Marshal in 1941, however he preferred to be referenced as simply “General”. The General Jan Smuts Regiment has honoured his preference as to rank accolades. Other SANDF Regiments that still carry Boer Republican General honours after the 2019 re-naming include The General Louis Botha Regiment and The General de la Rey Regiment.

Annual ‘Birthday’ parades on the occasion of Jan Smuts birthday have been running since his death in 1950, and today his birthday is celebrated at his birthplace in Riebeeck West (his father’s rudimentary cottage now preserved as a museum at the PPC Cement plant) in the Western Cape and at his rudimentary ‘iron sheet’ house in Irene near Pretoria (also a designated museum).

Images: Jan Smuts’ birthday parade at Smuts House in Irene, in Gauteng, near Pretoria.

Smuts’ Birthday Parade at his birth-place is particularly special. The General Jan Smuts Regiment (previously Regiment Westelike Province) in conjunction with PPC Cement and the Memorable Order of Tin Hats host the parade. In a time honoured military tradition, a toast is given, when Smuts died the Regiment’s officers each brought a bottle of brandy for the purpose of a toast – these brandy bottles were blended in a small barrel, this was later topped up with a designated brandy. Every year the ‘R.W.P.’ barrel is tapped for the annual toast and shot glasses filled for honoured guests.

A toast is not merely the lifting of a glass and to drink. Proposing a toast is a revered and honourable occasion.The highest honour that The General Jan Smuts Regiment can bestow on any person is to drink a toast to him or her with traditional R.W.P brandy. This is a once-off occasion, and in recognition and honour of Jan Smuts no lips can pass the glass again, so it is drunk and then smashed in an empty vat.

Images: The toast to Jan Smuts

The Memorable Order of Tin Hats (MOTH), South Africa’s second oldest veterans association, established in 1927 by C .A. Evenden (known as MOTH O) co-ordinates proceedings and invitations, included are representations from The Jan Smuts Regiment and its associations, the Jan Smuts Regiment provides a flag party, honour guard and their military band. The MOTH provide for various veteran associations wreaths and colour/banner party and military veterans on parade – including The South African Air Force Association, the South African Legion (South Africa’s oldest veterans association established by Jan Smuts) and a large variety of other military veteran bodies, civic associations and regiment associations.

What follows is a speech by MOTH Deon van den Berg which is annually read as a tribute to Jan Smuts and it says just about everything you need to know about Smuts and this occasion at his birthplace (posted with sincere thanks to Deon and the MOTH Order):

Tribute to Jan Christiaan Smuts

We are gathered here today to honour the memory of Field Marshal, the Right Honourable, Jan Christiaan Smuts, P.C., O.M., C.H., D.T.D., E.D., K.C., F.R.S. 

Images: Speakers from the MOTH in Tribute of Jan Smuts and MOTH O.

A prominent M.O.T.H. and the Colonel-in-Chief of Regiment Westelike Provincie.  ( Now General Jan Smuts Regiment) In spite of being South Africa’s only Field Marshal, he modestly preferred to be addressed only as General. He held many campaign and other military medals from various countries and was the Freeman of seventeen great cities. Honorary degrees from eighteen famous universities across the Globe were bestowed on him.

He was an honorary member of nine long standing Guilds.  Smuts was appointed as Chancellor of Cambridge University in 1948 when he broke a long line of Dukes and Lords, to be elected as its Chancellor, a position he held until his death in 1950. He is the only foreigner to have held this historic and prestigious position whose first incumbent was elected in 1215.  He was the Chancellor of University of Cape Town and was the second, non-British, Lord Rector of St Andrews University in Scotland.  

In 1970, Lord Todd, Master of Christ College, declared that in the previous 500 years of history of the College, there have been only three truly outstanding students : John Milton, Charles Darwin and Jan Smuts.

Still in his early thirties, he was placed first, with distinction, in the Law Tripos at Cambridge, acclaimed by his tutors and examiners as the finest scholar they ever had. The University immediately offered a professorship.  He declined the offer as he came back to South Africa to participate in the Boer War, fighting against the British.

Albert Einstein counted Smuts as one of approximately ten people all over the world that truly understood his Theory of Relativity.

Yet, when he died, on 11 Sept. 1950 at the age of 80 years, Clement Atlee, Prime Minister of Great Britain, said of him:

“He had the true simplicity of heart that everywhere marks great men for what they are and with his passing a light has gone out in the world of free men.” 

Clement Atlee – British Prime Minister

When we ponder on this man’s life we must conclude that he was a most remarkable man for all seasons (especially during turbulent times), in many countries and across different frontiers. 

He had a subtle and sophisticated mind, was impatient, could not tolerate mediocrity, was immensely hard working, and had no time for the sociability’s that make for popularity.

Hy was ‘n uitstaande student, hoog geagte regsgeleerde, puik administrateur, gerekende soldaat, erkende staatsman, welbekende wetenskaplike en filosoof met sy Holisme en Evolusie teorieë 

Smuts was by twee geleenthede die Eerste Minister van Suid-Afrika en by twee geleenthede die Leier van die Opposisie.

Smuts formed the Union Defence Force in 1912. During World War 1, he was in the field in German South West Africa and thereafter Commander of Allied Field Forces in German East Africa. For the last two years of the war, he joined the Imperial War Cabinet in London under Premier Lloyd George.  The only non-British person ever to achieve this.  This was a sterling and exceptional honour and he served his term in this Cabinet with great distinction.

He successfully organised London’s air defences against the German Zeppelin air raids.  This directly led to the formation of the Royal Air Force in 1918, the oldest air force in the world. The architecture of the Royal Air Force, modelled by Smuts, remains essentially unchanged to this day. He used this experience to form the second oldest air force in the world, the South African Air Force, on 1 April 1920.

After World War 1 Smuts had the vision to start the Electriciteits Voorsienings Kommissie (ESCOM ) and the steel manufacturer ISCOR. 

Image: Field Marshal Jan Smuts

During the Second World War, while he was the Prime Minister of South Africa and the Commander in Chief of the Union Defence Force, he also served as a member of the British War Cabinet, under Winston Churchill. It was during this period that Smuts took charge of the British War Cabinet during Winston Churchill’s absence, effectively being the Prime Minister of Britain and South Africa simultaneously.

On 28 May 1941, Smuts was appointed as a Field Marshall of the British Army, becoming the first South African to hold that rank.

General Smuts was a leading guest at the 1947 wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.

M.O.T.H “O” said:

“General Smuts knew that comradeship and morale were greater than rank.  He sat with kings and conferred with world leaders, and they appreciated him the more because he was the natural companion of privates, and gunners, sappers, and cooks. He spoke their language and joined in their laughter.  Here you saw right through the solemn Statesman, the world–renowned military leader and discovered a man after your own heart. General Smuts made you proud you were a South African without ever resorting to cheap patriotism.”

MOTH C.A. Evenden (EVO)
 

Images: Accolades and tributes to Jan Smuts in Riebeeck West.

Hy het toegesien dat die Staat pensioen aan weduwees betaal wat mans en seuns verloor het tydens die twee Wêreldoorloë.

Smuts was instrumental in establishing the League of Nations, the forerunner of the United Nations and the author of the wording of the preamble to its charter. He came up with the idea of transforming the British Empire into the British Commonwealth of Nations.

By die vrede van Versailles het hy gewaarsku dat die terme wat opgedwing is aan Duitsland die oorsaak sal wees van nog ‘n wêreld-oorlog. Hy was reg.

After Smuts’ death in 1950  Winston Churchill wrote;

“There must be comfort in the proofs of admiration and gratitude that have been evoked all over the world for a warrior, statesman and philosopher who was probably more fitted to guide struggling and blundering humanity through its suffering and perils than anyone who ever lived in any country during his epoch”

Sir Winston Churchill

Images: SANDF Jan Smuts Regiment on parade in Riebeeck West.

King George VI said;

“In peace or in war his council and his friendship were of inestimable value to my father and to me, while his intellect has enriched the wisdom of the whole human race.”

King George VI

Images: South African military veteran associations laying accolades and respect.

Smuts, a kindly, homely family man who loved children and hated showmanship had also a most forceful personality, which never failed to impress – even in the halls of fame anywhere in the world.  He was an exceptional servant of the State.  His life was one of service both in peace and in war.  There was never a hint of self-enrichment, corruption or shirking of difficult decisions.

Be it bright or dim, rain or sunshine, but as the years pass there will always be engraved on the solid rock of time the name of Jan Christiaan Smuts. 

We Salute Him.

Image: The leader element of The General Jan Smuts Regiment – 2023, the OC Lt. Col Lieutenant Colonel. Ndimphiwe Harrison Fikizolo left.

Editors Note: On saluting the Oubass I’ve attended a number of Smuts parade in both of my capacities as Deputy Old Bill of the MOTH Seagull Shellhole, and as a founding President of the The South African Legion. – UK and EU – here in South Africa and in the United Kingdom.

On his Birthday parade in 2023 , I elected to give the ‘Oubass’ the highest officer’s honour by way of saluting with a SANDF officers sword and used my officers sword to do it, the sword was then laid it in honour and thanks on behalf of The South African Legion. I was joined by Lt. Colonel Fikizolo, the Officer Commanding The General Jan Smuts Regiment who was given the primary honour of laying a wreath to Jan Smuts on behalf of the South African National Defence Force.

Written by Peter Dickens, with sincere thanks to The General Jan Smuts Regiment and the Memorable Oder of Tin Hats.

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The South African Legion and Legionnaire Jan Smuts Legions and Poppies … and their South African root and Two fellow members of The South African Legion – Churchill and Smuts

The Memorable Order of Tin Hats and MOTH Jan Smuts 3.2.1….You’re IN! MOTH Jan Smuts

Tribute to Smuts on his death “The force of his intellect has enriched the wisdom of the whole human race”- the death of Jan Smuts.

Photo creds and thanks to Karen Dickens and Deon van den Berg.

The 2 minutes silence; an eye witness account of South Africa’s unique gift to Remembrance

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Did you know that the two minutes silence and its association to Armistice Day (11/11/11) or Remembrance Sunday has a uniquely South African origin?  The featured image, taken in 1918 captures this South African gift to the modern-day Act of Remembrance.  It shows the mid day pause in Cape Town – the entire town at standstill to remember the tremendous sacrifice of South Africans (and British) servicemen and women in World War 1.

At the request of Sir Percy Fitzpatrick (the author of Jock of the Bushveld), this mid day Cape Town ritual was adopted by King George V a year later in 1919 when he decreed it as the international bench by which Britain and all her Commonwealth were to remember the fallen and sacrifices of war.  This amazing story is covered in a previous Observation Post (for an in-depth read see this link The ‘2 minutes silence’ is a South African gift to the Act of Remembrance).

Accompanying this image is an amazing eye-witness account of this very South African event which now shapes how the Western World and many other modern states now remember the fallen.

Read on for a fascinating and riveting first hand account that should make every South African very proud of our heritage and our contribution to remembering human kind’s sacrifices in the quest for universal peace and individual freedom.

THE MID-DAY PAUSE – CAPE TOWN 1918 – WORLD WAR 1.

One of the most memorable institutions of the 1st World War period in Cape Town was the Mid-day Pause, when, every day on the stroke of noon, all the traffic of the city was suspended for two minutes, whilst the crowds in the streets bent their heads in silent prayer and communication with our soldiers who were fighting and dying in France.

Written by A.D. Donovan in 1918.

“I was walking along Adderley Street, talking to a friend, when a street clock overhead began to utter its twelve strokes. Before it had done striking- at its fourth or fifth stroke – the boom of the Signal Hill gun came and a bugle from Cartwright’s balcony began to sound the “Last Post.” And immediately everybody and everything in the street and all around, and in the side streets, stood still – quite still.

Stood absolutely still! If you have not seen it, you can hardly imagine it. For, believe me, it makes some demand on the imagination. No written or printed words can describe the suddenness of it. The boom of a cannon, the note of a bugle, and then every man’s head bared, as if by one single gesture – and after that no more sound, no more movement. Just complete silence, complete stillness, like that of a quiet gathering in the churchyard at the terrible moment when a body is being let down with silent ropes into the earth. And this in the crowded street of a big city!

In the first few seconds of the pause your ear detected the last traces of sound and movement – the angry oath of a wagoner as he pulled his team to a stand-still; the final jingle of a set of hansom-cab bells, the last throb of a motor car, the brief echo of a tramway gong, the last interrupted shrieks of a group of coloured boys who were dragging down from Longmarket Street a box on wheels, loaded with vegetables. In two or three seconds – quicker than you could say the words – these faint remnants of human sound and movement had died away. Then it was all silence: all stillness.

Think of it! The whole life, movement and action of this busy little world of Adderley Street suspended, stopped, stricken dumb, petrified. As if by some sudden act of the supernatural, every moving body and every moving thing had been turned into stone or iron. A sea-bird in the distance, circling over the stunted turret of the pier, a stirring of the folds of a drooping flag on its mast above a tall building as it catches the breeze. Besides these, no movement – not a sound, not a tremor, but the quiet breathing of those that are near you in the crowd.

The sudden and solemn unanimity of this pause in the very midst of the city’s day gets a queer grip on your emotions, gets somehow down deep inside you. From an almost indistinguishable group, high up at the corner of the upper balcony of Mansion House Chambers building, there comes the strains of “The Last Post,” trumpeted over the heads of a silent and motionless city. The proud melancholy, the gallant, triumphant sadness of those last, wailing, silvery notes seemed to find an echo in the very depths of your heart. You felt the curious lump in your throat, and you had an idea that in the intense stillness and silence everybody around you was aware of it. Your hand fidgeted with the hat you held in it. . . . But then you perceived that nobody was paying any attention to you – that everybody was absorbed in his own emotions of those silent minutes. . . . You saw here and there a woman in black fumbling secretly for a handkerchief, and you pictured her having some special interest, some special sorrow, in one of the rows and rows of bare crosses in Delville Wood, in Gauche Wood. . . . “The Last Post”!

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Bugler playing The Last Post from the Cartwright’s balcony

The sound of the bugle dies away on the last sad, heroic note. The motionless detachment of the crowds is emphasised by a succession of sounds that emerge out of the background of silence – the distant shriek of a railway engine, the impatient neighing of a horse somewhere down the street, the near-by throbbing of a motor-lorry that is in a hurry to be on its way again. But I think that what to me most emphasised the solemn stillness of the occasion was that while I stood in the roadway, midway in the “pause” there came from some shop or office behind, the ringing of a telephone bell. This telephone bell was plainly audible to the motionless crowds in the centre of Adderley Street. It rand and rang and rang with a faint, distant tinkle, but there was no one to answer it ; for even in the shops and offices the clerks, the attendants and the customers were standing rigid in communion with the heroic and distant dead. It tinkled on and on, and then died away altogether ; and there was nothing left but silence and the bared heads of men and the bowed heads of women ; and dear thoughts and sad memories and – here and there – tears in the eyes of brave women, as the big clock overhead shifted its longer hand to one minute past twelve, two minutes past. . . . .

And then, at a quick signal, the silenced and the stillness were broken. The two minutes’ pause had expired. The motor cars, the trams, the taxis, the cabs, the wagons, all began to move again (just as if someone had begun to turn the handle of a moving picture machine), and the human beings resumed their ways up and down and across the street. The fez of a Malay cabdriver that I had been observing over the heads of the motionless crowd – a scarlet spot against the yellowish and windowed wall of the Post Office – now moved along, with a whip lashing the air overhead. The confused and animal-like bleats and groans and moans of taxis and motor cars filled the street again. The gongs of the tramcars made a background of discordant, riotous brass. The carts and the heavy wagons began to creak and rumble again : their drivers waved their long whips and shouted. The effect was just as if a cinematograph operator, finding his film “stuck,” had got control of it again.

It was all over until tomorrow. Tomorrow, again, at twelve o’clock, there would be the communion of the strong and living with the dead and dying and the wounded, of the people comfortably at home in Cape Town with the souls and thoughts of their beloved brave who were offering their young lives in France. . . . .

And these are my feeble impressions of the mid-day pause – feeble, because written or printed words can convey no real sense of the beautiful simplicity and brevity of the ceremony, its unrehearsed, spontaneous order and decorum, its complete and most reverent silence – a sharp, clear-cut interruption in the day’s traffic of the city.”

CAPE TOWN 1918 BY: A.D. DONOVAN

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The Last Post followed by 2 minutes silence, this official video of The National Memorial Arboretum in the United Kingdom captures sentiment and legacy of the pause as would have been experienced in Cape Town in 1918 after the Last Post was played.  Play it to the end and reflect the event in your ‘minds eye’, imagine the sacrifice – it’s very poignant and moving.

Researched by Peter Dickens.  Extract and featured image taken from a condensed article; “The Celebration of Peace” Booklet, issued in 1919 by the Cape Town Peace Celebrations committee for distribution throughout the Schools of the Cape Peninsula.

The ‘2 minutes silence’ is a South African gift to the Act of Remembrance

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Many people do not know that the two minutes silence and its association to Armistice Day (11/11/11) or Remembrance Sunday has a South African origin.  It is one of our greatest gifts to humankind, yet most South Africans are completely oblivious of it.

The featured image taken in 1918 is a rare and unique one, it shows South African civilians stopping what they are doing in the middle of Cape Town and standing to attention for two minutes silence, signalled when the noon day gun was fired.  Not common today in Cape Town but a daily occurrence during war years.  So how did this unique practice become a worldwide standard for remembrance?

Read on and learn a little why South Africans should stand proud of what they have given the world; when on Remembrance Sunday and on Armistice day in November, the western world stands silent in remembrance for two minutes … and take heart that this entire ceremony has South African roots.

The end of Word War 1 – Armistice Day 11/11/11

BgtOUCICMAAvwfLAt 05.30 in the morning of 11 November 1918 the Germans signed the Armistice Agreement in a remote railway siding in the heart of the forest of Compiègne. Soon wires were humming with the message : ‘Hostilities will cease at 11.00 today November 11th. Troops will stand fast on the line reached at that hour…’.Thus, at 11.00 on 11 November 1918 the guns on the Western Front in France and Flanders fell silent after more than four years of continuous warfare, warfare that had witnessed the most horrific casualties.World War One (then known as the Great War) had ended.

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South African troops in a support trench on the Western Front, Fresenberg Ridge, 22 September 1917

The time and date attained an important significance in the post war years and the moment that hostilities ceased became universally associated with the remembrance of those that died in that and subsequent wars and conflicts. The Two Minutes silence to remember all who paid the supreme sacrifice was a result of this expression… and it all began in Cape Town, South Africa.

Cape Town’s unique remembrance during WW1 

When the first casualty lists recording the horrific loss of life in the Battles of the Somme were announced in Cape Town, Mr JA Eagar, a Cape Town businessman, suggested that the congregation of the church he attended observe a special silent pause to remember those in the South African casualty list. It was the church also attended by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick the famous South African author of “Jock of the Bushveld”.

In May 1918, the Mayor of Cape Town, Councillor H. Hands (later Sir Harry Hands) at the suggestion made by Mr. RR Brydon, a Cape Town City Councillor, in a letter to the Cape Times initiated a period of silence to remember the events unfolding on the battlefields of Europe and the sacrifices being made there. Mr Brydon’s son, Maj Walter Brydon, three times wounded and once gassed, was killed on 12 April 1918.

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Cape Town’s noon day gun

The pause would follow the firing of the Noon Gun (a tradition instituted in 1902 and fired everyday at 12:00 from Signal Hill), simply put the gun was the most audible signal with which to co-ordinate the event across the city of Cape Town.

The boom of the gun signalling the midday pause of three minutes was heard for the first time on 14 May 1918.  It became the signal for all activity in the Mother City to come to a halt. Everything came to a dead stop while everyone bowed their heads in silent prayer for those in the trenches in Flanders.

As soon as the city fell silent, a trumpeter on the balcony of the Fletcher and Cartwright’s Building on the corner of Adderley and Darling Streets sounded the Last Post, the melancholy strains of which reverberated through the city. Reveille was played at the end of the midday pause.

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Rare photo of the midday pause in Cape Town – 1918

Articles in the newspapers described how trams, taxis and private vehicles stopped, pedestrians came to a halt and most men bared their heads. People stopped what they were doing at their places of work and sat or stood silently. The result of the Mayor’s appeal exceeded all expectations.

One journalist witnessing the midday pause described a young woman dressed in black, who came to a halt on the pavement and furtively dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “One could not but wonder what personal interest she had in the act of remembrance”, he wrote.

A few days later Sir Harry, whose son, Capt Richard Hands, a member of ‘Brydon’s Battery’, had been mortally wounded in the same battle in which Maj Brydon had been killed, decided to shorten the duration of the pause to two minutes, “in order to better retain its hold on the people”.

In terms of the meaning of “two minutes” it was also argued that the first minute is for thanksgiving for those that survived war and the second minute is to remember the fallen.

There is even an eye-witness account of the midday pause in 1918 which eloquently outlines the event – see the Observation Post story on it by following this link: The 2 minutes silence; an eye witness account of South Africa’s unique gift to Remembrance

The midday pause continued daily in Cape Town and was last observed on 17 January 1919, but was revived in Cape Town during the Second World War.  This is another rare photo of soldiers and civilians paused and standing at attention for two minutes of silence on Cape Town’s streets in 1942.

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Rare photo of the midday pause of Remembrance in Cape Town during World War 2 – 1942

Today, the tradition of the midday gun has continued, as any Capetonian can attest – regular as clockwork it goes off at 12:00, and although the pause is no longer part of the ritual in Cape Town, the idea of the ‘pause’ for two minutes remembrance has survived.

That this ritual survived is by no means in a small way either, but in such a way that it now concludes how we as modern human beings in the western world remember the war dead and sacrifice.  It started when it became the official two minute ‘pause’ throughout Britain and the British Commonwealth from 11 November 1919, and here is how that came about, and once again – surprise – we have a South African from Cape Town right at the centre of it.

Step in Sir Percy Fitzpatrick 

Now, back to Sir Percy Fitzpatrick.  He had been impressed by the period of silence kept in his local church after the horrific loss of life at Delville Wood became known and the casualty lists had been read out. He had a personal interest in the daily remembrance as his son, Maj Nugent Fitzpatrick, battery commander of 71st Siege Battery, was killed on 14 December 1917 by a chance shell fired at long range.

Sir Percy was understandably deeply affected by the loss of his favourite son and was also so moved by the dignity and effectiveness of the two minute pause in Cape Town that the date and time of the Armistice inspired him to an annual commemoration on an Imperial basis.

The King Decrees 

Sir Percy then wrote to Lord Milner and described the silence that fell on the city during this daily ritual. Taking into consideration that the guns of war finally fell silent at 11:00 on the 11th day of the 11th month (November), Sir Percy felt that the idea of observing the two-minute silence at that time and on that date, would give the Act of Homage great impact, and proposed that this became an official part of the annual service on Armistice Day.

The meaning behind Sir Percy’s proposal was stated as:

It is due to the women, who have lost and suffered and borne so much, with whom the thought is ever present.
It is due to the children that they know to whom they owe their dear fought freedom.
It is due to the men, and from them, as men.
But far and away, above all else, it is due to those who gave their all, sought no recompense, and with whom we can never re-pay – our Glorious and Immortal Dead.

Sir Percy’s letter was received by Lord Milner on November 4, 1919, reviewed and accepted by the War Cabinet on November 5, and was immediately approved by King George V.

George V, then King of the United Kingdom, shortly afterwards on the 7th November 1919, proclaimed by decree.

“Tuesday next, November 11, is the first anniversary of the Armistice, which stayed the worldwide carnage of the four preceding years and the victory of Right and Freedom. I believe that my people in every part of the Empire fervently wish to perpetuate the meaning of the Great Deliverance, and of those who laid down their lives to achieve it.

To afford an opportunity for the universal expression of their feeling, it is my desire and hope that at the hour when the Armistice comes into force, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, there may be for a brief space of two minutes, a complete suspension of all our normal activitiy that at the hour when the Armistice came into force, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, there may be for the brief space of two minutes a complete suspension of all our normal activities … so that in perfect stillness, the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead.”

Sir Percy when he heard the news that his suggestion had reached the King stated: “I was so stunned by the news that I could not leave the hotel. An hour or two afterwards I received a cable from Lord Long of Wexhall: ‘Thank you. Walter Long.’ Only then did I know that my proposal had reached the King and had been accepted and that the Cabinet knew the source.”

Later, Sir Percy was thanked for his suggestion of the two minute silence by Lord Stamfordham, the King’s Private Secretary who wrote:

Dear Sir Percy,
The King, who learns that you are shortly to leave for South Africa, desires me to assure you that he ever gratefully remembers that the idea of the Two Minute Pause on Armistice Day was due to your initiation, a suggestion readily adopted and carried out with heartfelt sympathy throughout the Empire.
Signed – Stamfordham

And so the tradition of 2 minutes of silence during remembrance occasions was born, a unique South African gift to world, a simple peaceful gesture that in deep solitude remembers the end of all war – not the beginning.

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Story and images researched by Peter Dickens.

Image copyrights include The Imperial War Museum and “The Celebration of Peace” Booklet, issued in 1919 by the Cape Town Peace Celebrations committee for distribution throughout the Schools of the Cape Peninsula.