Finale (Smallville)

"Finale" is the title of the two-episode series finale of the superhero television series Smallville. The episodes are the 21st and 22nd of the 10th season, and the 216th and 217th episodes overall. The finale originally aired on The CW in the United States on May 13, 2011. The first half was written by Al Septien and Turi Meyer, and directed by Kevin G. Fair, and the second half was written by Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson, and directed by Greg Beeman.

The series follows the adventures of the young Clark Kent (Tom Welling) in the fictional town of Smallville, Kansas, before he becomes Superman. In the series finale, Tess Mercer (Cassidy Freeman) learns that the planet Apokolips is coming to destroy humanity, and that Oliver Queen (Justin Hartley) is under the possession of Darkseid. Meanwhile, the Lionel Luthor from Earth-2 (John Glover) attempts to bring his deceased doppelgänger's son Lex (Michael Rosenbaum) back to life. Clark finally realizes his true destiny, just in time to stop Darkseid's arrival on Earth. The finale episodes feature a flashforward seven years into the future, revealing Clark's new superhero persona, "Superman".

The episodes, written in advance during the fall of 2010, were conceived to successfully bring an end to the series. Showrunners Brian Peterson and Kelly Souders attempted to preserve the intended ending envisioned by original series developers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar several years earlier. The episodes featured the return of several former actors, including John Schneider, Aaron Ashmore, Annette O'Toole, and Michael Rosenbaum. In addition, Michael McKean made an uncredited voice cameo. The episodes also contained several overt references, homages, and connections to previous Superman franchises, such as the 1978 film Superman and the 2006 film Superman Returns.

Upon its premiere, the two-episode finale was watched by 3.35 million viewers. The episodes received generally positive reviews from commentators, many of whom felt that the series was successfully able to wrap up its story arcs. Rosenbaum's return was met with critical applause, but the artistic decision to not show Welling in the full Superman suit and instead to render Superman using computer-generated imagery (CGI) was met with negativity.

## Plot

Seven years in the future, Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack) reads a comic book titled "Smallville", detailing the rise of Superman, to her son. Flashing back seven years, Lois Lane (Erica Durance) and Clark Kent (Tom Welling) argue about their upcoming wedding. Lois wants to call off the wedding, believing that she is hindering Clark's destiny. Chloe gives Lois a copy of Clark's vows to help convince her to go through with the wedding. Meanwhile, Clark has a discussion with his mother, Martha (Annette O'Toole) about letting go of the past. Clark visits Lois at their apartment, where she tells him that the wedding is on, admitting that she read his vows, and gives him hers in exchange. Clark reads her vows and tells her that he will meet her at the chapel.

At the Luthor Mansion, Tess Mercer (Cassidy Freeman) is confronted by Granny Goodness, who offers her one final chance to join Darkseid's forces to spare her life during the coming destruction. Tess refuses, declaring that, just because she was born a Luthor, her fate is not sealed. At Watchtower, discovering that Oliver Queen (Justin Hartley) disabled the organization's satellites, Tess brings up previous satellite footage revealing the planet Apokolips descending toward Earth. Before Tess can warn the team, she is ambushed by a group of armed men and taken captive. Granny Goodness, Desaad, and Gordon Godfrey meet in their lair. Oliver—possessed by the power of Darkseid—arrives and is instructed to remove Clark's powers with a gold kryptonite wedding ring. At the wedding, Chloe realizes the ring is kryptonite and stops Oliver. Clark helps Oliver overcome Darkseid's control just as Apokolips enters Earth's atmosphere.

Tess, awakening on a table inside a laboratory, is greeted by the parallel universe version of Lionel Luthor (John Glover) from Earth-2, who reveals that they are underneath the ruins of the Luthor Mansion, where Lex has been hiding, taking his clones' vital parts and grafting them to his body to mend himself (as revealed in the season premiere episode "Lazarus"). Lionel attempts to use Tess's heart to bring Lex back to life, but she breaks free and fatally shoots Lionel during her escape. Lionel makes a deal with Darkseid to bring his doppelgänger's son to life in exchange for Lionel's soul. Clark tracks Tess to the mansion, where he is confronted by Lex. Clark apologizes for not being able to save Lex from the loss of his soul, but declares that he will always be there to stop Lex in the future. Oliver confronts Granny Goodness, Desaad, and Gordon Godfrey, dispatching them with three arrows. At LuthorCorp, Tess confronts Lex, who reveals that he always knew that she was his sister and that he used her. Lex embraces Tess, and stabs her in the stomach as he tells her he loves her, claiming to be saving her from becoming like him. As she lies dying, she poisons Lex with a neurotoxin that erases all of his memories within 30 seconds.

After overhearing a government radio broadcast containing disguised references to nuclear weapons, Lois sneaks on board Air Force One. She manipulates her way into a room with the Secretary of State, where she tells him that the supposed meteor is really a planet, and that the heroes they tried to destroy can save them. They agree to give the heroes a chance, but give them only five minutes. In the Kent barn, Clark is attacked by Darkseid, who is possessing Lionel's body. Jor-El taps into Clark's thoughts, showing him images of his trials over the past 10 years, revealing that his entire life has been one big trial leading to this moment. Harnessing the ability to fly, Clark smashes through Lionel's body, destroying it, and makes his way to the Fortress of Solitude. There, the spirit of his father, Jonathan Kent (John Schneider), presents him with the suit Martha made for him, and Clark takes to the sky, saving a crashing Air Force One, and vanquishing Darkseid by pushing Apokolips back into space.

Flashing forward seven years, Chloe finishes her bedside story and puts her son to sleep. She then calls Lois at the Daily Planet, who meets the now grown-up James Olsen outside Perry White's office. While they rush off to work, a TV broadcast announces that Lex Luthor has just been elected the President of the United States. Clark pretends to run clumsily into Lois on the stairs, and they discuss finally getting married after seven years. News arrives of a bomb found in an elevator uptown, and Clark excuses himself and runs to the rooftop, ripping open his shirt and revealing his signature sigil.

## Production

### Background and writing

Following the conclusion of the seventh season finale "Arctic", showrunners and original series developers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar left the series. This meant that they were unable to write the series finale, although Millar later noted that, in their minds, "the last moment of the show would have been him putting on the suit and flying off into his future and his destiny". According to executive producer and showrunner Kelly Souders, she and fellow executive producer and showrunner Brian Peterson kept Gough and Millar's original ending in mind when they began working on the finale, because the scenes that Gough and Millar had envisioned represented "real wish fulfillments for fans". However, the resultant script changed along the way, with Souders eventually calling it "a smorgasbord of what everybody wanted".

The first part of the episode was written by Al Septien and Turi Meyer, whereas the second half was written by Peterson and Souders. Due to the important nature of the episode, Septien, Meyer, Peterson, and Souders began working on the script before Christmas, in the fall of 2010 after the writers had a general idea for the first part of the 10th-season episodes. Souders later explained that the script had been finalized when Rosenbaum agreed to return to the series. As such, this forced the writers to redo parts of the episode to make room for his character. The work was so stressful, Souders said, that she experienced heart palpitations due to exhaustion, excitement, and the emotion of the experience.

The episode finally features Clark flying. Peterson and Souders had toyed with the idea of showing Clark flying in either the 200th episode, "Homecoming", or during a different mid-season episode, but they decided against it; they argued that Clark flying was a metaphor for him finally embracing his destiny, and that adding it to another episode other than the finale would be jarring. The writers listened to both network executive and fans in order to formulate the best idea as to how to handle the situation. Peterson noted that people wanted "one big transformation". According to Souders, the writers initially wished to include more members of the Justice League but, because of budgetary constraints, these ideas did not come to pass. Peterson, however, noted that the episode contained "80 to 90 percent of what everyone [wanted]". After the scripts were finished, they were heat-marked to ensure secrecy. According to Welling, scripts could not be photocopied and, in order to read them, the actors had to sign them in and out.

### Casting

The finale episodes featured several returning characters. John Schneider reprised his role as Jonathan Kent, appearing to Clark in various visions and presenting Clark with his suit near the end of the episode. Schneider's appearance was meant to bookend the season, with his role in the finale mirroring his appearance to Clark in the season premiere, "Lazarus". Aaron Ashmore returned after his original character, "Henry" James Olson, was written out of the series during the eighth season episode "Doomsday". In the finale, Ashmore portrays "Jimmy Olsen", the younger brother of Henry James Olsen, in a sequence set seven years into the future. Michael McKean also reprised his role as Perry White (although only his voice is heard in the episode), and former series regulars Annette O'Toole and Allison Mack were also featured in the episode.

The airing of the finale was preceded by months of speculation as to whether actor Michael Rosenbaum would return to reprise his role as Lex Luthor. Welling stated that he was doing everything to get Michael Rosenbaum back, because Rosenbaum was the only person Welling could have seen portraying Lex Luthor on the series. Before the airing of season 10 commenced, Welling argued that, for him, Luthor's return would have to be the inspiration for Clark to finally become Superman, because the idea of one character without the other was unthinkable.

At the 2010 Comic-Con, Welling stated that Rosenbaum acknowledged the importance of Lex in the series and wanted to return in some degree for the show's final season, but that he needed to finalize the details. According to Welling, the tenth season teased Lex's return with the introduction of bodies into which Lex could tap in order to heal himself later in life. After months of speculation, he finally agreed to appear in the finale and Rosenbaum said that his return was for the fans. Had Rosenbaum not elected to return, Souders explained that Lex still would have played a part, but would have been more of "a puppeteer behind the scenes" and the fact that he was still living would have "been a reveal at the end of the show", sans the dialogue.

Speculation also surrounded whether former series star Kristin Kreuk would reprise her role as Lana Lang. Prior to the episode's broadcast, Kreuk ignited a minor controversy by noting that she would not be watching the episode when it aired, giving some fans the impression that she was avoiding the show. Kreuk released a statement on her Facebook page, clarifying that, even when she was a star on Smallville, she did not watch the episodes when they aired. Kreuk stated that Peterson and Souders never approached her about being in the finale, and that she was glad that they had not, because she was fond of how Lana's story arc ended in season eight.

### Filming

Because the finale encompassed two separate episodes, each was filmed by a different director. Part one was directed by Kevin G. Fair, and the second part was directed by Greg Beeman. Beeman had been a regular director for the series during its first five years, but he had left after helping direct the fifth season episode "Reckoning". A fan of the series himself, he was particularly pleased with the way in which the various story arcs were wrapped up, highlighting the scenes in the Fortress of Solitude, the flash forward seven years, and the reappearance of Schneider. Production for the finale started in March 2011. The producers for the series were initially concerned that they had not filmed enough material to fill the finale's allotted air time, so additional scenes were filmed between Granny Goodness and Godfrey concerning the Darkseid mythology. However, a rough cut of the finished episodes ended up going over time, and the scenes were cut. There was talk that these scenes would appear on the 10th season DVD, although this did not come to pass.

The suit that Clark dons in the series finale was originally used in the 2006 film Superman Returns, worn by Brandon Routh. The producers of Smallville had been offered the suit worn by Christopher Reeve in the original Superman films, but they turned the offer down. Peterson reasoned that this was because it "didn't quite fit with our world". The final scene was shot to be reminiscent of the similar scene in the original 1978 Superman film, where Reeve rips open his shirt to reveal the Superman suit. Beeman and the rest of the production staff reviewed the scene to make sure that they filmed the homage correctly, but Beeman later noted that the iconic scene was "clunkier" and more "out of focus" than they wanted, and that people's memories make it seem more impressive. However, he was pleased that the recreated shot was the sequence to wrap up Smallville, noting that he "always thought that was going to be the final moment".

Special effects for the finale episodes—and series as a whole—were completed by Entity FX. The company produced nearly 80 different visual effects shots for the episode, which were created in the Entity FX facilities in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and Santa Monica, California, with addition supervision in Vancouver. Mat Beck, owner of the company, later explained that the company was in charge of "work[ing] this magic" on several minutes of screen time, during which hardly any photography had been filmed. The episode also made use of practical effects, such as how Lex Luthor's bald head was created. Unlike Rosenbaum's previous appearances, the actor decided to opt for a bald cap to cover his hair, arriving at this decision both because it had taken four months for his hair to grow back and because he was working on other projects that required him to have hair.

The final five minutes of the second of the finale episodes featured the musical score for the Krypton sequence in the opening credits of Superman, orchestrated by John Williams. Former series composer Mark Snow, who served from seasons one to six, had previously reworked the score in season two's "Rosetta"—which featured a guest appearance by Christopher Reeve—as well as various moments in the season two finale, "Exodus".

## Broadcast

### Ratings

The double-episode finale earned a Nielsen rating of 1.8, with a 3 share in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic. Nielsen ratings are audience measurement systems that determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States. These ratings mean that the two-episode finale was seen by 1.8 percent of all 18- to 49-year-olds, and 3 percent of all 18- to 49-year-olds watching television at the time of the broadcast. It was viewed by an estimated 3.35 million viewers, and ranked second in its timeslot. For the first one-and-a-half hours, the episode averaged around 2.9 million viewers, but during the final 30 minutes, viewership rose to 3.39 million. The ratings for the final episode marked a 63 percent increase when compared with the previous episode, "Prophecy".

### Reception

Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch complimented the episode, writing that "the series finale of Smallville did what it needed to do: It completed the circuit on an epic coil of story that began 10 years ago". Jensen was critical of the first half of the episode, noting that the pre-marital tension between Clark and Lois did not bode well for the story. However, he felt that the last 10 minutes made up for the slow parts in the episode. He ultimately concluded that the finale was "radically cornball and goosebumpingly geektastic, and the fanboy in me was satisfied". Chris Carabott of IGN awarded the episode a 9.5 out of 10, citing an "amazing" episode. He argued that it "succeeded in delivering the moments we wanted to see" and that "this finale delivered some of the most memorable moments of the series and successfully transformed Clark Kent into Superman". Nick McHatton of TV Fanatic awarded the episode five stars out of five, calling its resolution "breath taking". McHatton praised the ending, noting that "I couldn't have asked for a better ending than those seven years in the future" and that the final shot was the scene he "always imagined Smallville could end with".

Mike Moody of AOLTV felt that the season finale alternated between "exciting and disappointing", with the final 15 minutes being particularly good due to the celebration of "what we love most about Clark Kent/Superman – his power to delight and inspire us". However, Moody was critical that the substantial scenes in the episode were surrounded by "countless minutes of poorly paced padding, filler, and manufactured conflict", and that "the bulk of this two-hour finale was just painful to watch". Phil Dyess-Nugent of The A.V. Club awarded the episode a "C+" and called it "a sodden mess that mostly points up how off-balance the show became". He heavily criticized the show for focusing so much of the romance between Clark and Lois, and wrote that it detracted from the "better" plot concerning Darkseid and his minions.

Likewise, several reviewers expressed frustration with the lack of a full-body shot of Clark in the Superman suit, as well as the way in which Superman was presented as flying through the use of CGI. TVLine ranked the fact that Clark Kent "barely suits up" in the finale as one of "TV's 20 Biggest Disappointments of 2011", writing that "we never quite were treated to seeing the series star clad in the full costume, in flying mode", although they wrote that it was "a super-nitpick". Carabott called the CGI effects "a little shoddy", but that they made up "one of the most important moments of the series". Peterson and Souders, however, were reportedly "thrilled" by the "great debate", noting that "what [the producers] wanted to do all along was show hints at where he was going, because Clark's destiny as Superman is a whole different story that is yet to be told".

Rosenbaum's return as Lex Luthor was met with positive critical reception. Jensen felt that Rosenbaum's cameo was too short, but that it was worth it to see him play Lex one last time. Carabott felt that the scene between Lex and Clark was "worth the wait". Dyess-Nugent praised Rosenbaum's acting, arguing that it shook "the show awake, sending the needle hurtling rudely into the red zone". He ultimately stated that Rosenbaum's acting—in both the finale and the series as a whole—was "one of the great TV series performances of the past 10 years and proof once again that talent will blossom in the least expected places".

Television episodes about alien invasion

Television episodes about genetic engineering

Television episodes about organ transplantation

Television episodes about spirit possession


Caché (film)

Caché (), also known as Hidden, is a 2005 psychological thriller film written and directed by Michael Haneke and starring Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche. The plot follows an upper-middle-class French couple, Georges (Auteuil) and Anne (Binoche), who are terrorised by anonymous tapes that appear on their front porch and seem to show the family is under surveillance. Clues in the videos point to Georges's childhood memories, and his resistance to his parents' adopting an Algerian orphan named Majid, who was sent away. The tapes lead him to the now-grown Majid (Maurice Bénichou).

Shot in Paris and Vienna in 2004, the film is an international co-production of France, Austria, Germany and Italy. Haneke wrote the screenplay with Auteuil and Binoche in mind, and with a concept of exploring guilt and childhood. When he learned of the French government's decades-long denial of the 1961 Seine River massacre, he incorporated memories of the event into his story.

Caché opened at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival to critical acclaim for the performances and Haneke's direction. Its plot ambiguities raised considerable discussion. The film has been interpreted as an allegory about collective guilt and collective memory, and as a statement on France's Algerian War and colonialism in general. While presented as a mystery, the film does not explicitly reveal which character sends the tapes. Haneke regarded that as of secondary importance to the exploration of guilt and left the question up to viewer interpretation.

The film won three awards at Cannes, including Best Director; five European Film Awards, including Best Film; and other honours. It was controversially disqualified for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Caché has been regarded in the years since its release as one of the great films of the 2000s, included in BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century.

## Plot

An affluent Parisian couple, Anne and Georges Laurent, discover a videotape left on their property without explanation that shows hours of footage of their residence, implying they are under surveillance. Puzzled about its origin, they debate its purpose, considering whether it might be a practical joke played by friends of their 12-year-old son, Pierrot, or the work of fans of Georges, who hosts a literary television show. A second tape arrives, accompanied by a childlike drawing of a person with blood streaming out of his mouth. Similar drawings are mailed to Georges's workplace and Pierrot's school. Disturbed, the Laurents turn to the police, who determine the tapes are too harmless to be considered criminal activity. The Laurents host a dinner party that is interrupted by the delivery of another videotape, with a crude drawing of a chicken bleeding at its neck. When Anne discloses the stalking to their friends, Georges puts the tape in the VCR and finds it shows the estate where he grew up.

Georges begins to have vivid dreams about Majid, a boy he knew in childhood. Majid's Algerian parents worked as farmhands on Georges's family estate but disappeared in the Paris massacre of 1961. Feeling responsible for Majid, Georges's parents intended to adopt him, but the process was never finalised. Suspecting Majid might be responsible for the tapes, Georges visits his ailing mother, who surprisingly professes not to remember Majid well. When the Laurents receive another tape, revealing a low-income housing apartment, Georges tells Anne he has a suspect in mind, but will not say who until he can confirm his suspicion. Anne responds with shock at what she sees as his lack of trust.

Following the last tape's clues, Georges locates the apartment off Avenue Lénine in Romainville and finds Majid there. Majid denies knowledge of the tapes or drawing, but Georges does not believe him and threatens him. A hidden camera recorded the conversation with Majid, who breaks down crying after Georges leaves, and tapes of the encounter are sent to Anne and Georges's employer. Georges explains to Anne that he was six when his parents were planning to adopt Majid and that he did not want it to happen; he told lies about Majid, who was sent away. When Pierrot disappears, the Laurents frantically contact the police, who check Majid's apartment and arrest Majid and Majid's son, though they deny involvement in kidnapping. Pierrot returns to his family, having spent time with friends, and hints to Anne that he thinks she is too close to Pierre, a family friend.

Majid calls Georges and asks him to come back to the apartment. When Georges arrives, Majid denies having sent the tapes, says he wanted Georges present, and kills himself by slashing his throat. Georges confesses to Anne that as a boy, he had claimed Majid was coughing up blood and convinced Majid to kill the family's rooster, falsely claiming his father wanted him to. The police confirm the cause of death as suicide, but Majid's son appears at Georges's workplace to confront him. Believing the son is responsible for the tapes, Georges threatens him to cease surveillance, but the son replies he was not involved with the tapes and wanted to know how Georges felt about being responsible for a death. Later, Majid's son converses with Pierrot after school.

## Production

### Historical background

A basis for the story was the massacre that took place in Paris on 17 October 1961, referenced by the character Georges:

> In October '61, the FLN called all Algerians to a demonstration in Paris. October 17, 1961. Enough said. Papon. The police massacre. They drowned about 200 Arabs in the Seine. Including Majid's parents most likely. They never came back. Dad went to Paris to look for them. They said he should be glad to be rid of a couple of jigaboos.

During the Algerian War, the National Liberation Front responded to the French right's attacks on France's Arabs, and as many as 200 protesters in Paris may have been shot or drowned in the Seine River. Maurice Papon was prefect of the Paris police, and previously served Vichy France; a book about Vichy is visible on Georges's shelf. In the aftermath of the massacre, the French government suppressed many of the facts by restricting police archives and delaying and cancelling public investigations, until allowing three historians to review the archives in 1998. The media reported three deaths in 1961; the massacre was not revisited until 1997 when Papon went to trial for his Vichy record.

While planning the production of Caché, Haneke learned about the massacre, and how information about it was withheld for years, after seeing a television documentary on Arte. He remarked, given France's free press, "I was totally shocked that I had never heard of this event before". He decided to work it into his story.

### Development

Haneke began writing the screenplay by September 2001. He described a starting point: "I had been toying with the idea of writing a script in which someone is confronted with his guilt for something he did in childhood". In planning the film, he chose the thriller genre as a model but intended the true point to be an exploration of guilt; he deliberately left the question of who sent the tapes ambiguous:

> I'm not going to give anyone this answer. If you think it's Majid, Pierrot, Georges, the malevolent director, God himself, the human conscience – all these answers are correct. But if you come out wanting to know who sent the tapes, you didn't understand the film. To ask this question is to avoid asking the real question the film raises, which is more: how do we treat our conscience and our guilt and reconcile ourselves to living with our actions?
>
> People are only asking, "whodunnit?" because I chose to use the genre, the structure of a thriller, to address the issues of blame and conscience, and these methods of narrative usually demand an answer. But my film isn't a thriller and who am I to presume to give anyone an answer on how they should deal with their own guilty conscience?

Haneke also left it ambiguous whether the young Georges's claim that Majid coughed blood was a lie, but said he viewed the depiction of Majid menacing Georges with an ax as a mere nightmare.

While the Paris massacre inspired the plot, Haneke said the story was not about a "French problem" as something unusual, remarking, "This film was made in France, but I could have shot it with very few adjustments within an Austrian – or I'm sure an American – context". Another inspiration was a story he had heard from a friend, similar to that which Denis Podalydès's character tells when claiming to have a scar matching the wound of a dog killed on the day the character was born. Haneke explained, "I wrote it down when I got home and always wanted to use it. I think it sits well here because it makes people ask if it's true or not".

While the filmmakers intended the production to be entirely French, they discovered they could not raise the funds in the one country. It received international backing from Films du Losange, Wega-Film, Bavaria Film and BIM Distribuzione which are respectively based in France, Austria, Germany and Italy. Haneke also secured funds from ORF in his native Austria, for a budget of €8 million.

### Casting

Haneke stated that "Daniel Auteuil was the reason I wrote this script" and that he envisioned Auteuil and Binoche in the lead roles and had "almost all the actors in mind" while working on the screenplay. Haneke had never worked with Auteuil before, but chose him because he felt Auteuil always played his roles as if keeping a secret. Auteuil had learned of the 1961 massacre only after reading about it in L'Obs circa 1995; he accepted the role, interested in exploring the national conscience surrounding the incident, which made an impression on him. Juliette Binoche had previously starred in Haneke's 2000 Code Unknown, where her character was also named Anne Laurent. She joined the cast, along with Auteuil, in fall 2002.

Child actor Lester Makedonsky was cast as Pierrot, and because of his swimming skills, the filmmakers chose swimming as Pierrot's sport. Haneke had also worked with Maurice Bénichou before on Code Unknown and Time of the Wolf (2003), Walid Afkir [fr] on Code Unknown. and Annie Girardot in The Piano Teacher. Nathalie Richard previously played a character named Mathilde in Code Unknown, both being friends of the two versions of Anne Laurent.

### Filming

Principal photography took place at Rue des Iris and Rue Brillat-Savarin, Paris, where Haneke ordered parked vehicles arranged and rearranged to match his vision and prepare for tracking shots. Majid's neighbourhood was filmed on location at Avenue Lénine in Romainville. Interior scenes at the Laurent residence were shot in Vienna, Austria in August 2004. Interior scenes for Majid's apartment were also shot in Vienna, with Paris largely used for outdoor scenes, and stairs from Paris replicated in Vienna. Haneke said most of the filming likely took place in Vienna. It was the first film he made using high-definition video cameras; it also has no score, due to Haneke's belief that music conflicts with realism.

For the scene in which a rooster is beheaded, a real chicken was used and actually killed. In the suicide scene, Haneke sought to create a realistic effect, remarking "if the suicide scene is not plausible then the entire film is spoiled". In the final scene, Lester Makedonsky and Walid Afkir are speaking dialogue Haneke scripted, but Haneke chose not to publish it and left it inaudible, and instructed the actors to never disclose it. Haneke chose a wide shot and positioned the extras so that viewers might not notice Makedonsky and Afkir. He described post-production as marked by arduous work on fixing the sound.

## Themes and interpretations

### Colonialism

Themes of collective memory and guilt over colonialism run through Caché. When Majid commits suicide, Haneke connects "the personal and collective conscience", and how neither Georges nor his society has acknowledged the violence of colonialism, according to professor Ipek A. Celik. Scholar Susannah Radstone argues that while critics focused on the film as a statement on the Algerian War in particular, the story is generally about "the trauma of violence perpetuated upon the colonized and the guilt that now ought rightfully to be acknowledged by the colonial power". The French people refusing to accept the full truth of a moment of shame, the Paris massacre, underlines the scene where Georges tells Anne about Majid, according to academic Elsie Walker, with the pauses punctuating Georges's monologue belying the shame. After stating the date, Georges adds "Enough said", indicating the event was better-known by 2005, but also seemingly affirming silence about it; Walker points out that Georges ironically follows this with details. Professor Russell J.A. Kilbourn writes that Georges had suppressed his memories and his sense of guilt and that for Haneke, trauma is lived in the present through memory. Georges's dream, in which he sees young Majid kill the rooster, and then menace him with the ax, "presents a spectacle of real death in the place of any simulation or reconstruction of the events of October 1961", author Michael Lawrence writes.

Present-day conflicts such as the Iraq War and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict are depicted through a Euronews broadcast seen in the film. Author Patrick Crowley writes these are used to represent "the return of the colonial repressed...within contemporary forms of imperialism", and that they are connected to the Paris massacre and the Holocaust. The film's connection between the Seine River massacre and the Holocaust, including Vichy's collaboration with the Nazis, is through Papon. The violence of colonialism, lasting into the present, is also depicted as entering private homes and the media in "hidden" ways, according to essayist Brianne Gallagher.

Radstone argues the focus on surveillance and Georges's confrontation with a black cyclist indicate the perspective is that of "the privileged and anxious white middle class". Academic Eva Jørholt argues the film illustrates how white paranoia in the aftermath of colonialism explains racial discrimination in modern France. According to film studies scholar Maria Flood, Majid is largely kept invisible, and his suicide scene confronts viewers with society's marginal people. Celik added that historical revisionism in denying colonial crimes made Caché well-timed for 2005, with the rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the National Front.

### Surveillance

Professor Todd Herzog states that after the 11 September 2001 attacks, mass surveillance became commonplace. Herzog adds that Caché follows a tradition of cinema about surveillance, including Blow-Up (1966) and The Conversation (1974), but that Caché is distinctive in being "about being looked at rather than looking at something or someone". Haneke reveals life without privacy, Herzog writes. Qian He of the University of Washington writes the precise question of who is watching is the "question that haunts our daily life"; Caché is one film that explores the question, answers to which have included Google, Big Brother and God. Philosopher William G. Smith tied Haneke's ambiguity as to the sender of the tapes to philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's writings on interpretation, quoting Haneke: "There are 1,000 truths. It's a matter of perspective".

The setting of Rue des Iris has symbolic significance, as "iris" refers to a part of the human eye and to a camera diaphragm. Film studies professor Catherine Wheatley also observes a man sitting behind Anne and Pierre in the café and observing them. Lecturer Judit Pieldner observes Georges's shelves are lined with CDs, DVDs and videotapes, amounting to a celebration of media technology. The length of the tapes the Laurents receive is also stated at two hours, a nod to the typical capacity of VHS and Hi-8 videotape.

Academic Jehanne-Marie Gavarini notes photography was employed to preserve memory in the 19th and 20th centuries, suggesting the videos in the story serve to assist remembering, as opposed to being evidence of surveillance as a terror tactic. Editors Amresh Sinha and Terence McSweeney also identified Caché as part of a 21st-century trend of films concerned with memory, along with Memento, Mulholland Drive, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Pan's Labyrinth. Gavarini quotes philosopher Martin Heidegger:

> The fact that the world becomes picture at all is what distinguishes the essence of the modern age...When, accordingly, the picture character of the world is made clear as the representedness of that which is, then in order fully to grasp the modern essence of representedness we must track out and expose the original naming power of the worn-out word and concept 'to represent'".

Drawing on Heidegger's theories, Gavarini concludes Caché is a statement on "the virtual space of the screen".

### Character studies

Scholar Hugh S. Manon hypothesises the surveillance represents psychiatrist Jacques Lacan's "le regard – 'the gaze'", as psychoanalysis, which Georges wishes to avoid. Manon suggests that unlike Hidden, the French title Caché has a double meaning, referencing "masks" silent film cinematographers used to block parts of shots to highlight another element.

Georges's general paranoia is observed in his failure to be open and forthright with his friends and employer. In his mind, "the enemy is everywhere", Wheatley writes. Smith considers the lack of communication between Georges and Anne originates "from everything that was swept under the rug".

Anne's position as "moral compass" is made ambiguous by hints of possible adultery with Pierre, according to Wheatley. While no sex is shown, the characters' closeness in their café scene makes the notion appear possible though uncertain. Film professor Christopher Sharrett judges Pierrot's suspicions to be correct, given how Anne seeks Pierre for comfort, and suggests Pierrot "sees far more" than Anne realises. Pierrot's "mysterious, hostile behaviour", including accusing his mother of adultery, invites suspicion that he is behind the tapes. Wheatley compares Pierrot, as a child rebel against his elders, to the Funny Games murderers and the children in Haneke's 2009 The White Ribbon. Academic Giuseppina Mecchia likened the film to Italian neo-realism in using a child's perspective to reveal adult dishonesty: child characters reveal Georges's dishonesty. Italian director Vittorio De Sica's 1944 The Children Are Watching Us has similar themes.

Majid may also be trying to cope with trauma, with Gavarini writing Majid lives in poverty, "still haunted by the disappearance of his parents". There is a class separation between Majid and Georges, as Majid lives in an HLM and the settings reveal "markers of racial, cultural, and class-based polarizations", according to film studies professor Malini Guha. Gavarini identifies him as the guilty party in the tapes, and submits the drawings attached to the tapes are Majid's attempts at understanding his past, and communicating these thoughts to Georges, unable to verbally communicate them. The viewer is invited to ponder what Majid's son has inherited from his father; Georges questions the son on "what dumb obsession [Majid] passed down", though Wheatley argues that if the son is telling the truth that Majid raised him properly, he would not hate Georges.

Haneke had previously used the names Anne and Georges Laurent in Code Unknown and Anna and Georg in Funny Games (1997). Binoche played Anne Laurent in Code Unknown and Caché, and Mathilde is Anne's friend in both films. Lawrence suggests Haneke used this character-naming method to downplay "individualization" and allow the audience to see the characters as "multiple versions of a particular type". Haneke himself said that he sought short character names to avoid "any hidden metaphorical meaning" detracting from realism.

## Style

Generally, Haneke's style has been described as displaying "an aesthetics of dread"; a feeling of "existential dread" or "ambient dread" is also present in Caché. The story has been described as a "psychological thriller"; the British Film Institute stated it employs "classical suspense strategies" to enter the thriller genre. Wheatley adds the techniques differ from the Hitchcockian style by withholding information from the audience until characters disclose it, and not being clear as to whether the characters are honest and whether the flashbacks are real. According to Radstone, the style is characterised by "its closed-in camerawork, its aesthetic and narrative concerns with surveillance, its claustrophobic interiority". Film studies professor Oliver C. Speck has written that Haneke rejected "pseudo-realism" in its recreations of Georges's childhood.

Though it resembles a whodunit, the film does not reveal who sent the tapes. A solution may not be possible, as given the setting and the camerawork, the camera could not record without being seen when Georges looks into it, Herzog writes. This suggests Haneke himself is sending the tapes in the story. Georges has no reason to send the tapes to himself and Anne, and the idea that Georges is unconsciously and psychically producing the tapes contradicts the realistic style.

Noting that the opening sequence is characterised by a lengthy take in which the camera is stationary and focused on a street, with a "crowded composition" and a two-storey house in the centre, essayist Jonathan Thomas compares this to a photograph, along with sounds of birds, and described it as "idyllic". Professor Brigitte Peucker calls it "slice-of-life realism", comparing it to the opening of Alfred Hitchcock's similarly surveillance-themed Rear Window (1954). The opening credits appear over the shot, in a style suggesting they are being typed. After two minutes and no cut, the "stillness" starts to "weigh" on the viewer. Pieldner compared this to Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni's technique of temps mort, where a shot goes on even after the storytelling seems to have ceased.

Wheatley notes the "painstaking arrangement" of the four-minute final shot's mise-en-scène, inviting viewers to seek clues, though many viewers missed the meeting between the sons suggesting they are co-conspirators. The shot is still, with two doors in symmetry, parents wearing brown and beige, and a "content murmur".

Throughout the film, images are spliced, from the "dramatic present", "prerecorded video", seeing Georges on television, and flashbacks, according to Thomas. Gavarini asserts that the opening is deceptive as to whether the viewer is seeing from the protagonists' perspective, producing "confusion between the director's camera and the diegetic video" and involving the audience as perpetrators of the surveillance. Speck likens the lengthy takes to "visual rhymes". Thomas writes that the high definition makes them "materially homogeneous", with no grain or noise. Speck adds that the digital film clouds distinctions between the surveillance footage and other scenes, removing "ontological certainty". The colour scheme, observable in the Laurents' apartment, focuses on grey, brown and beige and communicates dissatisfaction; Haneke had employed it before in The Piano Teacher.

In the stressful scene where Anne and Georges realise Pierrot is missing, Euronews plays in the background covering Barbara Contini in Iraq and Palestinians being killed in a protest; Walker notes that the background volume remains louder than the Laurent dialogue, while "classical realism" would require the viewer to lose interest in the background news.

## Release

By fall 2002, Mars Distribution had signed on as the French distributor. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2005, where distributors purchased release rights, including Sony Pictures Classics for the United States. It subsequently screened at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, the Telluride Film Festival and the New York Film Festival.

In France, Caché opened on 5 October 2005. Its poster featured a blood spray alluding to the suicide scene. It opened in New York City and Los Angeles on 23 December 2005, and in the United Kingdom on 27 January 2006, distributed by Artificial Eye. To market the film, Artificial Eye designed a trailer with no music and heavy dialogue with subtitles, emphasising a complicated plot. By the end of January, Sony expanded the release to Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Montreal, and other cities. The UK Film Council also approved Caché, under the title Hidden, for screenings in multiplexes, based on an assessment it could have commercial appeal.

It was released on DVD in Region 1 in June 2006, along with Yves Montmayeur's documentary Hidden Side. That month, Artificial Eye also published a single-disc Region 2 DVD, later including it in its The Essential Michael Haneke DVD boxset in October 2009.

## Reception

### Box office

By the beginning of November, Films du Losange found the film was performing "strongly" in France. In the United States and Canada, Sony moved it from 10 to 22 screens by 25 January 2006 to gross \$718,406. It opened in the United Kingdom making £169,000 in its first weekend, reaching £1 million by 24 March 2006.

The film finished its run grossing \$3.6 million in the U.S. and £1.1 million in the U.K., more than any previous Haneke film in either country. It grossed US\$16,197,824 worldwide. Peter Cowie and Pascal Edelmann summarised Caché's box-office performance as having "considerable success".

### Critical reception

Rotten Tomatoes reported an 89% approval rating based on 135 reviews, with an average rating of 7.85/10. The website's critical consensus reads "A creepy French psychological thriller that commands the audience's attention throughout". On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 based on reviews from critics, the film has a score of 83 based on 37 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

In Le Monde, Jean-François Rauger wrote that while Haneke may be heavy-handed in his negative outlook and use of news about war in the Middle East playing the background, the atmosphere of terror deserved credit. Le Parisien gave it three out of four stars, declaring it an excellent thriller, citing Annie Girardot for her performance as the mother. For Les Inrockuptibles, Serge Kaganski compared the opening to David Lynch's Lost Highway and wrote the suspense developed from there, and that Binoche and Auteuil convey the anxiety, Auteuil more internally. Variety critic Deborah Young reviewed Haneke's pacing favorably and found themes of responsibility, regarding France and Algeria but tied into the United States and Europe in the Iraq War. The Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt credited the film for a thorough exploration of "guilt, communication and willful amnesia", and praised the cinematography.

Film Comment contributor Michael Joshua Rowin considered it Haneke's most political work to date, "not merely liberal hand wringing" in its depiction of "passive-aggressive oppression and its manifestation as a slow-building, unresolved societal tension". A.O. Scott wrote that while he could criticise it as a liberal exercise in inducing guilt, it was "hard to deny its creepy, insinuating power". Roger Ebert awarded it four stars, lauding its focus on "paranoia and distrust" rather than providing a whodunit conclusion, and remarking on the way characters hide so much from each other, reflecting the title. The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw gave the film five out of five stars, describing it as "one of the great films of this decade" and "Haneke's masterpiece". For the BBC, Matthew Leyland gave it four stars, citing the mounting suspense over themes of guilt. In a review for The Atlantic, Christopher Orr described Caché as "a broad political allegory about Western guilt and a meditation on the nature of seeing." Film Quarterly critic Ara Osterweil compared Caché to the 1966 Blow-Up in making "challenges naïve assumptions of ocular mastery".

Caché's detractors include Andrew Sarris of The New York Observer, who wrote "Too much of the plot's machinery turns out to be a metaphorical mechanism by which to pin the tail of colonial guilt on Georges and the rest of us smug bourgeois donkeys". In the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle called it "a handsome fraud...in its style, technique and ultimate message", becoming dull and "a drab social polemic". The Nation's Stuart Klawans judged it not a statement of "liberal guilt" but "liberal self-regard" in having Majid choose to die for Georges's sake, in Klawans's interpretation. Jonathan Rosenbaum of The Chicago Reader called Caché a "brilliant if unpleasant puzzle without a solution", writing that "Haneke is so punitive toward the couple and his audience that I periodically rebelled against—or went into denial about—the director's rage, and I guess that's part of the plan." Calum Marsh of Slant Magazine writes that in Caché "Haneke’s predilection for deceit served a high-minded, if still somewhat suspect, intellectual purpose".

Ebert added the film to his Great Movies list in 2010, expressing disbelief about missing a possible "smoking gun" after two viewings, crediting Juliette Binoche for a naturalistic performance, and pondered the 1961 massacre: "Has France hidden it in its memory?" Also in 2010, Ebert further explored the whodunit question, considering the motives of various characters. Ebert questioned whether the last scene's encounter between Pierrot and Majid's son is the first time they met, or one of many encounters. He concluded Majid's son must be at least partly responsible and that Pierrot is a possible accomplice, as it is not clear where he is in many scenes. In his 2014 Movie Guide, Leonard Maltin gave it three stars, calling it "icily meticulous, if protracted".

Caché was among the more acclaimed films of the 2000s. In 2009, Caché was named 44th in The Daily Telegraph's list of "The films that defined the noughties", and 36th in The Guardian's "100 best films of the noughties". The film was ranked 73rd in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010. Caché received 19 total votes in the 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made; it is 154th among critics and 75th among directors. In 2016, critics also voted it the 23rd best in BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century.

### Accolades

Caché competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, where polled critics and festival audiences considered it a frontrunner. Ultimately, the jury awarded Haneke Best Director. It went on to win numerous other awards. At the European Film Awards, it competed with the Cannes Palme d'Or winner, L'Enfant by the Dardenne brothers, with Caché winning five awards, including Best Film.

The film was submitted as Austria's entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards, but was disqualified as French is not predominantly the language of Austria. As Haneke is Austrian, it would have also been disqualified if France or any other country had submitted it. The exclusion sparked criticism, with Sony Pictures Classics co-president Michael Barker calling it "unfortunate" and saying the story demanded the film be in French. Austria's Fachverband der Audiovisions und Filmindustrie protested the criteria, and Haneke, whose previous French-language The Piano Teacher was not disqualified as the Austrian submission, also called the rules "really stupid". Academy member Mark Johnson responded, "We're in the process right now of considering some very radical changes".

## Legacy

The film's French release preceded the 2005 French riots, beginning with three deaths on 27 October; professor Gemma King writes the film offered a progressive perspective in contrast to the real-life divisions in the wake of the riots. According to Walker, the riots' occurrence shortly after the film's release made it seem "uncannily resonant"; Radstone cites the riots to interpret the film as a statement on racial tensions felt by whites. King observes Caché is one of a growing number of French films that take a progressive view of the country's colonial past, and that films about Algeria became more common in later years.

Following the film's disqualification at the Academy Awards, the Academy revised its rules so as to emphasise the filmmaker's origin over the country's language for eligibility for Best Foreign Language Film. Subsequently, Haneke's 2012 French-language Amour won the award for Austria.

In 2015, IndieWire reporter Ryan Lattanzio reported rumours that U.S. producers had wanted to remake Haneke's film and compared Joel Edgerton's The Gift to a remake. Variety critic Scott Foundas also said The Gift resembled Caché in attempting to explore a "moral and existential minefield". Edgerton cited Caché as an influence on The Gift, and has said Haneke's film illustrates "how unsettled you can be by the thing you never see". He added "The idea of a villain who is able to actively dismantle another person's life from the shadows is often scarier" than a visible threat.

## See also

- List of films featuring surveillance
- List of Austrian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
- List of submissions to the 78th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film

2005 European film


Fabian Ware

Major-General Sir Fabian Arthur Goulstone Ware (17 June 1869 – 28 April 1949) was a British educator, journalist, and the founder of the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC), now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). He also served as Director of Education for the Transvaal Colony and editor of The Morning Post.

Born in Clifton, Bristol, he graduated from the University of Paris in 1894. After working in various education capacities, he travelled to the Transvaal Colony where, as a member of Milner's Kindergarten, he became Director of Education in 1903. Two years later, Ware became editor of The Morning Post and returned to England. While editor, he expanded the paper and reoriented it to focus on colonial affairs. After several controversies, culminating in a failed effort to purchase an airship for the United Kingdom, Ware was forced to retire in 1911.

When the First World War started in August 1914, Ware attempted to join the British Army but was rejected because he was too old. With the assistance of Alfred Milner, he obtained an appointment as the commander of a mobile ambulance unit provided by the British Red Cross Society. In this role he began marking and recording the graves of those killed. The unit soon began to focus exclusively on graves, and the organisation was transferred to the British Army in 1915. The following year the Army Department of Graves Registration and Enquiries was created with Ware at its head. On 21 May 1917 the Imperial War Graves Commission was founded. Ware served as vice-chairman. He ended the war as a major-general, having been mentioned in despatches twice.

Post-war, Ware was heavily involved in the IWGC's function. He frequently led negotiations with foreign nations over cemeteries and memorials, dealt with prominent figures in the commission, and worked to ensure the commission's financial security. Ware also attempted to raise support for his ideal of cooperation between the Dominions. In the lead-up to the Second World War, he attempted to use the IWGC's work as a tool for ensuring peace. When war broke out, he continued to serve as vice-chairman of the IWGC and was re-appointed director-general of Graves Registration and Enquiries. He retired from the Commission in 1948 and died the following year.

## Early life

Ware was born in Clifton, Bristol, on 17 June 1869 to Charles and Amy Carew Ware, née Goulstone. He was privately tutored until his father died when he was 18. Ware then taught in private schools to pay for tuition at the University of London. Dissatisfied with his education, Ware left the University and after saving enough money began attending the University of Paris, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in 1894. He worked as an assistant schoolmaster from 1889 to 1899; the last four years at the Bradford Grammar School. While teaching, he was occasionally employed as an examiner for the Civil Service Commission. He married Anna Margaret (1868–1952) on 1 August 1895; they had a daughter and a son.

### Transvaal

Ware began contributing articles to The Morning Post in 1899. He served as the representative of the Education Committee of the Royal British Commission at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris and afterwards worked as an inspector of schools for the Board of Education. In October 1901 Ware was appointed assistant director of education in the Transvaal by Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner, becoming a member of an informal group of young Britons later known as Milner's Kindergarten. He moved to the Transvaal and stopped writing for The Morning Post. As assistant director Ware chaired two committees in 1902 and 1903 on the topic of technical education in the colony. The Transvaal Technical Institute was created in early 1904 upon their recommendations. Ware served as chairman of the institute's council.

In early 1903 Ware became acting director of education when Edmund Beale Sargant—the director of education for the Transvaal and Orange River Colony—returned to England in failing health. On 17 June 1903 Ware was made a member of the Transvaal Legislative Council, and in July he became permanent director of education for the Transvaal. Author Ernst Gideon Malherbe [de] wrote that as a member of the council Ware was "probably the only South African Superintendent of Education that has represented education directly before the legislature". Under Ware, the number of children in education in the Transvaal doubled in less than four years. As director, he advocated the eventual creation of a de-centralised system of education with responsibility largely in the hands of local authorities.

### The Morning Post

When the editor-in-chief of The Morning Post, James Nicol Dunn, resigned during the Russo–Japanese War, Ware had written to Oliver Borthwick and asked whether he could work on the paper's staff. Several years later, in April 1905, Lord Glenesk offered the editorship of The Morning Post to Ware, in part through Milner's influence. Ware accepted, and moved back to England, taking the position in March. Historian A. J. A. Morris writes that Glenesk intended for Ware to "be the much needed new broom" for the paper. When Ware became editor, The Morning Post had no offices. Its staff worked instead in temporary wooden sheds. He began expanding the paper by hiring Richard Jebb as a contributor, who in turn hired many other correspondents. The two began to focus the paper on the British Dominions, a move they presented as a means to increase the paper's circulation; though it allowed for new sources of advertising, the move did not lead to higher circulation. Ware aimed to make the paper "the authority on all colonial questions," and supported social and tariff reform. He invited radicals such as William Beveridge and R. H. Tawney to contribute to the paper. Shortly after beginning work, Ware came into conflict with Glenesk, who thought he should not promote tariff reform, and wrote asking Lord Glenesk's daughter, Lady Bathurst, to intervene and threatening to resign. As a result of his initiatives, Ware was disliked by some members of the paper's staff, particularly Spenser Wilkinson, the paper's leader writer, and E. E. Peacock, the paper's manager. Ware also supported Richard Jebb's campaign against respected conservative Robert Cecil for the Marylebone East Parliament seat – which cost the paper readership.

After the First Moroccan Crisis in 1905, Ware campaigned heavily against war with Germany. He later said

> we threw the whole weight of the Morning Post against war with Germany. I am ashamed that I did not understand what we were doing at the time. I now believe that England ought to have fought Germany then—at any rate she is every month becoming less prepared, relatively to Germany to fight her than she was then.

When Glenesk died in November, Lady Bathurst became owner of the paper. Lady Bathurst and Ware generally got along as they both supported an aggressive far-right political stance. Ware was involved in hiring Robbie Ross as an art editor for the paper in August 1908. After the Bosnian Crisis in 1908, Ware became further convinced that the United Kingdom was falling behind Germany in military strength, a stance Wilkinson did not agree with. In a letter to Wilkinson, Ware wrote that The Morning Post "should boldly point to the German danger" and "rub in the immediate necessity of universal military service and the re-organisation of naval matters". He said that if the newspaper did not adopt that stance, "I cannot ... continue to accept the responsibility of its editorship." Wilkinson considered the letter "a demand that I should abandon my sincerity as a writer, that is commit suicide". He felt Ware wanted "to hasten a war with Germany while I hope it may be averted by proper attention to navy and army and by sound foreign policy".

In response to the perceived military deficiency of the United Kingdom and Germany's successful test of a Zeppelin, The Morning Post announced the creation of a National Airship Fund on 21 June 1909. The aim of the fund was to raise £20,000 through public subscription to purchase the United Kingdom an airship. Lady Bathurst contributed an initial £2,000 to the fund. Ware travelled to Paris in July and signed a contract for Lebaudy Frères to build the Lebaudy Morning Post. In August, it was revealed that the Daily Mail had offered to pay for a hangar while an airship from Clément-Bayard was shipped to England. Ware rushed to ensure The Morning Post's airship arrived first, and by May 1910 he began helping plan the airship's route to England. However, the Clément-Bayard No.2, sponsored by The Daily Mail, arrived in England on 16 October 1910. The War Office purchased the airship and the National Airship Fund was left out of negotiations. The Lebaudy Morning Post was damaged when it arrived in England ten days after the Clément-Bayard No.2 because its hangar was too small, and it crashed on its first test flight. Ware was accused by H. Massac Buist and Lancelot Julian Bathurst, the paper's manager and Lady Bathurst's brother-in-law, of financial mismanagement and poorly managing the paper. After threatening to sue Lancelot Julian Bathurst over libel, Ware was given £3,000 and agreed to retire. His retirement was announced on 14 June 1911. After leaving The Morning Post, Ware planned to create a weekly paper independent from political parties, with funding from various British Dominions. The project was unsuccessful. Ware became a special commissioner for Rio Tinto Limited, negotiating with the French government. In 1912 he published The Worker and His Country, which historians John Lack and Bart Ziino describe as "an alarmist diagnosis of social unrest in France and Britain". In the book, Ware advocated for land redistribution to ease tensions between British social classes.

## First World War

### Mobile ambulance unit

With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the Royal Automobile Club began assisting the war effort with the creation of the Royal Automobile Club Volunteer Force. On 12 September 1914 several members of the club volunteered their services to the British Red Cross, which established the Motor Ambulance Department. Ware—who was 45 years old—had been rejected from serving in the British Army because he was too old, and obtained an appointment to command a mobile Red Cross ambulance unit with the assistance of Lord Milner. He arrived in France and took command of the unit on 19 September 1914. One of several Red Cross units in France, Ware's unit operated in northern France as a semi-autonomous command. He had a degree of independence afforded by the Joint Finance Committee of St John Ambulance and the Red Cross, who gave Ware his own operating budget for three-month periods. Ware was struck by the lack of an official mechanism for managing the graves of those killed and following British defeats at Mons and Le Cateau in September, Ware's unit began sharing information with Lord Robert Cecil, the head of the Red Cross's Wounded and Missing Department.

According to an Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) report, the original object of the unit was to "search for British wounded and missing in the district which had been overrun by the Germans during the retreat from Mons, and to convey them back to the British lines or to a British base". However, by early October 1914, the unit had begun extensively working with the French and handling their casualties. By mid-October, Ware's unit had added a medical staff and mobile light hospital. That month Ware visited an extension of the Béthune cemetery which had British graves not maintained and some not even recorded. He soon convinced the Red Cross to fund durable grave markers. By December, the unit had dealt with more than four thousand wounded soldiers.

Ware began to focus on searching for dead soldiers on battlefields in northern France. In February 1915 the unit asked Reginald Brade to help ensure the unit's continuing work and Ware unsuccessfully applied for a pass from the provost marshal at St Omer to continue grave work. The unit's usefulness as an ambulance group declined as French capabilities to handle their casualties increased. In early 1915 the commander of the French 10th Army Corps declined an offer of help from the unit. When the unit was disbanded in May 1915, it had dealt with 12,000 casualties and treated 1,000 at its hospital.

### Graves Registration Commission

Ware met with the Adjutant-General to the Forces, Nevil Macready, in mid-February 1915 to discuss the future of his work. With the support of Macready the British Army formally recognised a Grave Registration Commission (GRC) on 2 March that was created from Ware's unit. The Commission represented a joint effort between the British Army and the British Red Cross. Ware initially divided the Commission into four regions with six men and four vehicles each, led by a headquarters of forty-four workers. On 22 May he was made a temporary major in the British Army to provide his work added authority. On 9 September the promotion was antedated to 22 February 1915.

The GRC's work continued to rapidly expand through 1915: by May 4,300 graves had been registered. That spring Ware began serving as an intermediary between the French and British governments over grave-related matters. The GRC was reorganised in summer 1915 into eight sections and began handling requests at a headquarters in Lillers. The sections worked on grave maintenance. By mid-August, 18,173 graves had been registered. Ware's role in the commission was to serve as "the sole intermediary between the British Army in the Field and the French Military and Civil Authorities in all matters relating to graves". He thus led negotiations between France and Britain beginning in March 1915, particularly with the French Grand Quartier Général, Ministry of War and Ministry of the Interior. These negotiations attempted to resolve areas of disagreement between the two nations, particularly that of land expropriation for the cemeteries. The negotiations resulted in an "expropriation bill" which was presented to the Chamber of Deputies in July. Ware shepherded the bill through its passage, urging prominent British figures such as the adjutant-general and King George V to support it. By May 1916, the GRC had selected 200 sites for cemeteries. The law was passed by the French government on 29 December 1917 after objections in the senate were resolved. It gave Britain the ability to control their war graves in "perpetuity of sepulture" and provided for the establishment of a British authority to manage the cemeteries.

When Will Gladstone, a Member of Parliament and the grandson of former Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, was killed in action near Laventie on 13 April 1915, his family attempted to have the body exhumed and returned to England. Despite a ban on exhumations established by French General Joseph, his family received special permission to take the body and bury it in Hawarden, Wales. In response, with Ware's influence a ban on future exhumations was established. To facilitate ease of remembrance, Ware hoped burials would be in relatively centralised cemeteries and worked against isolated burials occurring.

On 10 September 1915 he was appointed a chevalier of the French Legion of Honour. The GRC had registered over 31,000 graves by October 1915 and 50,000 by May 1916. As the war continued, Ware and others became concerned about the fate of the graves in the post-war period. Following a suggestion by the British Army, the government created the National Committee for the Care of Soldiers' Graves in January 1916, with Edward, Prince of Wales agreeing to serve as president and Ware as a member. Ware was promoted to temporary lieutenant colonel on 11 February 1916 as a result of his increasing responsibility over grave-related matters as the war expanded to more fronts.

### Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries

Ware competed with Sir Alfred Mond, the First Commissioner of Works, for responsibility over the graveyards. The Department of Works had managed war graves during previous British conflicts, and Mond wanted a share in managing graves from the First World War. Ware felt the scale of the war was so unprecedented a new organisation was needed to care for the graves and wanted to keep Mond out of the work. Though the feud continued into the 1930s, Ware's Commission was ensured priority when the GRC was formally integrated into the Army in May 1916 as the Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries (DGRE). Representatives from various relevant government departments were included and in September 1916 representatives from the dominions of the British Empire were included. Ware was made director of Graves Registration and Enquiries at the War Office on 15 May 1916, a post he held until the end of the war. That month he began working in London at Winchester House, St James's Square. The move to London was in part because it was easier to develop photographs and women could work as clerks. It also became necessary as the DGRE expanded operations to areas outside of France and Belgium. Only one-fifth of the typists Ware had requested initially arrived, but his staff eventually grew to around 700. The DGRE had expanded to include an Italian and an Eastern section; the latter included Salonika, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. Ware was soon given the nickname 'Lord Wargraves', reflecting his heavy involvement in grave-matters.

As Ware's work with graves continued, discussion about a "double identity disc" (previously there was only one per soldier) began in 1915 and continued into early 1916. Ware wrote Macready on 21 June 1915; in the letter he included a sketch of a pair of discs made of compressed fibre – one could be removed and the other left with the corpse. On 24 June his proposal was accepted and four million were ordered. Discs began arriving in large numbers in mid-November. Such discs were issued to soldiers throughout the rest of the First World War and the Second World War despite the fibre decomposing quickly. The British Army stopped using the design in 1960.

While director, Ware was made a temporary brigadier-general on 12 August 1916. The DGRE regulated graves, making every aspect from spacing of graves to marking the graves uniform. He attempted to resolve differences between soldiers of different religious affiliations, decreeing for instance: "On no account should [Egyptian] Mohammedans be buried in Christian consecrated ground [...] Jewish graves were to be marked with a double triangle on a stake [and] under no circumstances should a cross be erected over an Indian Grave."

Efforts to neaten the cemeteries had begun in early 1916 when Ware invited Arthur William Hill, assistant director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to tour the cemeteries and advise upon further planting efforts. Hill visited 37 cemeteries and wrote a report on how to plant them. Efforts began slowly, but by 1917 the commission had established four nurseries. In the 1917 New Year Honours, Ware was made a companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG). By April 1917 the DGRE had registered over 156,500 graves; at least 150,000 in France and Belgium, 2,500 in Salonika and 4,000 in Egypt.

### Imperial War Graves Commission

By early 1917 several members of the National Committee for the Care of Soldiers' Graves believed a formal imperial organisation would be needed to care for the graves after the war. With the help of the Prince of Wales, Ware submitted a memorandum to the Imperial War Conference in 1917 suggesting that such an organisation be constituted. The suggestion was accepted and on 21 May 1917 the Imperial War Graves Commission was established by royal charter, with the Prince of Wales serving as president and Secretary of State for War Lord Derby as chairman. The IWGC had the responsibility for soldiers of members of the British Empire who died in active service. At its first meeting on 20 November, Ware was appointed vice-chairman. Historian Tim Skelton wrote that he was "de facto, chief executive" of the commission. The IWGC could purchase land, build memorials, and restrict other memorials in the cemeteries.

In September 1917 Ware was given authority to wear the insignia of a commander of the Belgian Ordre de la Couronne. That month Belgium granted Britain land for cemeteries in perpetuity. Similar agreements were soon negotiated with Egypt, Italy, Serbia, and Greece. Once land for cemeteries and memorials had been guaranteed, the task of recording the details of the dead could fully begin. Around 587,000 graves had been identified and 559,000 soldiers listed as having no known grave by 1918. On 7 October 1918 Ware was given the temporary rank of major-general as director-general of the DGRE.

### Planning

In May 1917 architect Edwin Lutyens wrote to Ware, urging "great stone[s] of fine proportion twelve feet long set fair or finely wrought". The proposal, supported by Ware, was criticised by figures such as Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for its lack of religious motifs. Ware told Lutyens he was "shocked" by the response and was considering giving the Office of Works responsibility for graves. He still felt "the 'stone' will win yet." Lutyens considered Ware "a most excellent fellow and very keen to do the right thing without fear or favour of the present sentiment. With a preference for the most permanent and perfect."

In June 1917 Ware proposed a £10 budget per grave (equivalent to £ in terms), which became the standard sum for the IWGC. On 9 July a committee organised by Ware, consisting of the Director of the Tate, Charles Aitken, the author J. M. Barrie, and the architects Lutyens and Herbert Baker, toured the cemeteries in order to form a plan for the post-war activities of the commission. The committee met on 14 July and decided all cemeteries should have a general theme, though one had not yet been decided. They agreed there would be four variations on the theme: monumental, garden or woodland, village, and town cemeteries; and grave markers would be uniform, with no individual crosses or monuments. In August Lutyens suggested there be "one kind of monument throughout [the cemeteries], whether in Europe, Asia, or Africa". He suggested that his Great War Stones be used as the monument.

On 21 September Ware, Hill, Lutyens, and Baker met in London to discuss preliminary plans. No agreement was reached. Lutyens continued to promote his concept of war stones as respectful to all religions, but Aitken and Baker favoured crosses. Both sides attempted to gain Ware's endorsement for their view. Upon Ware's invitation, author Rudyard Kipling was appointed the commission's literary adviser in October 1917. In late 1917 Ware began searching for a replacement to Aitken, who did not fully support Ware's vision for the commission. He also looked into establishing a 'Religious Advisory Committee' to help settle religious questions.

As Aitken's replacement, Frederic G. Kenyon was made artistic director of the Commission on 20 November 1917, largely to serve as a mediator in frequent conflicts between the architects. As part of his job he began to write a report deciding which proposals would be instituted in the IWGC's cemeteries. On 22 November Ware formally announced that there would be no difference "between officers and men lying in the same cemeteries in the form or nature of the memorials". In 1918 Lutyens, Baker, and Reginald Blomfield were appointed the commission's principal architects.

In 1918 Kenyon finished his report, titled War Graves: How the Cemeteries Abroad Will Be Designed, and presented it to the commission. The report outlined many factors of how the cemeteries would be designed, particularly emphasising equal treatment of all soldiers. It also supported the programme of planting under Arthur Hill. Kenyon proposed having young architects design the cemeteries under the supervision of more experienced and senior architects such as Baker and Lutyens. Kenyon accepted Lutyens proposal and critics were appeased by support for a Cross of Sacrifice designed by Blomfield, and a recommendation that a cross be placed in every cemetery. The war stones became known as the Stones of Remembrance, and more than a thousand were erected. Kipling proposed the inscription "their name liveth for evermore" for the monuments.

For his work during the war, Ware was mentioned in despatches twice, including by Douglas Haig on 10 April 1919. The same year he was made a commander of the Order of the Bath, and in 1920 a knight commander of the Order of the British Empire. He received the Croix de Guerre and was made a commander of the Order of the Crown of Belgium. On 1 March 1921 Ware relinquished his commission, leaving the army, and was granted the rank of honorary major-general. In May 1922 he was made knight commander of the Royal Victorian Order. In 1929 the University of Aberdeen granted him an honorary doctorate.

## Post-war

Upon the end of the First World War, the IWGC could fully begin work. When the war ended, cemeteries were in disarray and many soldiers were still unburied. Though it technically was not responsible for burials and Ware's proposals for a 'burial corps' were rejected, in practice the commission was held responsible for making sure all bodies were buried. Ware continued to work for the commission, undertaking negotiations with foreign nations and hiring further professionals.

### Building remembrance

As people would soon begin visiting, the IWGC rushed to make the cemeteries presentable. The commission began building experimental cemeteries at Le Tréport, Forceville and Louvencourt in 1918. These were complete in early 1920 and were generally positively received, particularly the one at Forceville. Various changes were made based on the experimental cemeteries; notably cutting the cost of building cemeteries. The commission's work continued rapidly; by April 1920, there had been 128,577 re-interments in France and Belgium and the IWGC was managing 788 cemeteries. In March 1920 Ware predicted there would be more than half a million graves in 1,200 cemeteries in France and Belgium. Charles Holden was made a fourth principal architect that year.

Herbert Ellison managed most of the IWGC's business as Ware handled political issues. Ware was considered one of the faces of the commission, and gave annual Remembrance Day addresses to the United Kingdom to urge against future wars. He also had a film made, gave lectures, and organised photographic exhibits about the IWGC's work. At the Imperial War Conference in June 1918 it was agreed to make funding for the commission proportional to the number of soldiers each nation had lost based on figures submitted by Ware. The United Kingdom funded the vast majority of the commission's work – around 80%. His £10 figure had become standard reckoning, and in November 1918 the IWCG created a finance committee. In May and June 1919, Ware argued that the IWGC should be made independent of HM Treasury, which was observing the commission's finances, and this largely occurred after a meeting on 20 June.

Though many nations had given Britain control of their war graves and cemeteries in perpetuity, the Commission continued to seek similar concessions from other nations, including those who had fought against the United Kingdom during the war. One of the most difficult such areas was Gallipoli, which had been the site of the Gallipoli campaign. New Zealand and Australia, whose ANZAC forces had been heavily involved in the fighting, felt strongly that the IWGC should secure land for a cemetery. Charles Bean, the influential journalist and author of Australia's official war history proposed that "the complete Anzac site, including the Turkish trenches on the reverse slope adjoining it, be vested in the Graves Commission".

Ware had unsuccessfully attempted to begin negotiations with Turkey in 1917, separately asking the Red Cross, the Catholic Church, and the United States to serve as intermediaries. At the Paris Peace Conference from 1919 to 1920, the IWGC pushed for the right to land on Gallipoli —called the 'ANZAC estate'—as soon as possible. Ware was personally involved in these negotiations. The Commission gained such a concession in the Treaty of Sèvres, signed in August 1920. Renegotiation occurred after the Turkish War of Independence, and in the Treaty of Lausanne the IWGC gained the right to land the Allies considered "necessary for the establishment of cemeteries for the regrouping of graves, for ossuaries or memorials". By 1926, the IWGC had built 31 cemeteries and five memorials on the peninsula.

Ware travelled extensively post-war, visiting Canada (1925), Egypt (1929), India and Iraq (1930), and Australia and New Zealand (1934). The Commission faced criticism over not allowing individual memorials for soldiers, and repatriation of bodies of the dead, including in a petition spearheaded by Lady Florence Cecil (wife of William Cecil, the Bishop of Exeter) that was presented to the Prince of Wales in spring 1920 with over eight thousand signatures. Ware worked with William Burdett-Coutts, an MP, to write statements urging Parliament to allow the IWGC to continue its work. The disagreements led to a debate in Parliament over funding of the commission on 4 May 1920. Sir James Remnant started the debate, followed by numerous speakers; notably speeches by Burdett-Coutts in favour of the commission's principles and Lord Robert Cecil (Lady Florence Cecil's brother-in-law) supporting those who wanted repatriation and opposed uniformity of grave markers. Winston Churchill closed the debate and asked that the issue not proceed to a vote. Remnant withdrew his motion, allowing the commission to carry out its work assured of support for its principles. In 1921 the commission moved to offices at 82 Baker Street. Most cemeteries were completed by the mid-1920s, at a total cost of £8,150,000 (about £ million in terms), in what was, according to architectural historian Gavin Stamp, "one of the largest schemes of public works ever undertaken".

### Monuments

Following the end of the war, there was an influx of Commonwealth organisations that wanted to construct memorials in France and Belgium. Private divisional monuments and memorials for individual countries were quickly proposed and the National Battlefield Memorial Committee was set up in 1919 to oversee the construction of monuments for the United Kingdom. Ware and the IWGC had the ability to license all such memorials and he began working with the various groups. Although Ware felt the primary focus of the IWGC should be cemeteries, by August 1921 it had gained responsibility for battlefield monuments as the National Battlefield Memorial Committee was dissolved. The Commission planned to build twelve monuments to missing soldiers in France and Belgium, and several others to sailors lost at sea and across Europe.

Discussions on how to commemorate the Ypres Salient, the first monument the IWGC worked on, dated back to 1919, when Winston Churchill said, "I should like us to acquire the whole of the ruins of Ypres as a memorial [...] A more sacred place for the British race does not exist in the world". The Belgian government agreed to give Britain the ruins of the Menin Gate to build a memorial for Commonwealth soldiers whose graves were unknown. Reginald Blomfield was appointed to design the monument. He proposed a triumphal arch and central hall. The IWGC struggled to navigate various commissions when building monuments in the United Kingdom. During planning for the Mercantile Marine Memorial in London, the Royal Fine Arts Commission (RFAC) rejected Lutyens's initial proposal at Temple Gardens on the bank of the River Thames, suggesting Tower Hill instead. Upset, Lutyens and Ware unsuccessfully urged the RFAC to reconsider. To commemorate sailors lost at sea, the IWGC planned three naval memorials of the same design in Chatham, Portsmouth, and Plymouth. They were designed by Sir Robert Lorimer with Henry Poole as a sculptor. Though Ware worked closely with the Admiralty on the monuments, he disliked it, saying the idea of their involvement "fills me with dismay".

When the Menin Gate was completed in 1927, 57,000 names were inscribed on the monument. Ware worked to convince the Dominions to allow their soldiers' names to appear on the Menin Gate, as it was intended to be an imperial monument. They had plans for their own memorials, but eventually all (except New Zealand) allowed some names to be listed. Such vast monuments created some resentment among the French people, whose country could scarcely afford to build large memorials for their soldiers. In 1926, it was concluded that "the French authorities were disquieted by the number and scale of the Memorials which the Commission proposed to erect in France and that some modification of the proposals was necessary". Ware began working to prevent formal opposition to the monuments from manifesting. As a result, the IWGC's proposals were dropped to six monuments, four in France and two in Belgium.

In July 1926, Ware proposed an Anglo-French cemetery at Thiepval. In an effort to gain further French support for the Thiepval Memorial, he proposed placing the inscription Aux armées Française et Britannique l’Empire Britannique reconnaissant (to the French and British armies, from the grateful British Empire) on the monument. In November, Ware and Lutyens met with the French architect Emmanuel Pontremoli and the French general Noël Édouard to discuss Thiepval. After two years of further discussions, approval for the project was granted by the [] Error: : no text (help) on 12 April 1928, and construction soon began.

Ware attended numerous monument dedications: in 1924 all three naval monuments; in 1927 the Menin Gate, Tyne Cot, and Neuve-Chapelle Indian Memorial; in 1928 the Mercantile Marine Memorial, Nieuport Memorial, Soissons Memorial, and La Ferté-sous-Jouarre memorial; and in 1930 the Le Touret Memorial. In 1931 he spoke at the unveiling of the All India War Memorial in New Delhi. He was present at the unveiling of Theipval on 1 August 1932.

As more monuments approached completion, the commission began searching for ways to ensure it would have the financial capability to independently manage repairs. In June 1926 an endowment fund was created for the commission. The Treasury disliked the fund, but Ware considered it the commission's "only hope of permanency". After the fund was established, the Treasury continued to resist the commission's proposals and suggested suspending the United Kingdom's contributions to the fund for three years in 1931. Ware convinced the influential advisor to the Treasury George May to accept a reduced payment scheme. After the Treasury attempted to propose deferring payments again in August, Ware wrote angrily to Warren Fisher of the Treasury and helped Neville Chamberlain and Stanley Baldwin prepare opposition. Around a month later the Treasury tried again and Ware convinced the prime minister of Canada to tell their high commissioner to the United Kingdom to resist any proposed changes by the Treasury without consulting other Commonwealth nations. The endowment fund was secured by 1932.

As vice-chairman, Ware attempted to ensure uniformity of monuments in keeping with his ideal of cooperation between Britain and the Dominions. He failed in this aspect; monuments such as the Neuve-Chapelle Indian Memorial incorporated unique elements. The Canadian National Vimy Memorial was designed by Walter Allward, an architect not associated with the commission. One of the IWGC's last monuments was the Villers–Bretonneux Australian National Memorial, not dedicated until 1938. Though William Lucas had won a contest to design the memorial in 1925, Ware and General Talbot Hobbs disliked the design, and the project was halted by the Australian government of James Scullin in 1930. Hobbs then approached Lutyens about designing the memorial. Work did not resume on the project until Ware travelled to Australia in 1935 to push for action from the government. In 1936 the commission began struggling financially, as it increased salaries for its employees in the face of the Great Depression. Ware, fearing unwanted reform from a Treasury investigation, arranged for the appointment of an investigative committee. It published a report in July 1938 and the commission began cutting costs.

In 1936 Italy made Ugo Cei director of graves, going against their agreement with the British government which had led to grave affairs being managed by an Anglo-Italian Committee. Although Britain was sanctioning the Italian government, Ware travelled to Rome and was able to get the committee reconstituted. Similar committees also existed in Germany, France, Belgium, and other nations. Ware saw them as tools to further the IWGC's work to, as the historian Philip Longworth writes, "bring home to ordinary people of all nations a realisation of the cost of war." A similar practice was adopted in Germany, where an Anglo-French-German committee was established based on a 20 November 1935 agreement. The committee was the first in a former enemy power and Ware saw its work as uniting the nations in "an organised movement of common remembrance of the dead of the Great War." He was convinced that by uniting nations through memorials, another war could be prevented. Longworth writes that Ware intended to use "the Commission as a sort of minor League of Nations to forward the work of international understanding."

Ware published an account of the work of the IWGC in 1937 titled The Immortal Heritage. He was given the authority to wear the insignia of a commander of the Legion of Honour on 27 December 1933 and the insignia of a grand master on 16 December 1938.

### Other work

In the 1930s Ware moved to Amberley, Gloucestershire. He served as a member of the Imperial Committee on Economic Consultation and Co-operation in 1932. In July 1932 he urged the Canadian prime minister R. B. Bennett to support an 'Imperial Economic Committee' outside the British Treasury's control. Ware was the first to seriously propose something of the kind, submitting a draft charter for the establishment of the 'Imperial Economic Commission', which would function as an economic general staff for the empire. The proposal gained little support.

Ware was an honorary associate at the Royal Institute of British Architects, and a director of the journal Nineteenth Century and After. As a director of the journal, he made the decision to appoint Arnold Wilson as editor and later insisted on his removal for poor coverage of the Spanish Civil War. He was an adviser at the 1937 Imperial Conference. Ware also served the county of Gloucestershire in various capacities, including as president of the Gloucestershire Rural Community Council from 1940 to 1948, chairman of the executive committee of the Parents' National Educational Union in 1939, and chairman of the Gloucestershire Branch of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England.

### Second World War and death

Ware travelled to Cologne in October 1936 and attended a conference of the German War Graves Commission (German: Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge). In his speech he said war cemeteries would promote "a blessed healing of wounds", but at the same time warned "armed conflict [...] between these great nations would result in deeper wounds, wounds so deep that they would defy healing." The speech was well received and republished by the German press. Longworth writes that Germans considered the cemeteries "reminders of German heroism and of a shame that must be avenged". Ware continued his efforts against war even as the Anschluss and the Munich Agreement occurred. He spoke at the Volksbund's celebration in 1938, again advocating against war. In 1939 he spoke to Ivan Maisky, the Ambassador of the Soviet Union to the United Kingdom, and worked on negotiations between the USSR and IWGC. That year Ware began preparations for a possible war.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Ware was recalled to serve as director-general of Graves Registration and Enquiries at the War Office on 30 August 1939. On 3 September he was granted an emergency commission with the honorary rank of major-general. He also continued in his role as vice-chairman of the commission and facilitated cooperation between the organisations.

In Autumn 1940 Ware began working on a programme to memorialise civilian dead as a result of the war. He wrote a letter to Winston Churchill saying the IWGC could not "omit to commemorate these [civilian casualties] if the higher purposes inspiring their work" were to continue to be respected, and the IWGC began recording civilian deaths "caused by enemy action" in January 1941. Despite support from the King and Registrar General, the Commission struggled to record all information—particularly the addresses of next of kin. After Ware toured some of the areas with the most deaths, local authorities were enlisted to help. By releasing various announcements and a radio broadcast by Ware in November, the IWGC had collected information on more than 18,000 people. In January 1942 he proposed listing dead civilians in the Warrior's Chapel in Westminster Abbey on a roll of honour. Though the Dean of Westminster supported the proposal, Herbert Morrison, the minister of home security, argued such a list should be put up after the war. Following discussions, it was agreed the rolls would not be announced until after the war ended.

Ware resigned as director-general of Graves Registration and Enquiries in 1944, leaving the army, to continue his work with the commission. Progress was hampered as the DGRE and IWGC struggled to cooperate. In April 1944 Ware spoke at a conference on war memorials organised by the Royal Society of Arts. He toured cemeteries in France and Belgium in August 1945. He resigned as vice-chairman of the Commission in 1948 due to old age and failing health, particularly his chronic phlebitis. Ware died on 28 April 1949 in Barnwood House Hospital, Gloucester, and was buried in Holy Trinity Churchyard, Amberley on 2 May. His grave has an IWGC-style headstone. There are memorial tablets to him in St. George's Chapel at Westminster Abbey and in Gloucester Cathedral. The road Boulevard Fabian Ware in Bayeux, the location of Bayeux War Cemetery, is named in his honour.

## List of works

British Army general and founder of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Commanders of the Order of the Crown (Belgium)

Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George

Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Knights Commander of the Royal Victorian Order

Recipients of the Croix de Guerre (France)