:00:00. > :00:00.Britain, an Italian poet and Afghanistan, as well as a story of
:00:00. > :00:08.First World War cemeteries and a biography of Margaret Thatcher. We
:00:09. > :00:25.have been speaking to each of the nominees.
:00:26. > :00:28.For almost a century, war cemeteries like these have been some of the
:00:29. > :00:33.most poignant memorials of the First World War. You will find all over
:00:34. > :00:37.the world, wherever soldiers from Britain and its empire fought, but
:00:38. > :00:48.the greatest concentration and lie along Western front in Belgium. This
:00:49. > :00:56.is the central character in Empires Of The Dead. . We spoke to the
:00:57. > :01:00.author. He was an unemployed journalist at the outbreak of the
:01:01. > :01:05.First World War. He was too old to fight and desperate to play some
:01:06. > :01:10.part. He had been warning the country against this war for the
:01:11. > :01:16.last ten years. He went over to France first as a volunteer as a
:01:17. > :01:24.member of the mobile ambulance unit. From those very humble and
:01:25. > :01:35.almost accidental beginnings, he developed his interest in the work
:01:36. > :01:41.that eventually blossomed into the Commonwealth Imperial walk grades
:01:42. > :01:49.commission. That existed in embryo as early as 1916 or 1917. It took
:01:50. > :01:53.very important `` two very important decisions. One was that none of the
:01:54. > :01:56.dead British soldiers were to be repaid to did. The other was that
:01:57. > :02:02.they would all be commemorated side`by`side. Officers and men
:02:03. > :02:07.alike, as close to the battlefield where they fell. Why were those
:02:08. > :02:13.decisions taken, and why were they so controversial? If you had allowed
:02:14. > :02:15.a freedom of choice with the gravestones or other commemoratives
:02:16. > :02:22.memorials, the rich would have buried in one way and the poor in
:02:23. > :02:25.another, and we would have had a hierarchy of commemoration that was
:02:26. > :02:30.the absolute opposite of everything he was striving for. From the
:02:31. > :02:36.perspective of now, it seems that where the cemeteries we have our
:02:37. > :02:39.self evidently the answer to the slaughter on the industrial scale of
:02:40. > :02:44.the First World War. But for families, particularly those with
:02:45. > :02:48.deeply Christian feelings, the idea that their sons or their husbands or
:02:49. > :02:59.their fathers should be buried in this uniform way, in this Prussian
:03:00. > :03:06.cemetery that was being planned, with absolute anathema. There is one
:03:07. > :03:12.memorial cupboard with more than 70,000 names, you suggest in the
:03:13. > :03:16.book is a front in kind to most of the cemeteries that the War Graves
:03:17. > :03:23.commission erected. Why is that different? The memorial poses
:03:24. > :03:29.different questions, and suggests more complex responses to the
:03:30. > :03:38.slaughter of the Somme than any other memorial does. The arches that
:03:39. > :03:42.disappear in to the fault of the sky just leaves one with an appalling
:03:43. > :03:47.sense of loss. You look at that monument and you think, what kind of
:03:48. > :03:56.government could have done this? Thank you.
:03:57. > :04:02.Tomorrow, Nick Higham will be talking to Charlotte Higgins, author
:04:03. > :04:03.of Under Another Skype, Journeys In Roman