In the aftermath of the First World War, many of the belligerent nations instituted memorials to the Unknown Soldier. First in France, Britain and Italy – then others – governments laid to rest the remains of a soldier that could not be identified. It symbolized the futility and terribleness of modern war that left so many of the dead lost to the churning trenches of European battlefields. The Unknown Soldier, though still familiar to us today, is a symbol of a time increasingly distant from contemporary commemoration.