CAPTAIN HAROLD BOLINGBROKE MUDIE
ARMY SERVICE CORPS
6TH JANUARY 1916 AGE 35
BURIED: FORGES-LES-EAUX COMMUNAL CEMETERY, FRANCE
This is certainly the first and, probably, the only example of an inscription written in the universal language of Esperanto but then, as the inscription says, Harold Bolingbroke Mudie was the president of the British Esperanto Association.
Mudie, the son of Alfred and Annie Mudie of the Mudie circulating library family, was a member of the London Stock Exchange. A brilliant linguist who spoke fluent French, German and Flemish, he taught himself Esperanto in 1902. In 1908 became the first president of the Universal Esperanto Association and in 1910 of the British Esperanto Association.
Despite his international associations, Mudie joined up immediately on the outbreak of war. Commissioned into the Army Service Corps, he was in charge of a Remount Depot near Forges-les-Eaux. Remount depots were where requisitioned horses were trained and redistributed for the war effort. He was killed when the car in which he was a passenger in was hit by a train on a level crossing.
Most of this information comes from the site Great War London on which there is a very detailed article about Mudie.