PRIVATE JOHN THOMAS STEPHENS
AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY
7TH AUGUST 1916 AGE 27
BURIED: RUE-DU-BOIS MILITARY CEMETERY, FLEURBAIX, PAS DE CALAIS, FRANCE
This is a complicated inscription which mixes the conventional with the critical. Two of Mr and Mrs Stephens' sons were killed in the war - within thirteen days of each other. 'Tom' on 7 August and George on the 20th. George has no grave and no inscription - he is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial - so this inscription must stand for both of them.
'For Australia' is a conventional cause, so too is 'the British flag', the Union Jack, which featured on recruitment posters as the symbol of the British Empire of which Australia was then a proud part. But what about, "For they know not what they do"?
This is a quotation from Luke 23:33-4:
And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
Who didn't know what they were doing? Mr Stephens doesn't specify. Was it his sons, or those who fought for the British flag - or Australia? Or was it the whole of mankind who were defying Christ's commandment "that ye love one another as I have loved you".
