C'EST LA GUERRE
JESU MERCY

PRIVATE JOSEPH WATT

SOUTH AFRICAN INFANTRY

22ND APRIL 1917 AGE 24

BURIED: ETAPLES MILITARY CEMETERY, FRANCE


Joseph Watt's mother offers a conventional shorthand prayer for her son's soul, 'Jesu mercy', under what had become an ironic phrase to explain away anything that had not quite gone according to plan. I wonder if she realised that? Originally a French catchphrase, used fatalistically in much the same way that people still say, 'C'est la vie', it was picked up by English speaking soldiers and incorporated into their own vocabulary.
References to fate are not unknown on headstone inscriptions in British war cemeteries. I've seen 'Kismet', 'The luck of the draw' and 'Whatever is - is best'. They are the secular equivalent of the extremely popular, 'Thy will be done'.
I know nothing else about Watt except that died in a base hospital in Etaples and that his mother, Mrs H Watt, lived in Durban, South Africa.