The National War Memorial (French: Monument commémoratif de guerre du Canada), titled The Response (French: La Réponse), is a tall, granite memorial arch with accreted bronze sculptures in Ottawa, Ontario, designed by Vernon March and first dedicated by King George VI in 1939. Originally built to commemorate the Canadians who died in the First World War, it was in 1982 rededicated to also include those killed in the Second World War and Korean War and again in 2014 to add the dead from the Second Boer War and War in Afghanistan, as well as all Canadians killed in all conflicts past and future. It now serves as the pre-eminent war memorial of 76 cenotaphs in Canada. In 2000, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was added in front of the memorial and symbolizes the sacrifices made by all Canadians who have died or may yet die for their country.
The National War Memorial is the focal point of Confederation Square in Canada's capital city, Ottawa, Ontario. The square is located between several major buildings and features, with Parliament Hill to the northwest, the Rideau Canal to the northeast, and the National Arts Centre to the east. Buildings situated west of the square include the Bell Block, the Central Chambers building, the Office of the Prime Minister and Privy Council, and the Scottish Ontario Chambers building. There are several other commemorative buildings and monuments nearby, including the Peace Tower (and the Memorial Chamber) at the parliament buildings, the National Aboriginal Veterans Monument, the Animals in War Memorial, a Boer War memorial, the Peacekeeping Monument, the Valiants Memorial, and the War of 1812 Monument.
Since 1940, the National War Memorial is the site of the national Remembrance Day ceremony, organized every year by the Royal Canadian Legion for 11 November. Along with Canadian war veterans, the ceremony is attended by the governor general, sometimes members of the Canadian royal family, the prime minister, the Silver Cross mother, representatives of the Canadian Armed Forces and Royal Canadian Mounted Police, members of the diplomatic corps, and youth representatives. Some of these groups place wreaths at the foot of the war memorial. The event is attended by between 25,000 and 45,000 people and is nationally televised.
Before each Remembrance Day ceremony, Public Works and Government Services Canada repairs and levels stones in the area of the war memorial, fill joints, waxes the bronzes, and applies a protective coating to the lettering on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Plywood is placed over surrounding flower beds and approximately 6,000 metres (20,000 ft) of cable is run to connect sound systems and 12 television cameras. Any mementos or pictures attendees leave at the memorial following the ceremony are given to the Canadian War Museum for review and possible storage, while any money left is donated to The Perley & Rideau Veterans' Health Centre.
Whenever the monarch of Canada or another member of the royal family is in Ottawa, they will, regardless of the date, lay a wreath at the monument. Visiting foreign dignitaries will also sometimes lay a wreath at the monument; prominent figures who have done so include US President John F. Kennedy in 1961, Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990, US Secretary of State John Kerry, and French President François Hollande in 2014.
The Department of Canadian Heritage and the Department of Veterans Affairs also fund summer students at the site, hired to provide information on the site and its history.
The memorial, from grade to the tip of the surmounting statues' wings, is approximately 21.34 m (70 ft), with the arch itself 3.05 m (10 ft) wide, 2.44 m (8 ft) deep, and 8.03 m (26 ft 4 in) high. The lowest step of the pedestal is 15.9 m (52 ft 2 in) by 8.08 m (26 ft 6 in). 503 tonnes of rose-grey Canadian granite from the Dumas Quarry at Rivière-à-Pierre, Quebec, and 32 tonnes of bronze were used, all of which rests on a block of reinforced concrete based on steel columns set into bedrock.
Two 5.33-metre-high (17.5 ft) allegories of peace and freedom stand at the apex of the arch, their proximity to each other representing the inseparability of the two concepts, though, the figure bearing a torch alludes in Roman mythology to Demeter and the winged figure with a laurel depicts Nike, the Greek goddesses of agriculture and victory, respectively. Below are the depictions of 22 Canadian servicemembers from all branches of the forces and other groups engaged in the First World War. At the front, to the left, a Lewis gunner, to the right, a kilted infantryman with a Vickers machine gun. Following these are a pilot in full gear and an air mechanic of the Royal Canadian Air Force, as well as a sailor in the Royal Canadian Navy from HMCS Stadacona. Two mounted figures—a member of the Canadian Cavalry Brigade and a dispatch rider—are emerging from the arch, side by side, followed by two infantry riflemen pressing through the arch and behind them are the men and women of the support services, including two nurses from the Militia Army Medical Corps, a stretcher bearer, and one member each of the Royal Canadian Engineers and the Canadian Forestry Corps. The rear figures are pulling a QF 18-pounder gun. Further, there is one member each of the Canadian Army Service Corps, the Canadian Signals Corps, the Corps of Canadian Railway troops, the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery, and the Motor Machine Gun Corps. There are three additional infantrymen; all six carry among them respirators and other items of the "basic load" carried by every member of the infantry.
The figures are moving towards the call of duty atop a pedestal. To avoid foreshortening from a pedestrian viewpoint, the group of figures is placed at a specific height above street level; each body is approximately 2.4 metres (7.9 ft) high, or one-third larger than life size. The postures are animated and strained, not in parade form, and the expressions "convey pride, longing, defiance, a strong sense of purpose, vacancy, camaraderie and perhaps a touch of dejection, but mostly firm resolve." All are in historically correct and distinctly Canadian uniforms, and they were deliberately rendered by the sculpture's artist, Vernon March, so as to not associate any with a particular region of the country nor any ethnicity or language, thus highlighting unity.
Of the memorial, March wrote "[I intend] to perpetuate in this bronze group the people of Canada who went Overseas to the Great War, and to represent them, as we of today saw them, as a record for future generations..." The allegorical representations of peace and freedom were meant to be seen "alighting on the world with the blessings of Victory, Peace and Liberty in the footsteps of the people's heroism and self-sacrifice who are passing through the archway below." The persons emerging through the arch have also been interpreted as representing Canada's "rite of passage" or "coming of age", its birth as a proper nation during the First World War, reflected in its attainment of a place in the negotiations of the Treaty of Versailles at the conflict's end. Similarly, the figures of Peace and Freedom "speak both to Canada's participation in the struggle to achieve lasting stability and democratic values that resulted in the creation of the League of Nations, and to the hope that in Canada itself peace and freedom may continue to triumph over the forces of instability and the tyrannies of ethnicity." Laura Brandon, Historian, Art & War at the National War Museum in Ottawa, opined that the agricultural connotations of the torch-bearing figure may have been intended by March to relate to the dominance of agriculture in Canada at the time of the monument's design. It may also refer to the line in the war poem In Flanders Fields, penned by John McCrae while in the battlefields of the First World War: "The torch; be yours to hold it high/If ye break faith with us who die."
On the north and south faces of the statuary base are the dates 1914–1918 (the First World War) above the words Service to Canada/Au service du Canada, which are intended to include all Canadians who served in all armed conflicts, past, present, and future. The dates 1939–1945 (the Second World War) and 1950–1953 (the Korean War) are on the east and west flanks of the base, while the years 1899–1902 (the Second Boer War) and 2001–2014 (the War in Afghanistan) are on the east and west arch pier footings, respectively. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier rests in the podium surface immediately in front of and on axis with the war memorial.