Memorial tablets to the British Empire dead of the First World War days before the unveiling of the Menin Gate in Ypres, one of the Commission's main memorials to the missing. The Menin Gate was unveiled by Lord Plumer, while Earl Haig was asked to unveil the Brussels tablet to the Empire's dead. Those present at the Brussels ceremony included the Belgian Prime Minister Henri Jaspar, the Belgian Minister of Justice Paul Hymans, the Minister of National Defence Charles de Broqueville (Belgian Prime Minister during the war), and the heir to the Belgian throne and future Leopold III, the Prince of Brabant. The British dignitaries accompanying Earl Haig included the British ambassador
Commonwealth War Graves Commission Dominions and India also erected memorials on which they commemorated their missing: the Neuve-Chapelle Memorial for the forces of India, the Vimy Memorial by Canada, the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial by Australia, the Delville Wood Memorial by South Africa and the Beaumont-Hamel Memorial by Newfoundland. The programme of commemorating the dead of the Great War was considered essentially complete with the inauguration of the Thiepval Memorial in 1932, though the Vimy Memorial would not be finished until 1936, the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial until 1938 and stonemasons were still conducting work on the Menin Gate when Germany invaded Belgium in 1940. The only memorial