Menin Gate offered to the citizens of Ypres for the ornament of their city and in commemoration of the days where the British Army defended it against the invader." Reaction to the Menin Gate, the first of the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission's Memorials to the Missing, ranged from its condemnation by the war poet Siegfried Sassoon, to praise by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. Sassoon described the Menin Gate in his poem 'On Passing the New Menin Gate', saying that the dead of the Ypres Salient would "deride this sepulchre of crime". Zweig, in contrast, praised the simplicity of the
White House Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery was enlarged by concentrating graves from eight outlying cemeteries. The cemetery was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield who was also responsible for the nearby Menin Gate memorial. The cemetery contains the graves of some 1,163 soldiers of the Great War. Amongst these are the graves of four men executed by the Commonwealth military authorities – Private HH Chase of the Lancashire Fusiliers, executed for cowardice on 12 June 1915; Private WJ Turpie of the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment, executed for desertion on 1 July 1915; and Privates RW Gawler and AE Eveleigh of The Buffs (East Kent Regiment), executed