 The Fizeau connection is commemorated by bilingual inscriptions either side of the steps leading up to the river-facing side of the memorial.This memorial was one of only four free-standing (outside proposed permanent war cemeteries) British World War I memorials to the missing eventually built on French soil.There had originally been proposals by the Imperial War Graves Commission to build 13 free-standing memorials to the missing in France, but this was eventually reduced to four