 Although Ware felt that the primary focus of the IWGC should be cemeteries, by August 1921 it had gained responsibility for battlefield monuments as the National Battlefield Memorial Committee was dissolved.The Commission planned to build twelve monuments to missing soldiers in France and Belgium, and several others to sailors lost at sea and across Europe.Discussions on how to commemorate the Ypres Salient, the first monument that the IWGC worked on, dated back to 1919, when Winston Churchill stated that "I should like us to acquire the whole of the ruins of Ypres as a memorial [...] A more sacred place for the British race does not exist in the world".