It is ninety years since that fateful hour when the guns fell silent and the hopes of peace, never realized, were born. The last British veteran of the Great War died just a few days ago and, it would seem, that we have lost all direct link with that conflict.The 1914 - 1918 war changed the world in a way we have not yet fully managed to deal with. The years before 1939, the Second World War, the subsequent battle with Communism, were all the outcome of that earlier conflict. Even the creation of the European Union is an indirect result of the Great War.
The wars in the Middle East and the Gulf are also the outcomes of it and of the collapse of the empires that had divided the world. We shall live with that for a long time before we can go to another era, no longer the post 1918 one.
For today we must remember the soldiers who died in that conflict and in the many conflicts since and think of those who are fighting in other wars.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:It has been pointed out to me that I was wrong to assume that there are no survivors left from the Great War. There are, indeed, still four alive and three of them were present at the Cenotaph: Henry Allingham, 112, Harry Patch, 110, and Bill Stone, 108, represented the RAF, Army and Royal Navy respectively.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
2 comments:
Agree entirely with your sentiments, but a British link to WW1 is still there, albeit a fragile one:
'In London, three of the four surviving British World War I veterans attended a ceremony at the Cenotaph.
Henry Allingham, 112, Harry Patch, 110, and Bill Stone, 108, represented the RAF, Army and Royal Navy respectively.'
(BBC Website)
I did get that wrong. Sorry. I shall put up an update with the information.
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