REMEMBRANCE DAY
On 11 November 1918, the last shot of World War 1 was fired.
It had been the most destructive war in history. ‘The War to make the World
Safe for Democracy’. ‘The War to End All Wars’. It had been the most devastating
conflict. Nearly ten million human beings bombed, gassed, blown apart, buried
alive, machine-gunned, incinerated; another twenty-two million wounded or
maimed; five million civilians dead from starvation, exposure and disease;
another ten million from a war-spawned plague of Spanish influenza. It had
dragged on for four years, a seemingly
insatiable beast whose only purpose was to gulp down the best and bravest young
men of a generation and spit them out again as corpses. ‘Never again’, swore
the veterans. The war-battered civilian populations who had supported those
vast armies repeated the same message, ‘Never Again’. As the politicians
gathered in Versailles in France to sign
the peace, they echoed the same sentiments, but the Germans signed only under
duress. The treaty was forced upon them without discussion- and they did not
forget. Twenty years, nine months, nineteen days, and eighteen hours later
after the last shot of World War One, the first shot of World War Two was fired
– and set off a firestorm that would consume more lives than any other war in
history.
Remembrance Day is on 11 November. It is a special day set
aside to remember all those men and women who were killed during the two World
Wars and other conflicts. At one time the day was known as Armistice Day and
was renamed Remembrance Day after the Second World War. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month marks the signing of the
Armistice, on 11th November 1918, to signal the end of World War One. Remembrance Sunday is held on the second Sunday, which is usually the Sunday
nearest to 11 November. Special services are held at war memorials and churches
all over Britain.
It is important that our children are aware of the lives that have been lost
for freedom.
Ms Bizos.
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