Remembrance Day

The Great War of 1914-18 between the european imperial powers, or World War I, changed life in Britain  for ever. Very many young men died and because of the army's policy of having "Chum's Brigades" in which men from the same village fought and died together some villages lost all their young men of fighting age in one battle. Every village has its memorial to the  dead and in many it is difficult to believe that a village so small could have so many young men.
The Armistice was signed at 11.00am on November 11th 1918; the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Afterwards the war dead were remembered by a minute's silence  at that time and in ceremonies and prayers on the Sunday nearest. A charity was also started to help the widows and orphans and those disabled by their wounds. Because the bombed no man's land between the trenches had thrown up fields of poppies on the battlefield  reminiscent of the blood of the fallen, the poppy was taken as an emblem of remembrance and artificial poppies were sold to be worn to raise money for the charity.
The scope has since been extended to include remembrance of the dead in all subsequent wars.
This year November 11th is a Sunday so  there is only one Remembrance Day. There is a ceremony at every War Memorial in the country and a large event in London at the Cenotaph (the main memorial in the Mall) where wreaths of poppies are laid by the Queen , representatives of the armed services and leading politicians.

Remembrance ceromony at the Cenotaph



Wreaths at War Memorial after Local Rembrance Ceremony

The Great War caused such a great and pointless loss of life that many people involved in the fighting were appalled. It inspired a group of poets who wrote about the horror of war later known as the "War Poets". The most famous poem was Dulce and Decorum Est written by Wilfred Owen. He was killed a week before the end of the War and his parents got the news of his death on November 11th as the church bells were ringing to celebrate the end of the War.


                                                          Dulce et Decorum Est

    Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
    Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
    Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
    And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
    Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
    But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
    Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
    Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.   
    Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
    Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
    But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
    And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
    Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
    As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.     
    In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
    He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.    
    If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
    Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
    And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
    His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
    If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
    Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
    Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
    Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
    My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
    To children ardent for some desperate glory,
    The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
    Pro patria mori.


  The last lines are in Latin and mean  "It is a sweet and proper thing to die for one's country".    

Wilfred Owen