Why?

[maggiebee]

This subject may have been raised before but I'm wondering why we're remembering/commemorating the start of WW1. Shouldn't it be the end of the war?

[ChillDoubt]

This subject may have been raised before but I'm wondering why we're remembering/commemorating the start of WW1. Shouldn't it be the end of the war?
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As far as I can gather it starts today in order that so many battles and atrocities during the Great War will be remembered and honoured, with parades and functions taking place over the next 4 years at places like Ypres, Mons, The Somme, Mametz Wood and so many, many more that will see their centenary as time unfolds.

[nungate]

Because if we forget our past and not learn from it what hope can we have for the future?

[maggiebee]

I agree Nungate that we shouldn't forget our past but learn from it? When I watch the news today, I doubt if we will ever learn. The last verse of this very poignant song says it all for me.


The Green Fields of France - The Corries

Well how do you do, young Willie McBride,
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside
And rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun
I've been working all day and I'm nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the dead heroes of nineteen-sixteen.
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
Or Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene.

Chorus :
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the dead-march as they lowered you down.
Did the bugles play the Last Post and chorus,
Did the pipes play the 'Flooers o' the Forest'.

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
Although you died back there in nineteen-sixteen
In that faithful heart are you ever nineteen
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed and forgotten behind the glass frame
In a old photograph, torn and battered and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.

The sun now it shines on the green fields of France
The warm summer breeze makes the red poppies dance
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard it's still no-man's-land
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.

Now young Willie McBride I can't help but wonder why
Do all those who lie here know why they died
And did they believe when they answered the cause
Did they really believe that this war would end wars
Well the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing and dying was all done in vain
For young Willie McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again.

[hc4361]

DTC, Germany and the USA have made lots of war films and the USA certainly has made sitcoms about the World Wars and subsequent wars.

Dad's Army has been bought by countries all round the world, including Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Hong Kong, Singapore, Croatia, Sweden, USA and UAE.

I don't think we are any more obsessed with the WWI and WWII than other countries involved or affected by it.

[nungate]

I know that song Maggie. In my first post I said that we are still suffering the after effects of the great war, all you need do is watch the news bulletins. All of these current troubles can be traced back to that war and its aftermath. I am a pacifist at heart and I have studied and continue to study military history and I maintain that if we don't remember the mistakes we made in the past we'll never learn from them. It took me quite some time to understand the circumstances that led Britain into war in 1914 and I have changed my mind about a few things. If we hadn't gone to war Germany would have become dominant in Europe, and war between Britain and Germany would have been inevitable at some point.

[murraymints]

[ChillDoubt]

A stunning and haunting piece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CHayV-V32E

[gness]

That's pretty special, Chill....x

[Ken4155]

Someone said in an earlier post that we are "celebrating" the event. We are not, we are commemorating it, and, from what i can gather, we are doing so because it is the 100th anniversary of the declaration of war.

[Baldric]

2WW's 1 WC seems to be what we're good at, lets celebrate!