Prime Minister to reveal WW1 Centenary Plans

[dannyboy1807]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19904844

David Cameron is set to reveal plans to commemorate the centenary of the start of World War I.

The PM will use a talk in London to underline why young people should be more aware of the sacrifices made by past generations.

It comes as a survey for a think tank suggests 69% of people want Remembrance Day 2014 to be a special national day.

[derekspiers]

According to BBC TV News the announcement is scheduled for approx 2pm today.

[NigelS]

This Click in Today's Telegraph

NigelS

[J Banning]

I did an interview for the BBC last night about this very subject which went out on 5Live's Morning Reports show plus other news slots. Funny that they ask me what I think of it when he hasn't even made the speech!

[ianw]

And I heard a comment from Ian McHenry on "Today" as well.

[George Armstrong Custer]

It would be nice if the official markings of the war's centenaries being planned could include some recognition of what the high cost paid achieved, rather than focusing solely on the cost. In particular the great weight of official commemoration in this country has become traditionally funereal in nature as it concentrates upon the dead. Whilst the commemoration of the dead is quite rightly an area deserving of significance, it does tend to be taken to an extreme which excludes recognition of the hard-won achievement of those many more men and women, who fought and served in various capacities to bring about victory over what was a real and malign threat, and survived. For make no mistake, had Wilhelmine Germany succeeded in gaining hegemony over Europe and access for its High Seas Fleet to the sealanes of the world, then its aim would have been to reduce Great Britain to a second-class power as they had done to France in 1871. The Allied victory in 1918 stopped that, and contemporaries saw that achievement for what it was. The author J M Barrie was about as far from a war-monger as you could get, and was someone who had been personally grievously affected by the loss of life in the war. Yet, during his inaugural speech as Rector of the University of St Andrews in 1922, on the same day that Douglas Haig was installed as Chancellor, Barrie, confessedly terrified of public speaking, said this:

"When Lord Haig was speaking I was remembering, as I daresay you all were, other days, when it was not as a Chancellor that we thought of him; days when he used a phrase about our having our backs to the wall – (which is where I feel my back is at this moment!) I once thought of trying to address you on the theme “If there had been no War,” but a grimmer text would be “If there had been no Haig.” Among the changes, you might have had a Rector at St Andrews with a German accent....."

And more widely, the increasing concentration on a funereally-themed recognition of the dead seemed to edge into the cold any public recognition of those who had equally done their bit but survived and got on with their lives as best they could. The generation who fought and survived the Great War - and who lost their loved ones to it - had a wider agenda than the tone and formal structure of what most of today's official events have evolved into would suggest. Many of them, indeed, felt that elements of 'their' day had been hijacked and squeezed out. It was not the element of religion per se which Great War front line combat veterans such as Charles Carrington blamed for this so much as an element of officialdom within the British Legion. Carrington and his chums had happily gone along with a formal element on the early Armistice Days, but considered that this formal remembrance of their chums who didn't make it ought to be followed by a celebratory element in recognition of what they and their mates had achieved and won in such a hard fought and costly manner. That element has been entirely lost today, of course, and many would be surprised to learn that it had ever existed. But it did. Here's Carrington:

"Nothing could have been more decorous than the British Legion when it had united the various groups; too decorous as some old swaddies thought. The first Armistice Day had been a carnival; the second Armistice Day, after its solemn pause at the Two Minutes' Silence which King George V was believed to have initiated, was a day of festivity again. For some years I was one of a group of friends who met, every Armistice Day, at the Cafe Royal for no end of a party, until we began to find ourselves out of key with the new age. Imperceptibly, the Feast-Day became a Fast-Day and one could hardly go brawling on the Sabbath. The do-gooders captured the Armistice, and the British Legion seemed to make its principal outing a day of mourning. To march to the Cenotaph was too much like attending one's own funeral, and I know many old soldiers who found it increasingly discomforting, year by year. We preferred our reunions in private with no pacifist propaganda."

As I say, it would be nice if voices like Carrington's could also be given heed by those planning the centenary events - particularly those to mark the greatest series of victories in the history of the British Army, which were achieved between August - November 1918.

[Carmania]

Excellent post GAC!

[KGB]

It was on the BBC 1 news at 1pm.

[Anthony Pigott]

From the Beeb:

"More than £50m has been allocated for a "historic" commemoration of the centenary of the start of World War I, David Cameron has announced.

Speaking at the Imperial War Museum, the prime minister said he wanted a truly national commemoration.

He also announced an advisory board which includes Culture Secretary Maria Miller, to oversee the events.

It comes as a survey for a think tank suggests 69% of people want Remembrance Day 2014 to be a special national day."

BTW, absolutely agree with you, GAC.

Anthony

[centurion]

I'd agree with GAC (a rare occasion ) but go a mite further. We need to consider not just Germany's plans for a post victory world (Large parts of Eastern Europe annexed, parts of France annexed, Belgium and Luxemburg reduced to client states etc but the plans of the Central Powers as a whole. Expansion by the KuK into Eastern Europe, annexation of Serbia by the KuK, establishment of KuK colonies in North Africa and so on.

[MacNeil]

Excellent comments, GAC, I agree whole heartedly.

I was reminded of a comment by a WW2 German veteran of Stalingrad, who got out by plane before the end. He likened that day to being re-born. The day he was given a new chance at life. He looked on it as his second birthday. I'd imagine many in 1918 would understand that feeling. They had survived a terrible and bloody war and they were alive. They had a new chance at life. It was their re-birthday. What does one do on your birthday? One celebrates life, with wine and song and friends.

Here's hoping the commemorations don't become a four year long dirge.

[NigelS]

Said to be a transcript of Cameron's speech at the IWM in full Click

NigelS

[KGB]

Additionally commemorations of Gallipoli (2015), Jutland (1916) and Armistice (1918).

[centurion]

Additionally commemorations of Gallipoli (2015), Jutland (1916) and Armistice (1918).

Gosh never realised that Gallipoli went on that long!

[stevem49]

He actually said 200,000 killed on one day on the Somme!

Beeb have 28 July 1914 as war starting - we did not declare war until 4th August.

[centurion]

Technically the BBC is right WW1 began in July. Britain joined it in August (and America in 1917!)

[redbarchetta]

Yes, dominoes started falling on 28th when A-H declares was on Serbia, so guess that is technically when it started (though obviously not a world war at that point, just the start of the Third Balkan War!)

[keithjk]

I notice David Cameron specifically mentioned 1st July 1916 but not, for example, 8th August 1918. I fear the emphasis will be on the failures rather than the successes, something we British seem to excel at.

Keith

[centurion]

By the time of the commemoration we may be doing a re run of an earlier world war http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19907813

[Chris_Baker]

Charles Carrington (as quoted above by GAC) had this absolutely right!

[CROONAERT]

Yes, dominoes started falling on 28th when A-H declares was on Serbia, so guess that is technically when it started (though obviously not a world war at that point, just the start of the Third Balkan War!)

Though I suppose that the world war (as opposed to another Balkan War) could be stated as having begun at the time when it gained the potential to stop being localised and spread globally (in other words, at the time when two great Empires or powers went to war with each other) - 1st August 1914.

Dave

[John-B-Rooks]

"It comes as a survey for a think tank suggests 69% of people want Remembrance Day 2014 to be a special national day."

Because they don't know better? I will be ensuring that my nieces and nephews, especially those of school age, are advised that Remembrance Day commemorates the Armistice at the end and not the outbreak of, the Great War.

In (potential) despair.

Cheer ho

John.

[centurion]

Though I suppose that the world war (as opposed to another Balkan War) could be stated as having begun at the time when it gained the potential to stop being localised and spread globally (in other words, at the time when two great Empires or powers went to war with each other) - 1st August 1914.

Dave

Except that because of the network of existing treaties this was the case when the KuK opened hostilities against Serbia thus triggering the process that brought in Russia and Germany.

[SteveMarsdin]

"It comes as a survey for a think tank suggests 69% of people want Remembrance Day 2014 to be a special national day."

John.

It is worrying that in the planning they're focussing on the end, in the 100th anniversary of the opening year; surely they should work up to that in 2018 as the culmination of a series of special events from 2014 to 2018 ?

Edit 12/10/2012: I note that the official announcement does refer to 2018

[JimSmithson]

George, couldn't you, Pete and anyone else you can cobble together of a similar and reasonably well known disposition, petition Cameron and the like with the sentiments you so eruditely made in your post above. Someone has to put some sense into what I fear will be,as you say, a 4 to 5 year funereal process that will completely miss the point of the real meaning and outcome of the War.

Jim