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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Remembrance in the future


Muerrisch

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Given that few people now give a moment's thought to Waterloo, 99 years before the Great War [except as a rail terminus],

then in 100 years' time, so also the Great War.

That is not necessarily a bad thing. 

My belief is that tomorrow 11th November 2018 will grant national "closure" ..... the Great War industry will have run its course, and the wheel will turn turn turn.

Not necessarily a bad thing except for vested interests and fanatics.

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I do hope that the centenary is not the end, either of remembrance, nor or research and debate. Undoubtedly there will be less media attention than has happened in the sporadic frenzies of the centenary, and maybe over the next year or two tour companies will find that they have to scale back a little, but I do hope that we can sustain interestboth out of respect for the generations that served, and to help us all understand. Pious thouhghts maybe, but there is still mych to learn.

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I agree, apart from the fact that soldiers and civilians were killed on the battlefields in France and Belgium for years after the Armistice, the Great War continued to be fought all over the World and established such a momentous point of social change that it should be remembered for another 100 years.

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Thank you all for the contributions.

Here is another thought on Armistice Day.

In our life time [except for youngsters] the Cold War, and the winning of it, is scarcely commemorated or celebrated. Not a victory against Soviet Russia in lives [although many were lost on Exercise] but in Treasure, and in the ceaseless vigilance and much discomfort of our armed forces.

I was a very insignificant Cold War Warrior: no medals, just a 41 year career of which only the last seven were not lived under the shadow of WW III. Constant disruption for families, Alerts, Exercises, Alarms, Excursions. The Peace we enjoy was not only won for us by our great grandfathers, grandfathers and fathers and their spouses, it was won in the very recent past.

 

Will the fall of the Berlin Wall, a massive massive victory in our time, be researched and celebrated in 2089?

 

Spare a thought for the Cold War Warriors at 1100.

 

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I think that Remembrance Day will become a wider day of remembrance, where those who died in all wars are remembered, rather than being WW1-specific.

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As a child I remember watching the RBL Festival of Remembrance and seeing veterans of the Boer War. My father remembered the deaths of the last survivors of the Crimea. I have no direct memories of any of those men, so I don't "remember them", but I haven't forgotten them either.

 

We will always remember the Great War, because every year we will still gather at the memorials that were built to honour it's dead. Even if they have now come to stand as symbolic of all those lost in any conflict since, the curious amongst us will always point to the lists of their names and ask about them. We have well over 100 memorials to the dead of the Great War within a ten mile radius of Chesterfield, and I guess that this is mirrored everywhere else in the country.

 

The burden of keeping the memory alive, now the media circus will focus its attention elsewhere, falls on us. No bad thing really, given their frequently ill informed and amateur approach. Many of us have moaned about that, its time to rejoice now, because they will no longer be a distraction.

 

Mike

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To date I have taken three Remembrance Services with one more to go this evening. The thing that has struck me at each if them is the presence of young children. By young I mean around 10. Two of the young children were wearing relatives' Great War medals and we were able to stand and chat about what they were, and their significnace. This morning I was talking to a child of that age  who was wearing her poppy. I asked her the significance of the poppy and she gave me a very well informed answer. I don't think I was that well informed about WW1 at that age, even though when I was 10 it had only been over for 40 years and there were loads of veterans about. 

 

No, to sum up I think Remembrance will continue and that the Great War will still be a significant part of it for some time to come. 

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11 hours ago, Ken Lees said:

I disagree. Was Waterloo ever as big as the Great War in the national consciousness? Or in scale? 

No, because like most wars in past centuries, it did not touch the lives of the vast majority of those at home. It was also a campaign which only lasted three days, albeit as the conclusion of twenty years of war.

 

Commemorations of the past week will have reminded everyone about the events of 5 November 1605, and the fruits of the events of 1688 to 1690 in Ireland still leave deep scars across the province. Even what we know of Agincourt is largely influenced by a play written about two hundred years after the battle.

 

Ron

 

 

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55 minutes ago, keithfazzani said:

To date I have taken three Remembrance Services with one more to go this evening. The thing that has struck me at each if them is the presence of young children. By young I mean around 10. Two of the young children were wearing relatives' Great War medals and we were able to stand and chat about what they were, and their significnace. This morning I was talking to a child of that age  who was wearing her poppy. I asked her the significance of the poppy and she gave me a very well informed answer. I don't think I was that well informed about WW1 at that age, even though when I was 10 it had only been over for 40 years and there were loads of veterans about. 

 

No, to sum up I think Remembrance will continue and that the Great War will still be a significant part of it for some time to come. 

 

We had a very similar experience on our return from observing the silence at the graves of my uncle, great uncle and my dad's best mate. We chanced upon young Ryan who lives up the street, he's 11 I think and had poppies all over his bike. When we asked the significance he told us that his great great grandfather had been a stoker on the Lusitania but had survived despite not being able to swim. He then described in detail what had happened to him (his ggg had been on his day off and had grabbed on to an upturned lifeboat), and explained how the ship had sunk. Ryan is a very likeable and smart kid but I was really impressed by his knowledge.

 

Pete.

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My youngest son (24) spent his early years visiting the battlefields, he was 6 weeks old when he went first, and 16 when he last visited. Yesterday, he announced that him and a friend were planning a battlefield visit for next year. Both sons grew up around it and they still remember.

 

Michelle 

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I think perhaps Remembrance in the future might show a slow shift in focus to WW2, or to Remembrance in general.

But at the same time, the WW1 meaning will never be lost.

 

On the Waterloo thing, it's not really a like for like comparison.

The Napoleonic Wars in totality (20+ years) can certainly be thought of as a "world" war.

You could probably make a list of commemorations of that war too, from Waterloo Station, Trafalgar Square and Maida Vale to the sphinx motif on many regimental cap badges.

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At least now those of us interested in the Great  Wr and remembereing lost relatives and all the others will not have to put up with tv and newspapers  giving us misleading info. My local paper did a few articles on local men who lost their lives which were quite interesting.I amsurprised that everything in the media was focused mainly on those who lost their lives and not as well for those who suffered life changing injuries, 

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Does distance amplify interest ?

 

I reckon it might.

 

Memories of the 50th anniversary in 1968 remain clear in my mind : there was a lot going on to distract us...Prague Spring ; Tet Offensive ; assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King ; student riots in Paris ; Black Power salute at the Mexico Olympics,not to mention David Hemmery winning his Gold medal there.  De Gaulle saying “ non” .  I bet I’ve forgotten things.

 

And then there was the 50th anniversary of the Armistice .  That didn’t count for much, did it ?

 

I suppose a fiftieth doesn’t match the power of a centennial ; but even allowing for that, I get the strong impression that there is a profound and abiding interest in the Great War that has increased rather than diminished.  The passing of a generation within the last decade or two has been accompanied by the miracle of the internet and all its impact on media.  No, the years do not condemn.

 

Phil

 

 

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I had a rare war related conversation with my better half this evening about the fact that the Crimean and South Africa war dead are largely forgotten. Considering they left huge numbers of loved ones behind, I remain puzzled by this.

 

Dave

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Many people still alive have grandparents who experienced the Great War - my mother's father was at Gallipoli - and many will have heard recollections (perhaps at second hand) and been given memorabilia, including medals. And it is very easy to research those who served.

 

My father's family has an unusual surname that makes it easy to research, but I've never bothered to do so - though I have glanced at websites that summarise the family history. I've never bothered to see if I had any ancestors who served in the Crimean and Boer Wars, though I've just Googled to remind myself that my great-grandfather was appointed colonel of an Irish militia regiment at the time of the latter, but he died ten years before I was born. So I feel little connection.

 

How many of us - not least those with a less easy trail to follow back - know much about our great-grandparents?

 

Moonraker

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The centenary of the US Civil War, if anything, increased interest in it through to the present day.

 

As regards the WWI 'industry', to put it at its crudest, I see no real reason for it to diminish notably and I would anticipate that it would return to the levels immediately prior to the centenary years, possibly a little greater. Factors that will work in its favour are, e.g.: generally static lines for most of the war; although over a great length there was not great depth for most of it; all the infrastructure of the war, both pre and during the centenary years in terms of museums, memorials and information plaques; the huge growth industry in interest in 'ancestors' and the readily available tools for researchers; for the UK, which seems to have the greatest interest in the war, relatively easy access for schools (which I doubt will change very much after initial fun and games post Brexit, however that pans out); the density of CWGC cemeteries (and I cannot see those disappearing anytime soon); the momentous consequences of the War to our present situation ... In short, in so far as crystal ball gazing is anything much more than that, the interest will, I am pretty sure, remain.

 

Remembrance on 11 November, per se, has evolved in any case - the end of the Great War is symbolic for the subsequent conflicts: after all, look at the parade of veterans after the service element has ended.

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1 hour ago, depaor01 said:

I had a rare war related conversation with my better half this evening about the fact that the Crimean and South Africa war dead are largely forgotten. Considering they left huge numbers of loved ones behind, I remain puzzled by this.

 

Dave

 

Dave,

 

Doesn’t the answer lie in those very numbers ?

 

The first day of the Somme , alone, took as many British lives as the entirety of either the Crimean or the Boer Wars.

 

There are names of streets that evoke the Crimea : Inkerman Place, Balaclava Avenue ; and the Kop at Liverpool FC will live as testimony to the impact of a battle from the South African War.  So association has not been eradicated. But twenty thousand deaths will not register on the national conscience as three quarters of a million will.

 

Phil

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30 minutes ago, phil andrade said:

 

Dave,

 

Doesn’t the answer lie in those very numbers ?

 

The first day of the Somme , alone, took as many British lives as the entirety of either the Crimean or the Boer Wars.

 

There are names of streets that evoke the Crimea : Inkerman Place, Balaclava Avenue ; and the Kop at Liverpool FC will live as testimony to the impact of a battle from the South African War.  So association has not been eradicated. But twenty thousand deaths will not register on the national conscience as three quarters of a million will.

 

Phil

Can't argue with that. We have the Fusiliers Gate and similar street names in Dublin.

At the same time, there are no lines of military remembering on the appropriate dates and commemorating men who also made the ultimate sacrifice. 

I wonder, as others do here, if time will erase the events of 100 years ago.

Dave

Edited by depaor01
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I’m on a mailing list for a German motorcycle clothing retailer,

apparently today is ‘singles’ day - 11% off everything.  is this the future?

 

Ken

 

 

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The Crimea and South Africa are either so far away or inaccessible; Gallipoli is a still a realistic distance, possesses and extraordinary character in a haunting landscape and retains a resonance that is not found, for example, with the East Africa campaign. In Gallipoli's case, of course, it has the special significance for Australia and New Zealand. The numbers involved in the nineteenth century wars were so much smaller or the combat much less intense (i.e. South Africa). There is also what, for a better term, could be called the 'national' outlook; the British and the Dominions/Commonwealth have a different approach to, say, the French and the Belgians. Finally, the records for WWI are so much better than for these earlier conflicts.

 

The key to the 'longevity' of WWI, I am pretty sure, will be the mass of records that are available at so many levels, the CWGC cemeteries, the memorials, the relatively small land area on the Western Front, the ease of modern travel, the plethora of good guides and signage and, to repeat myself from an earlier post, the largely static nature of the war. I cannot see things returning to the situation when I first went 'over there' in 1968, when I had the Newfoundland Memorial site at BH to myself (and my father) for more or less the whole of sunny day in August; or ambling through Plugstreet Wood with not a soul around. I am not sure how many of us recall just how devoid of visitors the WF was until almost the end of the 70s.

 

The difference in national 'interest' is perhaps best shown in the case of the USA, whose WWI battlefields have such few visitors from there, even allowing for the distance involved and the cultural differences between the USA and Europe (let alone France and Belgium). You can be reasonably confident when visiting the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery in Romagne, which after all is the second biggest USA cemetery in the world, with some 15,000 burials - only smaller by several hundred than one in the Philippines, outside the United States and not find any American visitors at all on any given day, summer or winter, unless on a coach tour.

 

We shall need to revisit this in ten years time to get the answer ....

Edited by nigelcave
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6 hours ago, nigelcave said:

I am not sure how many of us recall just how devoid of visitors the WF was until almost the end of the 70s.

 

..

 

Not half! I'd say 'into the early 80's' - the first time I took my wife over (1984) it was still pretty-well deserted in all but the most popular areas, and the Menin Gate, even then, wasn't anywhere near the bear garden it is now.

 

My contribution to the discussion? I can't see it ending any time soon, for all the reasons noted above. The massive increase in genealogy alone is going to keep the industry going.

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Nigel,

 

You make a very good point about the phenomenal interest in the American Civil War.  The Centennial of that is very much in my memory , because it was contemporaneous with the fiftieth of the Great War, and my interest in the two conflicts was nurtured at the same time. The ACW centennial ran its course, sustained and to a significant degree inflated by the Civil Rights Movement which was conflated with it, for obvious reasons.  Far from diminishing , the interest in - and knowledge about - the ACW has boomed, and is more than flourishing at the moment.  While I allude to American people , there’s more than a passing interest in it here, too. If this is true for the war of 1861-65, then I would suggest that it’s going to be true for 1914-18. 

 

Phil

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