COMMENTARY: Remembering greatest sacrifice of all

  • Published
  • By Gina Randall
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  On June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, a Serb nationalist assassinated Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Austria-Hungary held Serbia accountable for the murder, and because Europe was linked by a series of diplomatic alliances - Austria-Hungary and Germany (Central Powers) and The Triple Entente/Allied Forces of Great Britain, France and Russia - the affair escalated into full-scale war.

It's impossible to imagine the fear in the hearts of men at the time. Conscription during World War I began when the British government passed the Military Service Act in 1916. The act specified that single men aged 18 to 41 years old were liable to be called up for military service unless they were medically unfit, ministers of a religion or were in occupations essential to wartime efforts, according to Parliamentary archives.

With the start of the war, there was perhaps hope in the hearts of the people. Hope that the war could be won and a better Europe would emerge.

"We shall march through terror to triumph ... And we shall win," said David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister and leader of a wartime coalition, in a speech Sept. 19, 1914.
But as the war went on, many British people -- with sons, fathers and brothers on the front line felt only despair. Not only was warfare conducted on land and sea, but in January 1915, London witnessed its first attack from the air as bombs were dropped from the German airships, according to Liddell Hart, the author of "A History of the World War 1914-1918."

Life for those left behind to keep the homeland functioning was hard with the bomb threats, but the life of those fighting was unbearable. Throughout the war, millions of soldiers experienced and endured the horrors of trench warfare. Millions of rats infested the trenches; lice were a never-ending problem, breeding in the seams of filthy clothing and causing men to itch unceasingly; patrols would often be sent out into "No Man's Land" and death was a constant companion to those serving, even when no raid or attack was launched or defended against.

The human cost of the war was catastrophic. More than 9 million soldiers had been killed by the end of World War I. Twenty-one million had been wounded with more than one million of those casualties resulting from the Battle of the Somme, according to J. Llewellyn, author of "The Human Cost of War."

But at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, all those affected by the war could slowly start putting their lives back together because the representatives of Germany and the Triple Entente signed an armistice. Life would never be the same, but the worst was over.

World War I officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles June 28, 1919, but Nov. 11 is typically the day people remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty. In the U.K., Remembrance Day is observed on and around Nov. 11 each year. Initially, the day was instituted to specifically recall the end of hostilities of World War I, but today the day honors fallen service members from all military engagements, according to the Peace Pledge Union project about Remembrance Day.

As a symbol for this day, British people often wear a poppy on their clothing, which represents the poppies that bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders, Belgium, in World War I. Some people believe the poppy was nature's way of putting something beautiful where something so horrific took place, according to www.ww1battlefields.co.uk.

The brilliant red of the poppy is also a symbol for the blood spilt in war.

In addition, throughout the U.K. every year, on the first minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, streets and homes go silent.

"The first stroke of eleven produced a magical effect," stated in the Nov. 12, 1919, report published in the Manchester Guardian. "It was a silence which was almost pain ... and the spirit of memory brooded over it all."

That one minute out of the day is set aside to think of those who made the ultimate sacrifice. It's a time to think of those lost and what they gave up for the freedom of their nation. A freedom they had cut short, but one they preserved for their children and their children's children.