I know the majority of you guys on here are from the United States, and I know you didn't join the war until 1917, but here in Britain we are currently marking a permanent 4-year long centenary event, commemorating 100 years since the war started. Before I get started, and you guys make a long, hard decision on whether you actually want to read this or not.....I will not accept any form of debate or argument related to any war or any event. Just read the post and give a moment of thought to the men, women and children that lost their lives.
In four short, yet incredibly long years, over 16,560,000 would die and another 21,200,000 were wounded.
"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time", may have remarked to a friend by Foreign Secretary Edward Grey on the eve of the war.
On August 23, 1914, in their first confrontation on European soil since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, four divisions of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), commanded by Sir John French, struggle with the German 1st Army over the 60-foot-wide Mons Canal in Belgium, near the French frontier
After a great retreat by the allies, they start digging in, and trench warfare begins.
Madness.
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Now, for my last few words, I'd like to tell an interesting true story about the Unknown Warrior.
On a November morning, 1920, four bodies are dug up from the mud of the blood-soaked battlefields in France. At midnight, a British General is blindfolded. He rests his hand on one of four wooden coffins. The two officers placed the body in a plain coffin and sealed it. The other bodies were then taken away for reburial.
The following morning, two undertakers entered the castle library and placed the coffin into a casket of the oak timbers of trees. A medieval crusader's sword chosen by the king personally from the Royal Collection was affixed to the top and surmounted by an iron shield bearing the inscription 'A British Warrior who fell in the Great War 1914—1918 for King and country'.
On the morning of 11 November 1920, the chosen coffin was placed onto a gun carriage and drawn by six horses through immense and silent crowds in a full military procession.
The coffin was then buried deep in the sand beneath Westminster Abbey, only a few feet from the entrance, in soil brought from each of the main battlefields. Servicemen from the armed forces stood guard as tens of thousands of mourners filed silently past.
King George V to the right of the coffin, and other members of the Royal Family and military leaders stand by during the burial ceremony.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
If anyone has relatives that fought during the Great War, please feel free to post any information/pictures. Thank you for reading
In four short, yet incredibly long years, over 16,560,000 would die and another 21,200,000 were wounded.
"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time", may have remarked to a friend by Foreign Secretary Edward Grey on the eve of the war.
On August 23, 1914, in their first confrontation on European soil since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, four divisions of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), commanded by Sir John French, struggle with the German 1st Army over the 60-foot-wide Mons Canal in Belgium, near the French frontier
After a great retreat by the allies, they start digging in, and trench warfare begins.
Madness.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Now, for my last few words, I'd like to tell an interesting true story about the Unknown Warrior.
On a November morning, 1920, four bodies are dug up from the mud of the blood-soaked battlefields in France. At midnight, a British General is blindfolded. He rests his hand on one of four wooden coffins. The two officers placed the body in a plain coffin and sealed it. The other bodies were then taken away for reburial.
The following morning, two undertakers entered the castle library and placed the coffin into a casket of the oak timbers of trees. A medieval crusader's sword chosen by the king personally from the Royal Collection was affixed to the top and surmounted by an iron shield bearing the inscription 'A British Warrior who fell in the Great War 1914—1918 for King and country'.
On the morning of 11 November 1920, the chosen coffin was placed onto a gun carriage and drawn by six horses through immense and silent crowds in a full military procession.
The coffin was then buried deep in the sand beneath Westminster Abbey, only a few feet from the entrance, in soil brought from each of the main battlefields. Servicemen from the armed forces stood guard as tens of thousands of mourners filed silently past.
King George V to the right of the coffin, and other members of the Royal Family and military leaders stand by during the burial ceremony.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
If anyone has relatives that fought during the Great War, please feel free to post any information/pictures. Thank you for reading