A Time to Remember: A Lesson Not to Forget.

I am from and Anglo-German family so in both world wars cousins fought each other on both sides. Today as we remember the staggering losses of  the First World War, we reflect upon the courage, endurance and sacrifice that our forbears set as an example to shine down the ages, the first centenary of which we now celebrate.

But in doing so we must not fudge the reality of history neither must we ignore the lesson. I was brought up and educated by people who had survived the carnage of WWI and whose vivid recollections were a part of almost daily conversation. Not in all cases. Some could barely speak of it. My father, due to an eyesight defect and fluency in three languages, was throughout the war in the Army Intelligence Corps, mostly at Haig’s HQ. His younger brother, my uncle, was eighteen years old when as a young lieutenant in the Royal Scots, he was killed on the Somme. Much of what I learned from my father is not for today, but it does not support the notion that World War One was justified or could not have been avoided.

Unlike World War II, which was a direct outcome of the ill judged and punitive Treaty of Versailles, World War One was not waged against a rampaging Fascist juggernaut bent on conquest, genocide and repression, but rather a quarrel among rivals enjoying the highest standards of prosperity in their history, with much in common and nothing between them to justify the slaughter of millions.

We need to remember that too.