"At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918, representatives of Germany and the Entente signed the Armistice that put an end to World War I, the deadliest conflict in world history up to that moment.
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| Death and destruction everywhere |
The four years of The Great War-as it was called then- saw unprecedented levels of destruction and violence, thanks to trench warfare and to the introduction of modern weaponry such as machine guns, tanks and chemical weapons. By the time this war ended, 9 million soldiers had been killed and 21 million were wounded. The world was never going to be the same!!!!!
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| Chemical weapons started to be used in World War I |
To commemorate that date and remember the members of the armed forces who died in that war, the Commonwealth countries started to observe Remembrance Day, as early as November 1919, only one year after the Armistice had been signed.
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| World War I devastated large areas of Europe |
Remembrance Day is also called Poppy Day since the red remembrance poppy has become a familiar emblem of this day due to the poem "In Flanders Fields". Poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their brilliant red colour being a symbol of the blood spilled in the war.
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| Poppies blossom across Flanders fields |
"In Flanders Fields" was written by the Canadian physician and Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae in May 1915 after assisting to the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Alexis Helmer. It is one of the most popular and most quoted poems from the war.
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| This poem is the origin of Poppy Day |
WAR POETS
This was not the only case in which poetry was intensely and dramatically connected to World War I. For the first time, an important number of English poets were soldiers, writing about their experiences of war. A number of them died on the battlefield, most famously Rupert Brooke, Edward Thomas, Isaac Rosenberg or Wilfred Owen. Others survived but were deeply influenced by their experiences, which were reflected in their poetry.
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| Europe is full of World War I cemeteries |
To end with, we want to leave here a poem by Wilfred Owen, "Anthem For The Doomed Youth". We think it is the best possible way to show the horror, the cruelty and the brutality of war.
And as Commonwealth citizens like to say every November 11, on Remembrance Day: "We Shall Not Forget You".
Don´t miss the marvellous song "Remembrance Day" by Mark Knopfler: "We will remember them, we will remember them"
"Remembrance day" by Mark Knopfler
