Britian goes to War

Today marks the centenary of the entry of Great Britain's entry into the Great War of 1914-1918.  An  event nearly nobody alive remember or took part in but one that will always be etched in history as something that changed the world in so many ways. It was just a shame the fruitlessness of war as proved in this conflict was never really learned and even today we see so many conflicts and many of them pointless. All we have today is the history of the time and the people that fought and died and fade photographs of the time like those below.

The facts from the war are truly horrific in February 1916 One and a half million men died in the battle of Verdun, that was over eight percent of the total number of lives lost in the war in one single month, it was worse than the whole of the Battle of the Somme when 1.3 million died. The average life expectancy of a machine gunner under fire could be measured in minutes and the average life pilot once he was sent to the front was three to four weeks.  In total some seventeen million people died. The waste of human life was truly epic proportions and involved nations across the globe. 

Every town and village in the Britain was effected by the war. Even in the house I live in today was once home to one of the men that left his family and went away to war only to die frighting for his country. He is commemorated on the village war memorial by the church and remembered in book of war dead in the church.

It is right that we teach our children the pointless of war and try and keep Europe strong and united to avoid conflicts in the feature, because by being united we have unity and from that comes peace. At 2200 hours we will be turning the lights out for an hour and lighting a candle to remember all those that died for a war that changed the world and still impacts on the world today.