The First World War today

More people died in the Second World War than in the war of 1914-1918. The destruction of the Second World War was much greater and the massacres of Jews and ordinary civilians in bombing raids and reprisals showed mankind at its most barbaric. Why is it, then, that the First World War is the one which people think of when they contemplate the horror of war? The poppy as a symbol of suffering comes from the First World War and each year there are ceremonies up and down the country on the nearest Sunday to the day the First World War ended, 11 November.

Perhaps it is because the Second World War is seen as a just war to rid the world of a monstrous evil - Nazism. The First World War seems to have no noble cause; a war started by mistake and fought with pointless fury. The deaths of eight million men, therefore, seem all the more pathetic because they were unnecessary. The "Millions of the Mouthless Dead" of Charles Sorley´s poem have long been silent but the pity of their deaths still speaks to us.

Neil Demarco: Britain and the Great War; Oxford University Press, 1992/2000, page 47