Surely something that should be forgotten.

What people seem to learn from history and past successes and failures appears to zero into the realms of minus something as history can be re written as can be seen from the UK's treatment of the memory of Jimmy Savile's contribution. For me a character I knew little of as I watch as little TV as possible. And did not watch TV at all during JS's main TV career. But I now actually admire him as I seek the historial evidence that is not tainted. He did have a sense of enjoying life to the end and good on him.
So back to WW1. I read up on it and Germany from time to time and learn more and more about human nature and how crazy we are as people. Also, one great lessons is leaders from all sides of a war do not have a clue to what they are really on about. No real long term plan or ideal (Some exceptions Hitler for one had clearly detailed his ideal and plan many years before he embarked on them). Certainly in the case of WW1 it happened. And the most amazing thing the media, history books or whatever one wants to call them. They want to blame one man for starting it. And it is not the Kaiser of Germany but Gavrilo Princip an assasin who shot dead Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.
A lot could be learnt from history and many modern errors avoided. And positive advancement acheived. So yes I personally think if we as individuals and our educators together use the thinking part of us to learn it will be of great value. But if we allow ourselves to be spoon fed and educators do not endeavour with all they have to get us to think for ourselves then WW1 best forgotten.

It's not being 'celebrated'.

Commemoration, not celebration...............

It is the era of commemoration at the moment.......I just commemorated last weeks fried egg breakfast....with another one this week

We are not

Hardly a celebration, from the events I have seen on television, they are services of remembrance.
It is important to remember, not only the millions of young people killed during the 1st World War, but the stupidity of the politics and circumstances that allowed it to happen.
We should remember

Remembering seems to be the buzz word,not celebrating.
We owe it to all those who lost lives or suffered to acknowledge their sacrifice.

Everyone seems to be picking me up on that word - not celebrating; remembering. Fair enough.

It may well be the case that the motivations behind this are "commemarative". Commemoration is good, as is Remembrance I agree with them 100%. Once you forget something it becomes much more likely to happen again. The trouble with this "commemoration" is that it conflates "sacrifice", "heroism" and "tragedy". The end result {or at least the one I'm hearing} is tainted by a good bit of nationalism and a great deal of militarism. I carry a respect for those on all sides cast into the folly and barbed wire of 1914 every day of my life. I don't need the Armed Services, the Royal Family and the Archbishop of Canterbury, all of whose offices played such a roll in hastening their deaths, to remember them. Therefore I believe I am with you, Mr. King. Call it what you like, nearly everything I've heard so far of ths "commemoration" has brought only one word to my mind. And that word is "glorification". I'm avoiding the rest of the carnival for much the same reason as I've walked away in toto from buying Poppies.
I'll remember those deaths in silence, as I do every year, for one minute in November. Quietly and without hymns or platitudes.

There's just something about war I dislike so much on every level. The word reeks of failure, stupidity, greed, nastiness, nationalism, borders and death - everything I loathe about humanity. I don't even like or admire people who kill others because somebody tells them to. But, then again, whilst opposing killing I'm aware sometimes it's necessary. I'm about to read my Father's war diary (Second World War) about being captured by the Nazis and escaping. So, whilst everything inside me shudders about war, I can understand the other side.

Locked Out wrote:
I don't need the Armed Services, the Royal Family and the Archbishop of Canterbury, all of whose offices played such a roll in hastening their deaths, to remember them.

Remembrance, eh ?

Have they ALL forgotten that it was that bloody family (falling out with their cousin the Kaiser) that lead to the war?


Just seen the "Royals" poncing about on the news .... has everyone forgotten that they had to change their name (to Windsor) DURING the war (so as not to sound quite so German?)

Its the way these things go on and on and on that makes me want to ignore them completely.

They have been "plugging" this for months .... tonight we have WW! from the Battlefields ... then WW1 from Westminster Abbey ... and to precede them all we have a new series ... Great WW1 Railways Journeys with Michael Portillo ! (I fully expect a WW1 Gardeners World - to show us how to grow poppies too).

It as if the BBC must throw itself wholeheartedly in every "event" - and always have "an event" to focus on .... World Cups ... followed by Wimbledon ... followed by something in Glasgow ... now a World War !

It does worry me that I seem to be in general agreement with both LO and ITK...but

Anyway both my parents were in WW2,both Grandfathers served in active combat in the Great War.I even worked alongside the same Ukraine military in days yore that are now killing their fellow countrymen for daring to oppose the undemocratic removal of their President.

A military is a necessary evil.Horrifying that we spend so much GDP on things made to kill,but if we don't the guy round the corner will reap the rewards at our expense.

In my own limited view I see the poppy as a way of remembering those taken from us in two world wars.Those maimed and disfigured in the Great War actually made them,and earned a small wage to help them survive.Great idea,until those with other agendas hijacked the idea for their own publicity.
Every year near the 11th November I try to visit either the Military cemetery in De Panne,or if in Ukraine the very moving Wall of Remembrance in Kamyanets-Podilskiy. The small but compact multi-national one on the Belgium border,or the sheer size of the carnage illustrated around a T-34 on a plinth.

We still haven't learnt,and with such a growing world population I do fear more wars fighting over dwindling resources.

37 million casualties - and all you can moan about is the BBC reporting on one of the largest conflicts in human history.

Where so many never returned. And why their names are on monuments in every town in Britain.

Because they have no graves. Every year, these brave men and women are remembered - at services all over the UK.

Alas, not by you.....

And I'm not sure they were "brave". Is it brave to obey orders to kill someone? Whether you believe they are coming from a fine, decent upholder of goodness and protector of innocents or, like the Ripper and Levi Belfield, from God ordering you to kill hookers or innocent girls. Is it brave to obey and to kill? That is the dilemma.

Locked Out writes well.....its a position I feel as well, I have only just realised having read it though........thanks for putting it into context for me.............

And one other comment to make : Society - it changes

Back then, the class system existed, officers were Gents, factory workers had no social media, just newspapers (pre radio), everyone knew their place and questioned less as a society (obviously quakers, suffrage, labour movement, communists were all trying to find a voice back then, but were not mainstream).....so the recruitment system worked well in the first few years, because nobody questioned.......but when the gents die, when the factory friends die and when the political vacuum back home is taken up by the lesser voices mentioned above...........society changed

Society is still chnaging for good or bad

Oh dear JK, you are doing exactly what you criticise others for doing - applying today's different moral attitude to historical events.
In 1914 these young men 'did their duty' and did it bravely and selfishly.
If the same circumstances arose today, then yes - more questions should be asked, 'following orders' is not so acceptable.

Don't agree Gnomo; the principle applies on a timeless basis be it The Peasant's Revolt or Syria/Ukraine/Gaza today - should people kill other people for the silliest and most trivial of reasons? I can't even remember what WW! was about. There was no token media "baddie" like Hitler. If you are ordered "go and kill people" are you brave or wicked if you obey?

I find it very hard to accept "good killing" over "bad killing". Are terrorists obeying the word of "God" (as passed on by loony preachers) any worse than terrorists killing pro or anti Russian Ukrainians? I cannot find it acceptable that one set of Syrians is right and the other wrong. Just because we are British and they were Germans at the time does not justify us - or them - from killing people.

I'm not a pacifist but I find obeying the order to kill very suspect.

I'm still trying to work out why they invaded Turkey.

Gnomo wrote:
In 1914 these young men 'did their duty' and did it bravely and selfishly.

If you are talking about bravery - the really brave ones were the ones who refused to fight !

Most of the time they were stretcher-bearers, under-fire (with no defence).

The ultimate selfless act (unlike the sheep !)

Turkey? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_Campaign

Churchill loved the 'grand scheme'.....but seldom was able to pull them off.......