Remembrance Day is observed on 11 November to recall the official end of World War I on that date in 1918; hostilities formally ended "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month" of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice ("at the 11th hour" refers to the passing of the 11th hour, or 11:00 a.m.)
The day was specifically dedicated by King George V as a day of remembrance of members of the armed forces who were killed during World War I.
It was called, rather optimistically as " the war to end all wars". Ask me about it, my great grandfather told me many stories about it when I was a child, and so it became an object of imagination for me.
The soldiers who went and never came back, or came back and carried the terrible memories for life were called "the lost generation".
Perhaps, more than any other war earlier, largely due to advancements in weapons technologies and the way the war was reported daily to the home front - WW1 poignantly illustrated, the indifferent cruelty and ultimate pointlessness of war.
" I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another. I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring. And all men of my age, here and over there, throughout the whole world see these things; all my generation is experiencing these things with me. What would our fathers do if we suddenly stood up and came before them and proffered our account? What do they expect of us if a time ever comes when the war is over? Through the years our business has been killing; -- it was our first calling in life. Our knowledge of life is limited to death. What will happen afterwards? And what shall come out of us? "
(Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929)
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