The Dragon Says: One Hundred Years Ago Today The Guns Fell Silent

Published on: 11 Nov, 2018
Updated on: 14 Nov, 2018

One hundred years ago today the guns fell silent on the Western Front. Around 700,000 men from Britain had been killed of the 17 million total and more maimed.

Here in Guildford, nearly 500 men from the town had lost their lives. That figure might not sound that high until you consider that the town’s population was only about 20,000 and half of them women. So 500 out of 10,000, or one in 20.

But the odds were shorter than that because most of those killed were between 18- and 35-years-old, no more than 30% of the male population bringing the odds down to one in six and that ignores the chance of being wounded.

The loss was borne stoically. Some families, as elsewhere in the country, in the empire as it was then, or in the world, had lost more than one son. Sons who had left home, perhaps naively believing they were off on an adventure, to be cruelly lost, buried in a grave in another country which could be rarely visited by their kin.

Fortunately, most of us alive now have never experienced conflict on that scale and the living memory of the Second World War will soon pass into history.

Perhaps now more than ever it is time to really consider the sacrifice, to consider the willingness or at least the preparedness of our forebears to risk their lives, to give their lives to protect our freedoms, freedoms we can all to easily take for granted.

In our admittedly imperfect country, we are still able to speak freely, vote for who we want to and enjoy a high degree of liberty. Many can’t. Democracy is non-existent, under threat or weak in many parts of the world.

There is no guarantee of peace, or even the relative peace we have enjoyed since 1945. Many international threats exist and some are increasing.

As we pause today to think of the cost of war and thank those who paid the highest price we also owe it to them to consider how we can best protect our younger generations from having to go through the same suffering.

We can only hope that those with the responsibility of leading us and governing us make wise decisions. One obvious lesson from history is that in times of tension just hoping for the best and failing to talk and prepare does not work.

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