It's the centenary of Armistice Day today.

100 years since the War to End All Wars ended. 10% of New Zealand's population at the time served in the war, in the capture of German Samoa in 1914, the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915, and on both the Palestine and Western Fronts until the end of the war. 18,000 were lost, including my great-grandfather's best friend. I don't know the friend's name, but the two enlisted together in 1917, underage but still sent to the Western Front, serving from September/October 1917 until the end.

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allsfinebime2 · M

And sadly 100 years after the World War One armistice. Mankind still has not learned any lesson from that particular war. Nor from any of the others that came after it.

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allsfinebime2 · M

@drymer I agree. Some lessons absorbed. But so many left unabsorbed.

drymer · 56-60, M

@allsfinebime2 It's a complicated world... Sometimes solutions are tried that backfire... Communism was supposed to create ideal societies of fairness and prosperity to all... Even the attempt to turn Germany into a "backward rural country" after WW1 was considered a "solution" to stop Germany from waging war ever again, a "solution" that also backfired... It's a slow process... The real problem nowadays is that is has become so easy and widespread to twist facts to the point that's hard to figure out what's true and what's not... makes learning lessons extra difficult...
😒

allsfinebime2 · M

@drymer Again, I agree. Then there's the factor that someone always profits while others don't.

SW-User

My grandfather served on the western front. He was gassed at the Somme but survived although he died young in the 1940s of TB possibly exacerbated by the damage his lungs had suffered.

I'm just watching the UK national remembrance service from the Albert Hall.

SW-User

@SW-User I think my great-grandfather may have fought at Passchendaele (?), but I don't know for sure.

I'm watching the memorial service at Auckland War Memorial Museum.

ianR0ckwell · M

My grandfather's brother got gassed while fighting

SW-User

@ianR0ckwell That's awful.

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