LONDON – To honour its centennial year, countries across the world commemorated the war that ended, then caused, all wars.
Tributes were made to the fallen at World War I memorials, which was then followed by tributes to the over 100 conflicts that originated from the Great War.
“Though they are long passed, our ancestors taught us a valuable lesson of preserving the peace,” said British Prime Minister David Cameron. “We honour our ancestors by trying to solve the conflicts that they started or perpetuated.”
Many at the time had hoped that the 9 million combatants killed in the four years of warfare would stop all future wars in Europe or cause an even deadlier rematch years later.
“Never again would we see industrious killing on such a mass scale,” said historian R.J. Sicklemore of the University of Oxford. “ Except for the Second World War, which was caused by the failure of Treaty of Versailles and the rise of Adolf Hitler. Also, don’t forget the rise of Imperial Japan in Indo-China and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by Britain and France, which provided the groundwork for current conflicts in Palestine, Syria and Iraq.”
“Oh, and the Russian Revolution; that killed millions more.” Professor Sicklemore recounted.
Historians agree that the the First World War would be the last time humanity saw horrendous combat involving aircraft, machine guns, tanks trench warfare, genocide and chemical gas only if all the ensuing conflicts were excluded.
While shaking his head, Sicklemore hoped “that nothing ever like the Great War happens to the world again.”
