Armistice Day: UK Remembers Fallen Soldiers

Schools, businesses, and streets fell silent across the United Kingdom Thursday morning as the nation honoured war dead on the 103rd anniversary of armistice day, marking the end of the Great War in 1918.

Britain remembered those who fell in service of the nation Thursday, with many falling silent at eleven o’clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, marking the moment at which hostilities between the British Empire and allies ceased with the Central Powers; predominantly Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The peace that followed was essentially temporary, until it was formalised with the treaty of Versailles in 1919. Even as the treaty formally concluding the Great War was being negotiated, the Western powers threatened Germany and its allies that hostilities would immediately recommence if they refused to accede to the demands made.

This Thursday, many remembrance events that had been suspended due to coronavirus lockdown measures last year resumed. The Duchess of Cornwall, wife of future king Prince Charles attended a ceremony at Westminster Abbey, The Daily Telegraph reports, where she laid a cross.

While Armistice Day remains reasonably widely observed in the United Kingdom, particularly in schools, more broadly attended and remembered is remembrance Sunday, which comes on the nearest weekend to the eleventh. The Royal British Legion, a veteran’s organisation which keeps the memory of those war dead, says the Sunday event is “a national opportunity to remember the service and sacrifice of all those that have defended our freedoms and protected our way of life.”

The event will be marked with parades and wreath-laying. Despite the recent death of her husband the Duke of Edinburgh and questions over her own health — she has recently missed some official business to take rest — the Queen is reportedly firmly intending to attend the Cenotaph parade in Westminster on Sunday, ITV reports.

The British empire made up 16 per cent of the allied military deaths in the Great War, compared to 25 per cent for France and two per cent for the United States. There were over one million British Imperial dead in the conflict.