Honour them best by learning their lesson

Today marks the last time we can remember the 1918 World War I armistice within a century of its realisation. 

This is the 99th anniversary of the cessation of hostilities on foot of an order from Marshal Ferdinand Foch. “Hostilities will cease on the entire front on November 11, at 11am, French time,” went Foch’s message after he concluded the armistice with a delegation from the defeated German government. It is another tragedy of that terrible conflict that it was believed, for a time at least, to be the war to end all wars. In just over two decades that catastrophe needed the qualification of a Roman numeral — I — to distinguish it from another catastrophe.

In London, Lloyd George assured the Commons that the armistice had ended “the cruelest and most terrible war that has ever scourged mankind,” saying, “I hope we may say that thus, this fateful morning, came to an end all wars.’’