12 THE ARMIDALE EXPRESS, Friday, November 8, 2013 www.armidaleexpress.com.au
Nation stops to remember
Gatherings across country
� World War I began whenBritain and Germany went to warin August, 1914, and ended at the11th hour of the 11th day of the11th month in 1918 with Germanysigning an armistice to end thefighting on the Western Front.
� Since that time Australianforces have been involved inWorld War II (1939–45), theOccupation of Japan (1946–51),Korean War (1950–53), MalayanEmergency (1950–60),Indonesian Confrontation(1963–66), Vietnam War(1962–75), Iraq: the First Gulf War(1990–91), Afghanistan(2001–2013), Iraq: the SecondGulf War (2003–09) and variouspeacekeeping missions.
� Red poppies are worn onRemembrance Day to rememberthose who died during war.Poppies were among the firstplants that came from thebattlefields of northern Franceand Belgium during World War I.Some people believed thepopular myth that poppies wererich in their redness becausethey blossomed from groundsthat were saturated with soldiers’blood.
� The first Armistice Day washeld at Buckingham Palace,commencing with King George Vhosting a banquet in honour ofthe French president on theevening of November 10, 1919.The official ceremony was in thegrounds of Buckingham Palacethe following morning.
� Remembrance Day extendsbeyond Australia and Britain withmany Commonwealth countriesobserving and commemoratingthe day. Other countries torecognise the day include:Canada, South Africa, Barbados,St Lucia, Bermuda, India andKenya, Mauritius.
� Non-Commonwealth countriesthat honour the day includeFrance, Belgium, Germany, HongKong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, TheNetherlands, Poland and theUnited States.
FAST FACTS
ON the 11th hour of the 11th day ofthe 11th month in 1918, after fouryears of bloody battle, World War Icame to an end.
More than 60,000 Australiansoldiers had lost their lives.
Each year, Australians stop toobserve a minute’s silence onRemembrance Day to honour thememory of the fallen.
Whether it be at one of the manyRemembrance Day services, in theworkplace, at home or in theclassroom, it is an important time ofreflection.
But Remembrance Day goesbeyond the anniversary of the end ofWorld War I.
It is a day to remember allAustralians who served and died in allwars, conflicts and peacekeeping
operations. On Remembrance Day,ceremonies will be held in towns andcities across the nation toacknowledge those who havecourageously fought for Australia’sfreedom.
The national Remembrance DayCeremony at the Australian WarMemorial in Canberra will include aformal wreathlaying and will beattended by many high leveldignitaries and diplomats.
Australian’s Federation Guard andthe Band of the Royal Military Collegewill be on parade.
The ceremony will run from10.15am until about noon.
Visitors will be invited to lay apoppy on the tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier after theceremony.
November 11, 1918, marks the daythe guns of the Western Front fellsilent. The allied armies had driven
the German invaders back, havinginflicted heavy defeats upon them overthe preceding four months.
In November, the Germans called for anarmistice, or suspension of fighting, inorder to secure a peace settlement.
They accepted the allied terms ofunconditional surrender.
The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11thmonth attained a special significance in thepost-war years.
The moment when hostilities ceased onthe Western Front became universallyassociated with the remembrance of thosewho had died in the war.
This first modern world conflict hadbrought about the mobilisation of morethan 70 million people and left between 9and 13 million dead, perhaps as many asone-third of them with no known grave.
The allied nations chose this day andtime for the commemoration of their wardead.
On the first anniversary of the armisticein 1919, two minutes' silence was institutedas part of the main commemorativeceremony at the new Cenotaph in London.
The silence was proposed by Australianjournalist Edward Honey, who was workingin Fleet Street.
At about the same time, a South Africanstatesman made a similar proposal to theBritish Cabinet, which endorsed it.
King George V personally requested allthe people of the British Empire to suspendnormal activities for two minutes on thehour of the armistice “which stayed theworldwide carnage of the four precedingyears and marked the victory of Right andFreedom”.
The two minutes' silence was popularlyadopted and it became a central feature ofcommemorations on Armistice Day.
On the second anniversary of thearmistice in 1920 the commemoration wasgiven added significance when it became afuneral, with the return of the remains of an
unknown soldier from the battlefields of theWestern Front.
Unknown soldiers were interred with fullmilitary honours in Westminster Abbey inLondon and at the Arc de Triumph in Paris.
The entombment in London attractedover one million people within a week topay their respects at the unknown soldier'stomb.
Most other allied nations adopted thetradition of entombing unknown soldiersover the following decade.
After the end of the Second World War,the Australian and British governmentschanged the name to Remembrance Day.
Armistice Day was no longer anappropriate title for a day which wouldcommemorate all war dead.
In Australia, on the 75th anniversary ofthe armistice in 1993, Remembrance Dayceremonies again became the focus ofnational attention.
The remains of an unknown Australian
soldier, exhumed from a First World Warmilitary cemetery in France, wereceremonially entombed in the Memorial'sHall of Memory.
Remembrance Day ceremonies wereconducted simultaneously in towns andcities all over the country, culminating atthe moment of burial at 11 am andcoinciding with the traditional two minutes'silence.
This ceremony, which touched a chordacross the Australian nation, re-establishedRemembrance Day as a significant day ofcommemoration.
Four years later, in 1997, Governor-General Sir William Deane issued aproclamation formally declaring November11 to be Remembrance Day, urging allAustralians to observe one minute's silenceat 11am on November 11each year toremember those who died or suffered forAustralia's cause in all wars and armedconflicts.
Remembrance DayNovember 11, 2013
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www.armidaleexpress.com.au THE ARMIDALE EXPRESS, Friday, November 8, 2013 13
Tribute to ourunknown soldier
Words honour all who gave their lives� The original unknown soldier was entombedin Westminster Abbey in London on November11, 1920, two days after being brought fromFrance.
� His body had been selected by General Wyattfrom among four, each draped in the UnionJack. The soldier was assumed to have beenBritish (though he could have been a Canadian,a New Zealander, or even an Australian) but hewas intended to represent all the young men ofthe British Empire killed during the Great War.
� Plans to honour an unknown Australiansoldier were first put forward in the 1920s but itwas not until 1993 that one was at last broughthome.
� To mark the 75th anniversary of the end ofWorld War I, the body of an unknown Australiansoldier was recovered from Adelaide Cemeterynear Villers-Bretonneux in France and trans-ported to Australia .
� After lying in state in King's Hall in OldParliament House, the Unknown AustralianSoldier was interred in the Hall of Memory atthe Australian War Memorial on November 11,1993.
� He was buried with a bayonet and a sprig ofwattle in a Tasmanian blackwood coffin, and soilfrom the Pozières battlefield was scattered inhis tomb.
EXTRACT FROM PAUL KEATING’S EULOGYNOVEMBER 11, 1993
ROAD TO RECOGNITION
We do not know this Australian's name and we never will. We do not know his rank or his
battalion. We do not know where he wasborn, nor precisely how and when hedied.
We do not know where in Australia hehad made his home or when he left it forthe battlefields of Europe.
We do not know his age or hiscircumstances – whether he was fromthe city or the bush; what occupation heleft to become a soldier; what religion, ifhe had a religion; if he was married orsingle.
We do not know who loved him orwhom he loved. If he had children, we donot know who they are. His family is lostto us as he was lost to them.
We will never know who thisAustralian was.
Yet he has always been among thosewhom we have honoured.
We know that he was one of the45,000 Australians who died on theWestern Front.
One of the 416,000 Australians who
volunteered for service in the First WorldWar. One of the 324,000 Australians whoserved overseas in that war and one ofthe 60,000 Australians who died onforeign soil.
One of the 100,000 Australians whohave died in wars this century.
He is all of them. And he is one of us.This Australia and the Australia he
knew are like foreign countries. The tide of events since he died has
been so dramatic, so vast and all-consuming, a world has been createdbeyond the reach of his imagination.
He may have been one of those whobelieved that the Great War would be an
adventure too grand to miss. He mayhave felt that he would never live downthe shame of not going.
But the chances are he went for noother reason than that he believed it washis duty - the duty he owed his countryand his King.
Because the Great War was a mad,brutal, awful struggle, distinguishedmore often than not by military andpolitical incompetence; because thewaste of human life was so terrible thatsome said victory was scarcelydiscernible from defeat; and because thewar which was supposed to end all warsin fact sowed the seeds of a second,even more terrible, war - we might thinkthis Unknown Soldier died in vain.
But, in honouring our war dead, as wealways have and as we do today, wedeclare that this is not true.
For out of the war came a lessonwhich transcended the horror andtragedy and the inexcusable folly.
It was a lesson about ordinary people– and the lesson was that they were notordinary.
Remembrance Day marksthe anniversary of thearmistice which ended
World War I (1914–18). Each year Australians
observe one minute silence at11am on November 11, inmemory of those who died orsuffered in all wars and armedconflicts.
This year is not only the 95thanniversary of the armisticewhich ended World War I, butalso the 20th anniversary of thereinterment of the UnknownAustralian Soldier in theAustralian War Memorial’s Hallof Memory.
To mark the significantoccasion, this year’s nationalRemembrance DayCommemorative Address inCanberra will be delivered byformer Australian PrimeMinister, Paul Keating, whodelivered the poignant eulogy ofthe Unknown Australian Soldierin 1993.
As part of the day’s events,part of Mr Keating's eulogy,which has been immortalised inbronze and attached to thetomb of the unknown soldier,
will be unveiled. BrendanNelson, Australian WarMemorial director and a formerLiberal leader, said heconsidered Mr Keating's eulogyas “one of the most significantspeeches given by anyAustralian prime minister inany era since Federation”.
“I said to Paul Keatingrecently that not only will itstand the test of time, it alreadyhas,” Dr Nelson said.
The remains of an unknownAustralian soldier killed inWorld War I were returned fromFrance in 1993, and buried in atomb within the memorial torepresent all Australians who
have died in wars. One end ofthe tomb reads, “Known UntoGod”, and the other, “Hesymbolises all Australians whohave died in war”.
Mr Keating’s words, whichhave been added to the tomb,are: “We do not know thisAustralian's name, we neverwill” and “He is one of them,and he is all of us”.
At the end of the day’scommemorations, at the LastPost ceremony , Ben Roberts-Smith VC will read that sameeulogy to commemorate theunknown soldier and the102,000 names listed on the Rollof Honour.
PAUL KEATING BEN ROBERTS-SMITHBRENDAN NELSON
Remembrance DayNovember 11, 2013
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LEST WE FORGETREMEMBER WITH US ON MONDAY, 11TH NOVEMBER AT 11.00AM | COMMEMORATING REMEMBRANCE DAY 2013
