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100 years on

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Britain went to war in Europe 100 years ago today in what became the first world war.

That war brought around 37 million casualties, military and civilian – with over 16 million dead – just under 10 million in the military and just under 7 million civilians. A further 20 million were wounded, many at a level that removed them from normal independent life.

Of the 10 million deaths, the majority were in battle. 6 million were never accounted for – missing presumed dead. 6 million families with unconcluded stories. 2 million died from the diseases that were a lessening but still potent consequence of service in war.

We went to war again in 1939, in which over 72 million died, 23.5 million of which were military deaths and the rest civilian. A quick look at the national breakdowns of these figures is interesting.

These overall figures testify to the fact that our mode of conducting warfare had clearly changed, with civilians the marked and majority collateral damage.

Right now we here are witnessing, from a safe distance,  an even worse weight of damage in a conflict in Gaza that is so primitive, so barbaric in its destruction of life – and largely innocent life, that the conclusion is that we have learned nothing down the centuries.

How did we ever think, in the aftermath of the second world war, that it was acceptable to locate one people to whom the world owed a debt of honour for its persecution – by dislocating another?


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