First world war victims remembered
Commemorative services were also held by UK troops in Helmand, Afghanistan
Wednesday, 11, Nov 2009 04:48
By Matthew Champion.
The 15 million people who died in the first world war have been remembered in ceremonies around the world, as Britain held Armistice Day commemorations without any survivors of the war for the first time.
A special service took place at Westminster Abbey to mark the passing of the three last UK-based soldiers who took part in the great war in the last year.
Bill Stone died aged 108 in January, while Henry Allingham, 113, and Harry Patch - the 'last Tommy' -, 111, both died in July.
In Westminster today the Queen laid a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior while Mr Stone's daughter was due to give reading.
As the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said that the generation that fought and died in the war had retained their idealism despite its horrors, a two-minute silence was respected across the UK and the rest of the world.
But plans for a similar 'silence' on micro-blogging website Twitter were interrupted by automated news feeds by several media organisations, including Sky News, which apologised.
Meanwhile, as Gordon Brown, former prime ministers Sir John Major and Baroness Thatcher and 2,000 other people attended the commemorations in Westminster Abbey, Angela Merkel was making history at the Arc de Triomphe.
As she rekindled the flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Ms Merkel became the first German chancellor to attend Armistice Day commemorations in France.
More than one million men, women and children from across the British Empire lost their lives in the first world war.
Commemorations marking it have been given added poignancy by the repatriation of six British soldiers in the last week from Afghanistan.
Two soldiers died as the Queen and Mr Brown led tributes at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday, as the UK death-toll in Afghanistan reached 232.