Veterans Day

A history lesson on what brought about the Veteran’s Day holiday and its parallels with today’s global situation should give all of us a reason to pause, remember and take action.  We don’t need another holiday to celebrate the end of another war.

In June 1914, a Bosnian Serb assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Then… 

Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.     

Russia came to Serbia's defense. 

Germany, France, Britain and the Ottoman Empire soon joined the war.

Then, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Italy and others joined. 

In the Pacific, New Zealand occupied German Samoa

Australian Forces landed on Germany’s island of New Britain.   

A German cruiser sank a Russian cruiser. 

Japan declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary in what was a land grab. 

German forces attacked South Africa. India supplied large quantities of food, money, ammunition and soldiers to the British.

In early 1917, the United States entered the war on the side of the Allies.

Later in 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power in the Russian October Revolution and the Soviet Union was born.

Millions died.  WW1 led directly to genocide, a pandemic and the rise of the Soviet Union.  A worthless worldwide political body was established in the aftermath.

On November 11, 1918, an armistice was signed and on the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918 and hostilities ceased on the Western Front of World War I.  (On June 28, 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed which formally ended the war.)

November 11th was declared as “Armistice Day” to celebrate the end of the “Great War.”    (It wasn’t yet known as World War 1, since World War 2 was still twenty-one years in the future.)

Commemorations of November 11th were initially focused on honoring the military dead of the First World War and the return to peace. Later, many countries changed the name to include all veterans of their armed services and a few honored their war dead both uniformed and civilian. Most member states of the Commonwealth of Nations adopted the name Remembrance Day.

In 1954, the United States changed the name to ‘All Veterans Day’, later shortened to 'Veterans Day'.  (The United States has a separate holiday, “Memorial Day’, to honor and mourn the U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.) 

Tuesday is the 107th anniversary of the armistice.  Have we learned anything from history?  WW1 started because one person was assassinated and it rapidly grew from there.  Today’s international situation sounds a lot more explosive than just one royal being assassinated.

We need to honor veterans on this Tuesday and the best way to honor these veterans is to be sure that history does not repeat itself.  They sacrificed too much for it to be in vain.