Faith Education

Remembrance Day 

Dear Lord,

Today, we remember all those who stood for love and truth, 

and thank them for the sacrifice they made for us. 

Thank them so that we can now enjoy peace and learn to love, not fight.

Thank them so that we can now sing and play, and not be scared. 

We pray for other countries where children live in fear, 

where there is war and fighting and many tears. 

Please Lord, help to make things better, and bring peace to all the world. 

Protect all those who try and help to make all people friends again. 

Amen.

The First World War was in its time the most destructive conflict yet experienced by humanity. When it began in August 1914, few imagined the course that it would take, or foresaw its terrible toll.

From a population of just under 5 million, more than 400,000 Australians enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force – the AIF, the force that Australia sent to the war – and more than 330,000 served overseas. For most this meant Gallipoli, the Middle East or the war’s main theatre: the Western Front in France and Belgium.

More than 60,000 Australians lost their lives, a devastating toll for a small country. Yet they were a relative few. Around the world some 10 million military personnel died in what was then called the Great War.

Families and communities everywhere were affected by the enormous loss. When an armistice ended the fighting on 11 November 1918, celebrations in the victorious nations were tempered by grief and sorrow.

In Britain and the countries of her empire, the day’s anniversary became known as Armistice Day. In 1919 and in every year since at 11 am on 11 November, people have paused to remember the dead.

So great had been the loss of life, so devastating had been the destruction, that people hoped, even imagined, that the Great War would be the last war, ‘the war to end war’. But it was not to be.

Two decades after the First World War ended, the world was plunged into a second global  conflict. No longer could Armistice Day remain a day only to remember the dead of the First World War. 

After the Second World War ended in 1945, 11 November became known as

Remembrance Day. The day’s sombre associations have never changed. When we pause at 11 am on 11 November, we reflect on the price that Australia and countries around the world have paid through more than a century of war and conflict that followed the First World War.

We Will Remember Them, Lest We Forget.

Ru Lameijn

Deputy Principal

R.E. Leader