The Great War continues, more than 100 years later

Yesterday was November 11, the anniversary of the armistice which ended fighting on the Western Front of what was then called the Great War. It’s always an occasion for sad reflection on my part, thinking about the pointlessness of the massive sacrifices of the War, which achieved nothing except to set the scene for worse disasters to come.

But it’s particularly sad in a year when the forces unleashed by the War have come back to cause more death and destruction. In one respect, I have a personal link, as my maternal grandfather served in the Australian Light Horse, which played a leading role in the capture of Beersheba and Gaza in 1917. The ensuing partition of the Ottoman Empire set the stage for a century of conflict, still continuing with the brutal destruction of Gaza today.

Great War cemetery in Gaza, now destroyed by Israeli bombing

The end of the Great War also led to the annulment of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk under which the Soviet Union ceded vast territories, including Ukraine, to Germany. With the defeat of the Germans, the Ukraine Peoples Republic sought independence, but was defeated in the Soviet-Ukraine War a defeat which led, under Stalin’s rule to the genocidal Holodomor famine. The Russian claim to Ukraine is being brutally asserted once again.

For much of the world, the decades following the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 were some of the worst in history. Those times may be returning. The most comforting thought I have is that our parents and grandparents managed to defeat the forces of evil unleashed by the War and to leave us a society that, while imperfect, was more prosperous, free and equal than any that had gone before. I hope we can find a way to save it.