11 November 2023 , 08:15
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Millions across the nation today will fall silent as they remember those who have been killed by war.
Every year, November 11 is a day when fallen soldiers and civilians who have died as a result of conflict are remembered and honoured. The first time it was observed was on November 11, 1919 at Buckingham Palace.
Many might have noticed poppies, sold as part of the yearly appeal for veterans charity the British Legion, being pinned on to jackets lapels as a form of respect and support for the armed services.
It is all part of the build-up to Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday, which will take place this coming weekend. The reason behind the name dates back more than a century.
Why is it called Armistice Day?
November 11 commemorates the signing of the a peace deal between Britain, its allies and Germany during the First World War.
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An armistice — hence the name given to the day — was signed in a train carriage in northern France, bringing an end to four years of terrible fighting on the Western Front. The agreement was signed in the early hours of the morning of November 11, 1918.
It was agreed fighting would stop in the Great War on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year. With military and civilian casualties from the conflict reaching into the tens of millions, the annual anniversary of the signing of the armistice has been marked each year to honour those killed.
As has become tradition over the past century, there continues to be a two-minute silence held at 11am on November 11 to mark the occasion.
The day is observed by Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and many other countries.
What is Remembrance Day?
Remembrance Day is Armistice Day, but simply rebranded. Following the end of World War II, the name Armistice Day was started to be seen as too narrow a definition given that millions more people had lost their lives in another global fight.
More than 70 million people are estimated to have been killed between 1939 and 1945. Canada became an early adopter of the term “Remembrance Day” to note the traditions of November 11, with Britain and other Commonwealth nations following suit.
While the two-minute silence is often kept by individuals and households on Armistice Day, there was a change to the national way of remembering the war dead. After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the two-minute silence in Britain was moved to the Sunday nearest to November 11.
According to Hugh Cecil’s book, At The Eleventh Hour, the change was made so that the tradition would not interfere with wartime production as the country fought the Nazis. This became known as Remembrance Sunday.
The two-minute silence starts at 11am on the 11th hour on the 11th day on the 11th month of the year.
What happens on Remembrance Sunday?
This year’s event will take place on Sunday, November 12, given that is the closest Sunday to Armistice Day. The morning service will remember those killed in the two World Wars and the 12,000 British servicemen killed or injured since 1945.
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With Britain’s leaders, including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer, gathered around the Whitehall memorial, a verse from Robert Laurence Binyon’s poem For The Fallen will be recited:
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning. We will remember them.”
The mournful tune of the Last Post will play out on a bugle before a silence hushes over the nation.