CENTENARY OF THE END OF WORLD WAR ONE

Amos William Dowell, age 22, in 1914

One hundred years ago, at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, November 11, 1918, World War I (aka the Great War) ended. There will be centenary anniversary celebrations in France and elsewhere. The war destroyed four empires: the Russian, the German, the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman. It remade Central Europe and the Mid-East. Nations were born that were previously provinces of those empires. European statesmen drew the boundaries of what is today Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Communism took over Russia and threatened neighboring nations. Fear of Communism and resentment over the Versailles treaty ending the war led to the rise of Hitler, the Second World War and the Holocaust, which led in turn to the creation of the state of Israel. The Spanish flu wiped out millions. The Depression affected the whole world. We are still suffering from the effects of the First World War, especially in the Middle East.

I have had an abiding interest in the war due to a course in its origins by an expert historian in my undergraduate days at the University of Canterbury, and by the fact that my grandfather served in it. War was declared on Germany on August 4, 1914. Ten days later my grandfather, Amos William Dowell, aged 22, enlisted in the Canterbury Regiment of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. After rudimentary training they embarked on ten ships on October 16^th and were joined by Australian transports in a convoy that arrived in Alexandria, Egypt on December 3^rd. They defended the Suez Canal from Turkish forces. I have a photograph of my grandfather in his uniform taken in Cairo. On April 25^th they landed at Gallipoli where they encountered fierce resistance. My grandfather was admitted to hospital on July 24, and December 3^rd, 1915. After the failure of the Dardanelles campaign he was embarked to France on April 6, 1916 and served there in the trenches until 1918. He was evacuated to New Zealand on November 8, 1918 and arrived home December 18. He was discharged January 18, 1919. My mother remembered his arrival on the train and picking her up. She was five years old. When he left she was only a year old and when he returned he was nearly 27. He and my grandmother would have three more children but he died at only 46 before I was born. My mother would not speak much of him (although she gave me his name) and I got the impression that he was a moody man, and suffered from what we would call today PTSD. The war left emotional as well as physical scars on all who fought in it. The literature on the war is immense. I have 44 books in my collection plus numerous books of war poetry.

In 2016 I attended a service in Westminster Abbey, London commemorating the Gallipoli campaign. All the military services were there including the Turkish. Some 50,000 Allied troops – from Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France, Newfoundland and India – lost their lives. Including those wounded or evacuated for sickness, the total number of Allied casualties numbered 250,000. The Turkish forces lost over 86,000 men, with yet more wounded. The Bible readings were Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 121; Revelation 21:1-4 and John 12:20-28. The Turkish Ambassador recited the words of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) the founder of modern Turkey who commanded his troops at Gallipoli:

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives…you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours… You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

The following hymn was sung.

O valiant hearts, who to your glory came

through dust of conflict and through battle flame;

tranquil you lie, your knightly virtue proved,

your memory hallowed in the land you loved.

 

Proudly you gathered, rank on rank, to war,

as those who had heard God’s message from afar;

and you had hoped for, all you had, you gave

to save mankind – yourselves you scorned to save.

 

Splendid you passed, the great surrender made,

Into the light that never more shall fade;

deep your contentment in that blest abode,

who wait the last clear trumpet-call of God.

 

Long years ago, as earth lay dark and still,

rose a loud cry upon a lonely hill,

while in the frailty of our human clay

Christ, our Redeemer passed the self-same way,

 

O risen Lord, O Shepherd of our dead,

whose cross has bought them whose staff has led,

in glorious hope their proud and sorrowing land

commits her children to thy gracious hand.

 

(The Supreme Sacrifice, Charles Harris 1865-1936)

In the USA this day is celebrated as Veterans’ Day, in Great Britain and Europe as Remembrance or Armistice Day. Jesus told us that here would always be wars and rumors of war “but see to it that you are not alarmed” (Matthew 24:24:6). They confront us with the sinfulness of the human condition and our need of the Savior.