At the eleventh hour of the 11th day of the eleventh month…

A soldier from the British Army's 1 Royal Anglian Regiment lays the last of 72,396 shrouded figures at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London on November 7, 2018, to represent Commonwealth servicemen who died at the Somme, and who have no known grave. PHOTO | DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS | AFP

What you need to know:

  • Britain and Germany have asked that church bells should be rung together at 11am to mark the armistice.
  • Worst of all about this awful conflict, most historians believe that the terms of the armistice were such that World War One led inevitably to World War Two.

One hundred years ago today, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, an armistice was signed ending the four-year-long Great War, one of the deadliest conflicts in human history.

Fought mainly on the fields of northern France and Belgium, the war’s primary combatants were Britain, France and Ireland pitched against Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.

Some 16 million soldiers and civilians from both sides lost their lives and 23 million were wounded. Approximately three-quarters of a million British soldiers were left disabled.

Among these latter were two members of my own family, my mother’s brothers, Jim, who lost an eye at the Battle of the Somme, and John, whose leg was amputated shortly before the war ended.

Both managed to overcome their disabilities and live full lives after the war, Jim as an astute racing punter, and John, a happy-go-lucky but skilled joiner.

DEATH

Other families’ stories were infinitely sadder. Forty miles south of my uncles’ home at Newcastle upon Tyne, in the small market town of Barnard Castle, there lived a couple named John and Margaret Smith.

Five of their sons were killed in the war, one after another: Robert, aged 22, George Henry, 26, Frederick, 21, John William, 37, and Alfred, 30.

One son was still out there — Wilfred, the youngest, aged 19. Fearing that he, too, might not survive, the wife of the local vicar, a Mrs Bircham, wrote to Queen Mary, consort of the reigning monarch, King George V, asking that the boy be returned home.

The queen passed the request to the military authorities and Wilfred was discharged in 1918. He lived in Barnard Castle for the rest of his life, working as a stonemason, before dying at the age of 69 in 1968.

Wilfred rarely talked about the war, saying, only he had been spared to continue the family line.

MEMORIAL

Today, a representative of the 30-plus descendants of Wilfred Smith, spanning four generations, was scheduled to lay a wreath at the local war memorial, replicating a ceremony that would take place in villages and towns all over Europe.

Parks, plaques and statues have been adorned with hundreds of thousands of red poppies, the flower that grew in the churned up battlefields of Flanders.

Britain and Germany have asked that church bells should be rung together at 11am to mark the armistice, while the traditional ceremony at the Cenotaph in London was to conclude with an extended march-past.

WORLD WAR TWO

As ceremonies proliferate in the West, it is germane to remember there was conflict in Tanzania, too, then part of German East Africa, which also involved the then colony of Kenya and the Protectorate of Uganda.

One million African men were recruited as porters and at least 95,000 died as members of the Carrier Corps of East Africa. Surely, many brothers must have been among them.

Worst of all about this awful conflict, most historians believe that the terms of the armistice were such that World War One led inevitably to World War Two.

* * *

From time to time I am asked by young Kenyans about the possibility of joining the British armed forces, and I replied that applicants must have lived in the UK for five years.

That rule is now being dropped and foreign nationals can apply for the army, navy and air force, even if they have never lived in Britain.

The armed forces are short of 8,200 personnel. A government report said recently that the military were involved in 25 operations worldwide in 2016/17.

* * *

I confess I have a soft spot for really dumb criminals, people like James Allan, who decided to rob a newsagent’s shop in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. He could hardly have made a worse job of it.

Brandishing a toy pistol, Allan demanded money from the woman assistant. Hampered by the balaclava hiding his face, he took it off and revealed his features, but still fell over a drinks display.

Then he could not open the door to escape because he was pushing it instead of pulling. The lady he had held up had to come and open it for him.

It was all captured on video and Allan was sent to prison for three years.

* * *

Other countries also have their idiot crooks. A gang of six would-be robbers walked into a shop in Charleroi, Belgium.

The owner told them it was too early and there was nothing in the till, but if they came back later, he would have two or three thousand euros.

When the shopkeeper told the police that the gang had promised to return at the end of business, the officers laughed. But five of the robbers came back at 6.30pm and the police emerged from the back of the shop and arrested them.