The memory of the Great War of 1914-1918 haunts us still, even after the passing of more than ninety years and a second world conflict that cost more than twice as many lives. In novels and on television the soldiers are still bidding farewell to their families in villages and back streets, shouldering their packs and going off to the Front; Edwardian society is still living out its last gracious hours before expiring under the impact of total war.
Yet the Great War holds other, deeper, meanings for us. It marked the birth of our own age, abruptly hastening the march of equality and also mass participation, liberating women from political and domestic thraldom, thrusting forward technological change, creating new independent nations in place of empires, and republics in place of monarchies. It destroyed Europe's global domination, created in Soviet Russia the First Communist state, and ushered the United States of America to the centre of the world stage.
For the First time in the history of this tragic, titanic struggle lies the essential key to an understanding of the world we live in today.
Correlli Barnett
June 1979
"People Are Machines Of Forgetfulness”
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Henri Barbusse, soldier, author of Le Feu, 1917