Victory?

It is hard to reconcile the death of nearly 1 million men across the British Empire with the term victory, especially bearing in mind that by the time of the Armistice the British forces were pretty much back where they started in 1914. Moreover, when we look at the events of the Great Depression, and twenty years later the outbreak of the Second World War, it is easy to consider the first conflict as being completely futile.

However, this is clearly not what many people thought in 1918 at the cessation of hostilities.

• By that time the British Expeditionary Force was the main fighting force engaging the Imperial German Army on continental Europe. It had evolved into a highly effective fighting machine and over a period of 100 days after the collapse of the German offensives in Spring 1918 it continually advanced winning victory after victory.
• Britain and its Allies had defeated an aggressive militaristic undemocratic power, intent on conquering and taking for itself large parts of Continental Europe. All of their war aims had been achieved.

With this in mind, and the various other discussions in this tutorial let us now repeat the opening exercise.

Once again we present a series of images related to the War. Consider again your views on remembrance and select the image that you feel should be used as representative.

Has your choice changed? If you could choose an image that is not in this set, what would that be? Why would you choose that?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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