The French have a holiday and a parade on Bastille Day (though they long ago buried the horrible ideas which were unleashed on that occasion, and are now among the most conservative peoples in the world, striving for the attributes of a not very constitutional monarchy while calling it a Republic). The Americans, now a mighty empire, do the same on 4th July to mark their departure from another empire. The USSR used to commemorate the Bolshevik Revolution on 7th November and countless countries have national days to recall notable events in their pasts.
But the most significant event in modern history passes by without a whisper. Yesterday was 4th August, the 96th anniversary of Britain's entry into the First World War. Other countries could mark the same thing slightly earlier or later, but this date was the moment one world ended and another began. In 1914, I believe, every country in Europe was a monarchy save one.Soldiers went to war much as they would have done in 1815. The British state amounted to little more than a few thousand policemen and postmen. Many of the glories (and horrors) of modern science were unknown and unthought of. The world was much quieter, and much smellier, than it is now. Millions were alive, living what they thought of as secure and ordered lives, who would die violent deaths or be forced form their homes before the war's end. Christianity was the accepted religion of the European continent, practised and understood by almost everyone.
Shouldn't we commemorate this momentous day, not just at its approaching centenary, now four years away, but always - and devote at least an hour of it each year to considering how we made such a terrible mistake, whose damage is still not repaired?
How many British politicians recognize World War I for the folly that it was? The elites may react (rightly) against the nationalism that propelled the war, but do they care about the sacrifices of the common man? Or the loss of tradition?
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