Who died on the 18 November 1918, aged just 18. 

Son of Frederick Edward and Mary Emma Christie of 91 Liverpool Road Burslem His resting place in Burslem Cemetery Stoke-on-Trent Staffordshire.

I have a number of family members who fought in that War, including my Grandfather who was gassed at Ypres in April of  1915 when the Germans opened with a chlorine attack

Is was said it was the war to end all wars, it did not. It has been argued that we won and the Germans lost. I for one believe that we all lost.  It can be summed up in this short passage ”The flower of youth was lost on the battlefields of Verdun”

As for who was to blame? I was asked to do an essay on this for a degree in history, after much research reading books, documents and even talking to some that had been there done it and sadly are wearing the scars of battle both physical and mentally, concluded that not one nation was to blame, but that all shared the responsibility for it.

Historians who have a more knowledgeable insight have written their views as to how things happened, what went wrong and pontificated on the subject, my thoughts are so what?  We can all be armchair generals, what really interests me is the view from the trenches. To me that’s more important the stories of the soldiers, the cannon fodder of war.

The politicians involved in it, even of today a necessary evil in my mind. They and their leaders are the ones who decide if we commit our best to war, noting that many of their ranks don’t volunteer to do it themselves.