First World War: Centenary

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, every time I attend a football match with a large crowd I go through the same routine. I estimate as best I can 21,000 people and then reflect that this is the number of men from Great Britain, Ireland and Newfoundland who died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, and then I reflect that a further 35,000 were casualties on that day. World War 1 was a devastating war that should never be forgotten.

I am a member of the War Memorials Trust and the Western Front Association, and am a friend of the Lochnagar crater on the Somme. I believe that events to mark the centenary should be based on the principles of commemoration, reconciliation and remembrance. These principles lead me to suggest that Mons should be a location for major commemorative events in 2014 and 2018. Mons is where the very first and very last shots of World War 1 were fired. It is also where British and German soldiers were buried in nearby plots in 1914 and so would be an appropriate location for services of reconciliation.

I suggest two ways in which we should maintain our local communities’ memory of the horrors of the Great War once the centenary is over. First, all local authorities should have an identified officer with responsibility for overseeing all war memorials in their area, if they do not already have one. They should all be asked to identify ways of ensuring the restoration of First World War memorials, where this is desirable, given that the centenary of those memorials will take place over a decade or so, from 2019. Public subscription, sponsorship and match funding, perhaps from the Heritage Lottery Fund—and, perhaps, using young apprenticeship schemes in restoration techniques—could all be encouraged.

Secondly, we need to keep the study of the First World War in our schools curriculum. I hope that the centenary will not be seen by anyone as a closure event, because young people’s learning is the best way to ensure that the memory of what happened, and how dreadful it was, is kept alive.

Finally, on the role of football, the Christmas truce in 1914, in which friendly games of football—or footer as it was known to many—were played, resonates with many people. It has been suggested that football games would make light of the war. I do not agree, for the reason that the football actually happened. I am keen to see a reconstruction of the truce where it is known to have occurred, particularly at Armentières, with football matches being played—perhaps by youth teams from the areas represented in each of the trenches in Christmas 1914.

There was a failure of international leadership in the period leading up to the outbreak of the war, as Europe slid into that war, and a failure to compound the power of newly invented weapons to wreak havoc. Both failures resulted in death and destruction beyond comprehension, so we have to remember to commemorate and to encourage reconciliation. I hope that the centenary will achieve just that.