Why 11 November still matters

At 11am, on 11 November, 1918, the guns fell silent on the Western Front that bisected Europe through Belgium down past France to Switzerland.

- KEVIN RITCHIE

The carnage had been unimaginable.

Legend has it that the fatality lists from the Battle of the Somme were so long that they were like the annual matric results supplements in newspapers - every day.

On the first day, the British alone suffered 57 470 casualties. By the end this number would have risen to 470 000.

Britain lost 886 000 soldiers in WWI. The death toll for the rest of the world is estimated at between 15 and 22 million people.

It was supposed to be the war to end all wars, but the next one started 20 years later and killed between 70 to 85 million people.