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An image from a Remembrance website
We will remember them
According to the respected Robert Schuman Centre, nearly 20 million people died in World War One. But notice this. That figure includes 9.7 soldiers and 10 million civilians.
Just more than half of those who died were not in uniform. in 2001 the International Red Cross calculated that, in modern warfare, ten civilians die for every soldier killed in battle
So why is it that, on Remembrance Day, we are treated to marching bands and columns of men and women in uniform? Why do war memorials up and down Britain only record military deaths?
Where are the memorials to the civilians who died? Why in fact is remembrance organised by the military at all? Wars may be fought by the military. But the dead we should be remembering are civilians and military.
Now in Britain, you could reply, the figures are unusual. Although something like 60 000 civilians died in the Blitz – and are, let it be said, nowhere remembered on Remembrance Day, Britain has not been invaded since 1688.
Britain fights its wars abroad. So in terms of people killed, civilian deaths tend to be much lower in Britain than military deaths. Maybe you could argue that, for Britain’s own remembrance ceremonies, it’s appropriate enough for the military to strut their stuff. The dead we’re remembering are mostly theirs.
Well, for one thing, we should be remembering the dead of the places Britain still called colonies while it was fighting its wars.
This thoughtful tribute to the war dead is about 20minutes long.
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Volunteer recruits of the 'Preston Pals' parade in their civilian clothes in Market Square, Preston, on 7 September 1914, Imperial War Museum, HU53725
More civilians are killed in war
Two and a half million Indians fought in British forces in World War Two. It’s another chapter that’s been largely forgotten. But the outcome of the war, especially against Japan, would have been completely different without the Indian soldiers. 87,000 gave their lives.
However, between two and three million Indian civilians died while the war was going on. They mostly starved to death in the Bengal famine of 1943, a combination of malnutrition and malaria that was almost entirely created by the policies of the British wartime administration.
Prioritising the defeat of Japan, Churchill’s government directed what scarce resources there were in India to its armies rather than even trying to feeding its civilians. It was the only famine in modern times that was not caused by drought. In fact, in 1943, rainfall was above average. Like the morality of the carpet-bombing of Dresden these are important topics for discussion.
We also look at Britain’s own military dead. In the First World War 3 million of them were conscripted into uniform and had no choice. The rest were ‘volunteers.’ Would they have liked to have been seen as military or civilians? Shouldn't we at least have that conversation?
#78 Remembrance - aren't we forgetting something?
LISTEN BY CLICKING ON ICONS
Also by Jon and Penelope on this theme:
Nightmare in the Trenches (WW1/Somme)
World War One: how much was it Britain's fault?
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So who was Robert Cecil, James I’s shadowy chief minister at the time of the Gunpowder Plot of 5 November 1605?
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