UK Marks Armistice Day with Services and Silences for the Fallen

UK Marks Armistice Day with Services and Silences for the Fallen

Tributes were paid across Britain today to all the servicemen who have died in conflicts since the First World War.

In London, the final ceramic poppy was placed in a giant art installation in the dry moat of the Tower of London, while services were also held at Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square and the Cenotaph.

 

Elsewhere, services were also held in schools, churches and military bases where a two-minute silence was held at 11am – the time when, on 11 November 1918, the armistice that ended the First World War took effect.

Services were also held across Europe, including the Belgian town of Ypres where there was a special sounding of the Last Post to mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War I. French President François Hollande also laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, while a memorial service was also held in Kabul to remember the British troops who have died in the war in Afghanistan.

 

One of the biggest acts of remembrance this year has been the planting of 888,246 ceramic poppies outside the Tower of London to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War. Each one represents a British or Commonwealth soldier killed during the conflict.

Armistice Day has been marked on 11 November every year in the UK since 1919, one year after the Allies and the Germans signed an agreement to end World War One. Since the end of the Second World War, commemorations were changed to honour the fallen in all conflicts since World War One.

Services were also held on Remembrance Sunday, which always falls on the Sunday preceding Armistice Day, including a ceremony where the Queen laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in central London. She had been subject to an alleged assassination attempt by Islamist extremists, who were arrested a couple of days before, but decided to attend the ceremony as usual, receiving applause for doing so.

 

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