On this day 100 years ago the Armistice of Compiègne came into effect at 11am Paris time.  The armistice brought a ceasefire in the conflict between the Allies and Germany, it, however, did not end the war.  However it put in place an agreement to stop fighting on the Western Front, allowing discussions for permanent peace.  It took more than six months of negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles to be agreed, which was signed on 28th June 1919, and finally bringing the war to its end.

In 1918 the western front had moved back and forth, first, the Germans Spring Offensive had gained them territory though with exhausted supplies and reinforcements the Allies had great success in the '100 Days' campaign.
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For four years the Germans had experienced hardship at home and with the Allies success, social unrest and revolutions caused the Kaiser to abdicate.  In their weak position, the Germans had to sign the Armistice.  The terms were mainly written by the Allied Supreme Commander Marshal Ferdinared Foch, on who's railway carriage in the forest of Compiègne the signing took place, included the withdrawal of German forces to behind the Rhine and occupation of the Rhineland by the Allies.

A year after the Armistice of Compiegne the people of Britain observed a minutes silence on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.  This was followed the next year by the wearing of poppies.  In London, the Cenotaph in Whitehall was erected, initially as a temporary structure which was then replaced as a permanent replica made from Portland stone.  It quickly became a popular place for people to gather and lay wreaths at.  It is now the central venue for Remembrance Day in the UK.

The cost of the war had been huge. It is estimated that the total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was about 40 million: estimates range from 15 to 19  million deaths and about 23 million wounded military personnel, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history.

Last year we remembered the battle of Passchendaele, where it is possible that our builder James Pegrum's ancestor, Wilfred Pegrum, suffered fatal injuries. We took Wilfred's story and used it to explore the chain of evacuation, which took wounded soldiers from the front line to be treated in relative safety.  During research, James came across the death of another relative, Thomas Pegrum, who died at the Battle of Jutland 31 May – 1 June 1916. James was struck by the youth of Thomas, who when he died was around the same age as his nephew, also named Thomas, both younger than 20 years.  While neither James or his family ever knew Wilfred or Thomas, they remembered them today at their local memorial in Newton Abbot.

Wilfred and Thomas are unknown beyond there names and place on a family tree, they will be remembered this Sunday.

Hedd Wyn, 2017

On this day 100 years ago, the Welsh poet Ellis Humphrey Evans, better known by his bardic name Hedd Wyn, was killed during the Battle of Passchendaele in World War I. He is known by few outside of Wales, but within the country and in particular among Welsh speakers, he is widely recognised. While Hedd Wyn’s death is no more tragic than any of the other 31,000 Allied soldiers who fell that day, or indeed the deaths of the thousands in the German lines, Hedd Wyn’s story and his work have become an important part of Wales’ wider cultural heritage. ​

While it was Hedd Wyn's poem Yr Arwr that won him the chair, his best known work is perhaps the much shorter but no less powerful Rhyfel, which simply means War. 

​Writing on her excellent War Poetry blog, Behind their Lines, Connie Ruzich eloquently describes the poem’s key themes: “Hauntingly, the poem weaves together nature, faith, and war in a lament not only for the dead, but for all who live in a time of war”. The poem is also deeply political; in its second line the word teyrn, which is usually translated as ‘King’ or 'Lord', is actually more closely related to the word for tyrant, and as Ruzich puts it “...in a world gone wrong, the burdens of death and suffering fall disproportionately upon the poor, and song itself has been silenced”.

​While translated poetry almost always loses some of its meaning and can also end up gaining meaning that doesn't exist in the original language, a good translation has been made by former National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke. Clarke's work delicately balances literal translation with poetic style and the result, which admittedly loses some of the original's power, is the best this Welsh speaker has read. 

The blog was created by Dan Harris, who grew up in a small town in west Wales. The first LEGO scene is by Dan and the second by James Pegrum. We will be posting more blogs on the First World War over the coming year.