Mumsnet users share the things they’re grateful to the First World War generation for with The Royal British Legion

[JustineBMumsnet]

NOW CLOSED

In light of the 100 year anniversary of the end of WW1, The Royal British Legion would like to hear about the ways you’re grateful for those who served, sacrificed and changed our world.

Do you have an appreciation for the incredible women who helped change women’s role in society, leading many more women to work in jobs outside the home? Are you grateful for the medical advances that were made out of necessity that benefit so many today, like plastic surgery and blood banks? Or perhaps you’re grateful for product innovation like the wristwatch, teabags or sanitary towels? Maybe you’d like to thank the children who took on extra responsibilities like helping MI5, even though it meant they grew up too fast?

If you’d like to find out more about the contributions made 100 years ago, please click here.

See what Mumsnet Co-Founder Justine Roberts is thankful for below:

If you have any family stories or photos that make you feel grateful for your ancestors of 100 years ago, please feel free to share these below.

All who post below will be entered into a Mumsnet prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Insight Terms and Conditions apply

[frogsoup]

Many of these ww1 servicemen would be turning in their graves at the glib platitudes that get spouted by people who have not the first idea about why and how they died. Ww1 was not a glorious war. It was senseless carnage. Watch 'They shall not grow old', the new film of remastered and colourised ww1 footage out this week, to see what exactly those men were put through. It will turn your stomach :(

[MadgeMidgerson]

I wasn’t aware that the First World War was fought for freedom and democracy

I had thought it was a charnel pit constructed by dying empires.

How interesting

[FinallyHere]

I am very grateful to everyone who gave up their lives for ... anything really.

I support the British Legion , buy a poppy etc. but do not honestly understand why the crown and country, in whose name they gave their lives, do not provide sufficient pensions, so that they must needs rely on charity.

[BestZebbie]

I don't think grateful if the right word...I'm grateful to the space race for inspiration and spin-offs etc, but WW1 was so horrific that the horror outweighs all other considerations. I'd much rather it hadn't happened and all those innocent people hadn't died horribly, so it seems hugely disrespectful to start saying 'oh but wristwatches!' Etc.

[Nowisthemonthofmaying]

I agree that WW1 was a pointless war and a pointless bloodbath that wiped out a generation - I think it's important to remember it and to remain angry about the waste of life.

However I am still grateful to those who fought for what they believed to be right - and those who knew it wasn't right but fought anyway. And to the women who kept the country going in the meantime.

I think the work the British Legion does is really important - I just wish they didn't have to do it and that the government would provide the support that is deserved for those it sends to fight and die.

[FinallyHere]

@Nowisthemonthofmaying

I think the work the British Legion does is really important - I just wish they didn't have to do it and that the government would provide the support that is deserved for those it sends to fight and die.

Thank you, NowIs, you put the case very well

[MrsSchadenfreude]

My great grandmother was German. Her husband was British. He died at Ypres and is buried in Belgium. Her brother was fighting for Germany and died a few miles away. It was a senseless war. She was left a widow at 28, with two small children.

[bikerclaire]

My Grandad's older brother was killed at Gallipoli, then later on my Grandad helped his and another squadron to navigate the back streets through a heavily guarded area of France on their way to Dunkirk. He never spoke of it and my Dad only learned about it after he died, from some old army buddies who attended his funeral. I can't imagine the fear they both would've gone through. Puts everyday stresses into perspective somewhat. Without their sacrifice and amazing bravery I'd have a lot more things to worry about.

[foxessocks]

I hope that their sacrifice is never forgotten. I can't say more than that really.

[woman11017]

What was World War One fought for?

[FaFoutis]

It depends which historian you ask woman. None of them argue that it was to benefit ordinary people.
The kindest view is the interwar consensus that saw it as an accident, or as collective responsibility. But mainly it is seen as rulers trying to retain or get more power/territory (which ruler is blamed most changes quite a bit these days, the traditional view from the Treaty of Versailles and restated after WW2 is that is was Germany's fault). I think it was an extension of imperialism and a consequence of industrialisation.

The idea that it benefitted women went out of the window in the 1980s. Even the vote that came after the war was really an add-on to the vote for working class men. I suppose some benefit there.

I too find the but wristwatches offensive

[Helmetbymidnight]

Yes, exact causes are difficult to pinpoint although at school most have us would have at least learnt about the assassination of archduke franz Ferdinand and then the German invasion of Belgium.

For years, there had been an increasing arms build up and rivalry across the imperial nations.

The war shouldn’t have gone on as it did - and it’s dreadful that it did- incredible to believe that the king, the tsar and the kaiser were first cousins!

I think some posters must be confusing the First World War with the second. The idea that WW1 was fought to keep us speaking English is utterly bizarre- as is the idea it was fought to keep british history(?) or to give us heroes.

Saying ‘we will remember them’ when you have not the faintest clue of what you are remembering is just sad.

[woman11017]

Teabags?

[FaFoutis]

Teabags - also offensive.

[frogsoup]

I just saw a thread on (I think) the Guardian Facebook page where an astonishing number of commenters were clearly confusing WW1 and WW2. The glorification of war preyed on ignorance back in WW1 and it clearly still does today!

[woman11017]

FaFoutis
frogsoup very worrying.

[SleightOfMind]

I’m angry rather than grateful whenever I think about the sacrifices made by ordinary people in WW1.

I find that bravery heartbreaking rather than inspiring. Genuinely difficult to dwell on for too long.
The innocence and trust those young men and women placed in the hands of their countries’ leaders was totally misplaced and continues to be so today.

My father was a soldier and carved out a successful career. I’d never want my DSs to join the army.

Ex service people are hugely over represented in many markers of social deprivation (homelessness, chronic mental ill health, prison populations, addictions etc)

Today, We’re failing those young men and women just as much as we let down the generation who fought ‘The War to End All Wars’.

I wear a white and red poppy. I’m proud to wear both.

[Temerity123]

I am so grateful to those who fought selflessly for what was important, especially to those who never came back from war or who came back and were emotionally scarred for life. They were so brave.

[Chezybabes891401]

Im grateful for all those fallen and who fought to protect our country, I wear my poppy with pride and don't forget my roots and the sacrifices to give myself and my family the life our ancestors only dreamed of.

[Teaspoon74]

I'm grateful for the bravery and sacrifice of those who fought and those who stayed behind. The women raising children alone. The boys yet to become men who grew up in the mud and blood of the trenches. And the words of people like Wilfred Owen whose poetry captured the horror and the futility and the fortitude and the comradeship.
We shall not forget them.

[woman11017]

What were they fighting for?

[Spudlet]

I'm another one for whom gratitude just isn't the word. Horror, pity, and anger for all those who died so horribly, and so pointlessly, is more like it. It makes me so angry to think of it - the stupidity of Pals battalions that were wiped out, leaving towns devastated, the generals so far behind the lines, the traumatised men shot as 'cowards'. The gas, the mud, the awful wounds and infections. The young women who turned yellow because they worked with tnt.

I'm grateful that the horror of this war led to some good things - the birth of reconstructive surgery, the first glimmerings of hope in the fight for women's suffrage, the start of a movement towards European peace. But those things aren't what anyone went to fight for, they were unintended consequences. Nor were they the finished article. What about the other unintended cinsewuences - the devastation of economies and nations, and the rise of Nazism and fascism?

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_of_11_November_1918

That link is the Wikipedia page on the Armistice - it has a section on the final casualties of the war, including a man who was killed 60 seconds before the ceasefire and the gun battery that fired its final shot at 10.57am - even though it was known that a ceasefire was coming. Cruel, pointless waste.

[Bumblebeans]

I'm grateful to the women who went to work and changed the future for British women.

[woman11017]

Women worked in armaments factories in appalling conditions, many were poisoned and many died.

Most were sacked at the end of the war.

In 1918 women over 30 were given the vote, and one female MP was elected.

Turkish women were amongst many other nations with better rights for women than britain in the 1920s.

[April2020mom]

My grandmother was born during the war. I’m grateful for women who spoke up and made their voices heard as much as possible. That paved the way for you and me. We owe it to them to carry on making sure that women are respected by society.