eastlondonhistory.com

11am on 11 November, 1918, ‘the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month’ and the First World War finally came to an end. The ‘war to end all wars’ had seen the mobilisation of 60m European soldiers, 40m casualties, and some 20m military and civilian deaths.

It was a war that most Londoners struggled even to understand. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 would lead to a chain reaction of declarations of war across Europe. Yet few East Enders had even heard of the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina where the archduke was shot, and would struggle to understand why it should immerse them in a World War.

But life was to swiftly change for East Enders. Although Britain had a large standing army, a rush to enlist deprived London of workers. With conscription coming in 1916, things got tighter still, yet it opened up many jobs to women for the first time. And previously unemployable men, the old, the ill, prisoners, vagrants, even children were pressed into jobs. The irony was that with everyone working, the standard of living actually rose for working class Londoners. On the home front there were changes and losses of liberties. Opening hours for pubs were cut and British Summer Time introduced (all in the cause of productivity). Curfews and censorship were imposed, as were restrictions on movement.

Paranoia and fear of spies sometimes hardened into violence. In the East End the shops of Germans were attacked, never mind that some had been here for decades. For good measure, some attacked the shops of Russians, Poles, Lithuanians - the East End was full of exiles from Eastern Europe in those early years of the 20th century. Some would write explanations to put the mob right, with shops displaying signs such as ‘We are Russians’. Some simply followed the lead of the Royal Family and changed their surnames. As Saxe-Coburg and Gotha became Windsor, so Greenbergs became Greens, Schmidts Smiths.

Though we tend to associate air raids with the Second World War, East End suffered bombing during World War I too. The first daylight bombs fell on 13 June, 1917 (dropped from Zeppelins rather than airplanes). But though the raids were shortlived, with airships proving easy targets, the damage was bad enough, with 104 people killed in the East End, 154 seriously injured and 269 slightly injured. Among the casualties were 120 children killed and injured, 18 killed in Upper North Street School, Poplar. Across London, 600 people died in total.

After four long years, war was over, but some things would never return to normal. Society and a rigid class system had been rocked by the conflict, and the thousands of domestic servants who left service in 1914 would never return in any number. Women had discovered new freedoms, some of which were rudely snatched away with the peace, but many were inspired to fight for jobs and votes. More people had moved around Britain on active service or to new jobs in the cities, than ever before and some would never return home.

Of course many would never return at all. 750,000 British servicemen died, and 1.7m were wounded. 160,000 women lost a husband and 300,000 children lost fathers. One million London men enlisted, with 131,000 of them dying on active service. Go to almost any town or village across Britain and you will see the war memorials, the lists of names.

Each was a life cruelly cut short, denied possibilities. A glimpse at just three of the names whose lives ended during the Great War offers a glimpse of what might have been - lives of talent and promise prematurely ended.

Isaac Rosenberg lived from 1890 to 1918. Uniquely talented as both a gifted painter and poet. Rosenberg was opposed to World War I but signed up, not through patriotism, but to ‘find a job’ and financially support his mother. Brushing aside the claims of better-known war poets such as Sassoon and Owen, critic Paul Fussell claims Rosenberg’s ‘Break of Day in the Trenches’ as “the greatest poem of the war”. Rosenberg was killed, possibly by a sniper, at dawn on 1 April 1918 on the Somme, having just finished night patrol.

Bethnal Green orphanage boy, Walter Tull, was the first black outfield professional footballer in Britain. In action from day one during the first battle of the Somme, he was also the first British-born black officer in the Army. During the second battle of the Somme, on 25 March 1918, he was cut down by machine gun fire. His body was never found, and his story was lost for decades.

And at sea there was the extraordinary heroism of young Jack Cornwell - just 16 years old as he found himself on the deck of HMS Chester, under the command of Captain Robert Lawson, joining the battle fleet at Scapa Flow. As the Chester sustained terrible losses, with three of its ten guns knocked out within minutes, and men dead or dying on the deck, the East End lad found himself the last member of his gun crew left standing. Boy (1st Class) John Travers Cornwell stood his post despite being mortally wounded. He died in Grimsby Hospital days later, and was mentioned in dispatches by Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty. The East End funeral, on a scorching summer’s day in July 1916, became an event to rival any state ceremony.

Each year since the end of hostilities, the sacrifice of millions has been marked - first on Armistice Day itself, and since 1939 on Remembrance Sunday (the Sunday closest to 11 November). The national ceremony is at the Cenotaph in Whitehall of course, though for many years there were ceremonies around Britain on the day too. Inevitably, with time and the natural passing of veterans and their families, the ceremonies have diminished somewhat, as has the wearing of poppies. Many people argue that interest has noticeably increased again in recent years (and especially on the 90th anniversary this year). Certainly, the sacrifice of these millions of men, women and children should never be forgotten.

By Remembrance Sunday 2008, only four British First World War veterans remained. Remarkably three of them - Henry Allingham (112), Harry Patch (110) and Bill Stone (108) were at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday to lead the two minutes’ silence. It’s 90 years since the guns fell silent - though around the world wars have never ceased.