Petals for the dead

In a day showered with poppies that turned the stones of Belgium blood-red again, Queen Elizabeth led the century's final major act of remem...

In a day showered with poppies that turned the stones of Belgium blood-red again, Queen Elizabeth led the century8217;s final major act of remembrance for the First World war which shaped it. She went to Flanders field for a climactic commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the armistice which ended the slaughter. She stood beneath the Menin Gate, the memorial to 55,000 missing British dead at Ieper, the Belgian town better known to veterans as Ypres, in the zone where 500,000 of the war8217;s victims fell.

But the petals that fell from the gate8217;s 80-foot high arch were more numerous than even that toll warranted. They floated down to form a carpet under the arch, on the heads of spectators and laps of veterans seated in chairs and wheelchairs. They took more than five minutes to fall, as one descended for each of the 10 million soldiers who died on all sides.

Then a British veteran, Arthur Halestrap, aged 100, rose to read falteringly the armistice poem: 8220;They shall grow not old as we that are left growold8230;we will remember them.8221; The snowfall of poppies had already made his point.

On November 11, 1918, the British prime minister David Lloyd George who at the start of hostilities had made speeches urging youth to enlist for a patriotic blood sacrifice 8212; said: 8220;Thus, at 11 a.m. this morning, came to an end the cruellest and most terrible war that has ever scorged mankind. 8220;I hope we may say that thus, this fateful morning, came to an end all wars.8221;

This was the last big commemoration expected to be held in the company of First World War veterans, now in their late nineties or a hundred. By the time of the 90th anniversary in 2008, few will be alive. Arthur Halestrap, who lost his son John in the Second World War, walks between five and seven miles every day. Another of the Menin Gate group, Fred Bunday, 97, goes line-dancing twice a week.

101-year-old Robert Gelineau said: 8220;It was a useless war,8221; as he watched soldiers wearing France8217;s old blue uniforms parade in front of the Arc de Triomphebefore the Queen laid wreaths with President Jacques Chirac in a ring around the Eternal Flame.

In an international ceremony thought likely to be the last of its kind, a solitary bugler sounded the 13 notes of the ceasefire.