Editorial: They fought for King and country

Photo / Thinkstock

Put simply, the human race has one underlying major fault.

We fight. And sadly at times we fight on a great scale.

One hundred years ago a great war erupted for reasons which had no bearing on the people of this land, or the other lands which would be drawn into it, by virtue of their devotion to the British Empire.

Archduke Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by a Yugoslav nationalist on June 28 and Austria-Hungary delivered a chilling ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia.

Long-standing alliances were invoked and the whole situation inflamed what was already a resurgence of imperialism across parts of Europe. It exploded, and within weeks the United Kingdom, France and the Russian Empire were at war with Germany and Austria-Hungary.

New Zealand, standing shoulder to shoulder with King George V and the people of Great Britain, sent off its troops - to places few of those troops had ever heard of.

There were 70 million soldiers involved in WWI and nine million of them died - that's double the population of this country.

There were disasters like Gallipoli and fronts where there were continual suicidal bayonet-bearing dashes to death.

New Zealand sent 103,000 of its mainly young people off to serve. Eighteen thousand of them did not return.

Sadly, little was learned, as the results of WWI sparked increased nationalism across Europe and the rise of fascism in Germany whose emerging leaders felt humiliated by defeat.

So in 1939, and 1941, it all went ballistic again.

All fuelled by Governments and leaders who are never in the firing line themselves.

To all the exuberant and sparked-with-life young Kiwis who went off to war one hundred years ago and never came home - lest we forget.