WW1 Commonwealth deaths remembered

05 August 2014
News

To mark their loss, high level representatives of Commonwealth member countries gathered in Glasgow on Monday - following the close of the Commonwealth Games - to attend a special commemoration.

More than a million people from across the Commonwealth lost their lives during World War One. 

To mark their loss, high level representatives of Commonwealth member countries gathered in Glasgow on Monday - following the close of the Commonwealth Games - to attend a special commemoration.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma was among dignitaries from all regions of the Commonwealth who took part in the event, including British Prime Minister David Cameron’.

The following day, more than one million poppies were blown into the air in Dorset, United Kingdom, to mark every Commonwealth death during World War One. The release of 1.1m poppies from a tank - described as a "poppy explosion".

Glasgow 2014 chief executive David Grevemberg, speaking to The Scotsman newspaper, said: “It is fitting we are able to mark the moment at a time, in August 2014, when the Commonwealth family will be together in Glasgow for the culmination of the Commonwealth Games, a festival of sport that is a positive celebration of peace and unity.”

Throughout the Commonwealth commerative events have been taking place:

Ditsong National Museum of Military History in Johannesburg, South Africa hosted a War and Peace Concert on 4 August. 

In Victoria, Australia, Fort Queenscliff held a commemoration of the first shot of World War One on 5 August 

And the Canadian War Museum is hosting a commerative exhibition: Ordinary Canadians in Extraordinary Times, running from 30 July 2014 – 28 February 2017.