Arthur Douglas Crease Letters, Diaries and Scrapbooks
Letters from Arthur Douglas Crease of Victoria to his brother Lindley Crease and his mother Sarah Crease; instructions for the offensive of July 26, 1917; a regimental notebook, diaries and scrapbook. Learn more.
*All transcriptions are provided by volunteers, and the accuracy of the transcriptions is not guaranteed. Please be sure to verify the information by viewing the image record, or visiting the BC Archives in person.
BC Archives MS-0055; BC Archives MS-2879
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This is Armistice Day
Five years ago today the soldiers and sailors of the Great War looked up with a new light in their eyes. For the first time in all the grim months of conflict they might really believe that they should see home again. When the hour "Cease Fire" came, it was as if that sudden, vast silence over the far-stretched field of Armageddon had fallen also upon the expectant heart of all the world.
Today, on the fifth anniversary of the most conspicuous event of human history, the survivors of it meet to pay the tribute of recollection to their fallen comrades. The soldiers and sailors home from the wars stand at attention today in memory of those who did not come back. The poppies in their coats are the symbol of that sacrifice which was offered int he fields of Flanders and of France.
To you, citizens of a community which sent so many men to the front, the returned men of Victoria turn today in something of that spirit which was renewed in them on the first Armistice Day. You, whose sone or brother or father came safe home, will join with him in the observance of this day. And you, who cherish the memory of one who did not come back -- you will need no prompting to that duty which is your sacred privilege.
Armistice Day is something more than the anniversary of the war's ending. It is a day when men may dedicate themselves anew to those principles of good citizenship which were the very drum-beats of the call to arms. It is a day in which to remember and to honor the men and women who were true to those things unto death--to remember them whose record is the everlasting assurance that the valiant spirit of man may triumph over the victory of the grave.
BC Archives, MS-2879, Box 83, File 1 CREASE FAMILY, "Diary of the War", diary and scrapbook of Arthur Douglas Crease, 1915-1919.