British PM to send schoolchildren to Belgium for WWI commemorations

British Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday said more than £50m would be spent on commemorating the Great War for its centenary in 2014. Speaking at London’s Imperial War Museum, he said: “It’s a matter of the heart for the whole of Europe and beyond. From the Last Post Association whose volunteers have played every night at the Menin Gate since 1928 to the Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and the Memorial to the Missing in Belgium – the largest British war cemetery in the world visited by nearly half a million every year - to battlefield memorials right across western Europe. And together with partners like The Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the custodians of our Remembrance, and The Royal British Legion, there will be further events to commemorate Jutland, Gallipoli and Passchendaele, all leading towards Armistice Day in 2018. It is a period of our history through which we can trace the origins of a number of really significant advances.” He also praised “the extraordinary bravery of Edith Cavell, whose actions gained such widespread admiration and played an important role in advancing the emancipation of women.”