Remembrance of Armistice, or Militarist Vanity? Why I Particularly Dislike Veterans Day

11 November 2025.

To-day marks one of the most important first steps on the way to the end of the Great War. To-day marks armistice: at the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, in the eleventh month. Of course, most Americans will never know or acknowledge what the meaning of remembrance day is to most. After all, are they not happy when another British soldier is reported murdered?

Indeed, my mind strays back again to the story of my friend, who is a reenactor. He told me how an SS Veteran was celebrated and thanked for his 'service'. He told me about the grumblings against the British and Soviets being portrayed, the thick atmosphere of 'fought the wrong side' which permeated the air at that event. According to this YouTube video (here), this is something which actually happens at Second World War reenactments. Second World War SS reenactors are only too happy to meet one of their heroes... repulsive.

As you comrades know, I have a strong love of Prussia, of the Hohenzollern dynasty, and of His Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm II. I have a much more positive view of these things than is usual for the Anglosphere... but Nazis??? How can anyone have a positive opinion of them? These reenactors are not even trying to hide behind the 'clean Wehrmacht' myth, for they have celebrated a paramilitary fascist!

But let us return to the battlefield of the Great War. These British soldiers did not fight for J P Morgan or the British banking interests. They fought to keep the Anglo-Saxon civilisation free and independent of other powers. Can anyone blame them for such an object? Is such an object, taken by itself, not what the cause of national liberation means in practise? Remember that the Irish have always sought the aid of the most reactionary powers, including the Nazis and the various fascists, to build what is essentially a semi-theocratic (not so much now, but earlier) nationalist state for anti-British capital to enrich itself with. It is not as noble nor as principled as the British soldier's defencive justification was.

Americans have, alas, chosen to eschew the noble and principled justification in the design of a militarist vanity project, which is what Veterans Day is. Nay more is this day about precluding the erasure of the suffering and death which ruled over Europe for those years, and soon for naught, anywise. Now it is the refuge of a narcissistic empire, whose ruling-class, far from learning anything, or pretending to at least, actively starts more wars. The US ruling-class learns absolutely everything from Dublin, Berlin, and Warsaw, and shuns to learn remotely anything from London, Ottawa, or Holland. How well it has turned out!

Whilst I may respect the high culture of Prussia and the Hohenzollerns, when it comes to lessons in the ideal society and prudent statecraft, I know better, and so turn inwards to my fellow Anglo-Saxons and our reasonable sensibilities. To learn these things from Dublin, Berlin, and Warsaw means confrontation, tyranny, and extremism for an eternity. I chuse to remember, lest we forget the true harrowing cost of these things. Not everything British is evil, as some of the Left should suggest. Liberty, conscience, and reasonable toleration within limits are surely of the Good.

Farewell then, happy Remembrance/Armistice Day! I will, personally, be listening to the Englishman's Command, in honour of our Ulster brethren, and the Thornlie Boys' rendition of Last Night a Soldier in Remembrance; and to-night I have a little walk and ceremony planned, after which I will watch They Shall not Grow Old.