Today its not about remembering "Sacrifice" its when the world went mad.

The First Minister, Carwyn Jones, has spoken of the importance in pausing and remembering a defining moment in history as Wales prepares to mark the centenary of the beginning of the First World War.

He said:

 “Today marks a defining moment in our history. The events that took place following August 4, 1914 had monumental consequences that rippled throughout our history.
“Commemorative events are happening across Wales today and they serve to ensure we never forget a moment that would have affected the lives of every person living in Wales.
“These events are about taking a moment to remember the sacrifices of ordinary men and women from communities across Wales and to remember the cost of a terrible war and the impact that has reverberated throthrough our nation and shaped the Wales we know today.”

Cardiff council leader, Councillor Phil Bale, said: 

“It is right that we commemorate and remember those who took part in the First World War in this centenary year and always. The bravery and sacrifice of those who fought and of the communities on the home front, continues to humble all of us.”

We wil over the next four years interrupted may be  in 1916 when Ireland commemorates the Easter Rising  about sacrifice.

But a sacrifice for what?

Democracy, Freedom 

No the First World  War was about Imperial power and Capitalism  and the futility was summed up by this song written by Eric Bogle 

As the Irish ballad thr Foggy Dew puts it

'Twas England bade our wild geese go, that "small nations might be free";Their lonely graves are by Suvla's waves or the fringe of the great North Sea.

Today is about remembering when the Word went Mad
A few days before war broke out  tn 31 July 1914 the French Socialist Jean  Jaurès was assassinated in a Parisian café, Le Croissant, 146 rue Montmartre, by Raoul Villain, a 29-year-old French nationalist. Jaurès had been due to attend a conference of the International on 9 August, in an attempt to dissuade the belligerents from going ahead with the war.^] Villain was tried after World War I and acquitted 

Jaurès was a committed antimilitarist who tried to use diplomatic means to prevent what became the First World War. IAs conflict became imminent, he tried to organise general strikes in France and Germany in order to force the governments to back down and negotiate. This proved difficult, however, as many Frenchmen sought revenge (revanche) for their country's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and the return of the lost Alsace-Lorraine territory..

He could be seen as the  first victims of the   madness that was to come.the casualty list was immense

Lets have to talk about sacrifice or  patriotism   instead lets look at all those who fought or suffered four years of the madness and lok at them as them them as victims 

The last verse of Eric Bogles  The Green Fields of France should be repeated today,

And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride, Do all those who lie here know why they died? Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?" Did you really believe that this war would end wars? Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain, For Willie McBride, it all happened again, And again, and again, and again, and again.