There is a Facebook site called Vintage London. It carries interesting photographs doumenting London, Ontario, from days long past. Today an image taken shortly after the end of the First World War was featured.
The posted image showed an arch, one of two, erected after the war to honour local soldiers returning from Europe after the end of the First World War. Listed on the arch were the major battles in which Canadian soldiers played a prominent role.
The First World War was know as the "The war to end all wars." War had become simply too horrible to contemplate a replay. Sadly, as we know all too well today, the First World War was just one more war in an apparently never ending, constantly growing, list of wars going back thousands of years.
This is the caption from Vintage London:
"Two large 'Welcome Home' Arches were constructed on the streets of London as soldiers returned from World War I. This arch was located on Dundas Street just east of Wellington Street and had to be large enough to allow London Street Railway trolleys travel through it.
A second arch was built on Richmond south of Dundas. On the illuminated arch in the photograph we see plaques that detail the battles in which Canadians participated, including: Passchendaele, Amiens, Arras, Bourlon Wood, Cambria, Valenciennes, Mons, Ypres, Festubert, St Eloi, Sanctuary Wood, Somme, Vimy Ridge, and Hill 70.
As the various battalions returned
home the soldiers would march from the train station to the armories as
crowds cheered their return."
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