2009 Remembrance Day commemorative address Address by General
Peter Cosgrove AC MC (Ret'd) Check against delivery Today marks
the ninety-first anniversary of the Armistice on the Western
Front. As we remind ourselves each year, at this hour on the
11th of November 1918, the guns fell silent. Four years of war
had come to an end. It became known as the Great War, and for
good reason. Its scale was unprecedented. It sparked the
mobilisation of 70 million people across many nations. Its
violence shattered great empires. Its images have never lost
their power. To a great degree those images of the muddy
moonscapes of the Western Front have served to define, for
succeeding generations, the horror of war. It was the costliest
conflict in history up to that time. Thirteen million people
died, nine million of them combatants. Over one-third of all the
soldiers killed were “missing”, or had no known graves. Three
hundred and thirty-two thousand Australians fought in the Great
War with the First AIF. Sixty thousand die