₦airaland Forum

Now the commoners.

Rishi Sunak on behalf of the government

Sir Keir Starmer on behalf of the opposition.

The King lays his wreath in silence and salutes.

Queen Camilla's ADC lays a wreath on her behalf.

Prince William also lays his wreath.

Prince Edward lays his wreath

Princess Anne lays her wreath (she is dressed in the uniform of an admiral)

The Duke of Kent lays a wreath on behalf of the Duke of Kent.

Now the commander orders the parade to stand at ease and then stand easy and the music resumes with Bethoven's funeral march Number 1

The cannon volley from the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery signal the end of the 2 minutes. Now the Last Post is played by buglers from the Royal Marines.

The King is in the uniform of a field marshal.

Before the King came out, religious leaders from Catholic, Methodist, Buddhist and other communities also entered the arena.

Now the chimes of Big Ben for 11 o'clock and the 2 minutes silence.

The parade has been brought to attention and there's no music. That means that the King will soon lead out members of the Royal Family.

The Commonwealth high commissioners.

Nepal, Ghana, Nigeria, etc.

The service chiefs. The Chief of the Defence Staff, the Chief of the General Staff, the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty and the Chief of the Air Staff.

There are now so many former prime ministers, from Sir John Major to Liz Truss.

The politicians, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and former Prime Ministers are exiting the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The cross bearer, altar boys, priests and bishop are exiting the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The commander has brought the parade to attention and that means that next is Nimrod, from the Enigma Variations by Sir William Edward Elgar.

The commander has ordered the parade to stand at ease and the band plays the Piper's Lament (Flowers of the Forest).

And it's begun.

It begins as usual with Rule Britannia, but this is a more sombre Rule Britannia than at the proms.

Dynamicboss:
Never knew Africans fought in WW1 & WW2. The whites are evil. After forcing them to fight, the survivors were forgotten.

Very many Africans fought in the 2 World Wars in various roles. South Africa was one of the 4 Dominions that heavily contributed troops in both wars (the others were Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and General Jan Smuts was a member of the British War Cabinet in the First World War and a senior adviser to the British in the Second World War.

A major part of the Second World War was fought in North Africa. The Germans were looking for another way to get to the crude oil deposits in the Middle East and the British were determined to stop them. This led to the famous battles between Erwin Rommel on the German side and Lord Montgomery on the British side. These battles (the North Africa Campaign) took place in Tunisia, Libya, Algeria and Egypt.

There was the East Africa Campaign during the Second World War. This is the campaign that Nigerian troops were heavily involved in. Ethiopia was the only African country that was never colonised, but Italy invaded the country and the Allies were determined to chase Italy out. Emperor Haile Selassie had travelled all over the world to appeal for help and the British Commonwealth, comprising of a large number of West African troops, took up the challenge. The Italians had colonised Somalia, so the British were also determined to get them out of there.


Of course there were also battles on the African Continent during the First World War. Germany colonised Kamerun and therefore there were clashes between British colonised Nigeria and German colonised Kamerun. Germany also colonised Namibia and the South Africans took action to expel them.

Lastly, a lot of West Africans took part in Operation Thursday. This was an operation to expel the Japanese from Burma and protect India, which was a British colony at the time.